You’ve heard of "just a little bit pregnant." Now we’ve got "pre-pregnant."

According to a May 16 article in The Washington Post ("Forever Pregnant: Guidelines Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-Pregnant"), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have issued a report urging more and better preconception care for all women of childbearing age.

This is one of those seemingly good ideas that may have unintended consequences.

The new federal guidelines "ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves—and to be treated by the health care system—as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon."

The recommendations are mostly common-sense items like not smoking, taking supplements, and controlling your weight—all good advice, whether you’re male or female.

The reason experts are now asking women to follow the advice "throughout their reproductive lives" is because roughly half of all pregnancies are unplanned.

(Did you hear that? Half of them. I hope that makes you feel less alone in your unplanned pregnancy.)

But back to the topic at hand…

Another reason the experts are pushing preconception care is that "so much damage can be done to a fetus between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed"—in other words, the first few weeks of a baby’s life, before the Mom-to-be even knows she’s pregnant.

No one can argue with the need for healthier moms and babies. But some social libertarians worry that this is a step toward mandating women’s health. Will women who don’t comply with pre-pregnancy directives find themselves in trouble with the government? Could we get to a point where less-than-perfect health could be seen as child abuse? Could a woman have her baby taken away from her because she is too fat, or smokes?

Good health is important—before, during and after pregnancy. But mandating it is a little scary to some. We don’t want to create a society like the one in Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, in which an entire class of women exists only to give birth for others.