Trimester Zero

Oh no. Let’s not do this.

Photo by Fahim mohammed jaseem on Unsplash

I recently stumbled upon ‘trimester zero’, TikTok’s supercharged version of #TTC.

When I did, I felt my entire body go: Please no. Please let’s not do this to ourselves.

I’ve spent basically a decade now trying to have babies (with a few post-partum years ‘off’ in the middle). And as soon as I saw the phrase, I understood two things at once. One: just how seductive the idea could be. And two: nothing good can come from this.

Trimester zero is a term that’s been popularised by ‘pregnancy prep’ influencers on TikTok and Instagram, who often have a supplements discount code for you or a hormone-balancing course to sell.¹ ‘Trimester Zero’ has even been trademarked by one ‘naturopathic doctor’, according to The Guardian.

The idea is to improve your health for pregnancy before you are actually pregnant (which makes sense, up to a point). But often, this is taken to extremes, meaning you’re all but living as if you are already pregnant in order to ensure perfect conditions for a future embryo.

Anyway, as you’ve probably guessed (or seen for yourself), the focus is very much on lifestyle optimisation: ‘fertility boosting’ diets, exercise, supplements, stress reduction, ‘pregnancy-friendly’ skincare, cycle tracking, and ‘nontoxic swaps’. Sometimes there’s also a side-helping of manifestation, prayer, and a tradwife-adjacent aesthetic, this being the internet in 2026.

And yes, there’s definitely a whiff of Christian-Nationalism surrounding some of it. Again, this being the internet in 2026.

So, that right there is the big, obvious problem for me with ‘trimester zero’. Encouraging women to live for undefined periods of time as if they are, essentially, ‘pre-pregnant’ – to think of themselves in this way, above all else – at a time when there are people terrifyingly close to the levers of power in America saying things like ‘women are the kind of people that people come out of’ and advocating taking away their right to vote, while here in the UK we have politicians proposing taxes for women who don’t have enough babies?

No thank you. I want no part in that.

Then there’s the pseudoscience, Or, to be generous, the over-interpretation of the evidence. Giving up nail varnish, gluten, or dairy? Been there, done that. There really was no need. And before you let anyone convince you that you need a whole new ‘pregnancy-friendly’ skincare routine… do read this by Claire Coleman on what the evidence actually says. (Spoiler: You really don’t need to worry about it – in pregnancy, let alone while trying to conceive.)

Inevitably, trimester zero massively over-emphasises the role of individual lifestyle in fertility and in preventing pregnancy complications, when in reality it’s just one part of the puzzle.

Likewise, we already have enduring problems – in healthcare and in society more broadly – because self-sacrifice and suffering is seen as merely part and parcel of pregnancy and motherhood. Trimester zero starts the clock on all that even earlier. Again: not for me, thanks.

But in spite of all of this, I’ll admit I didn’t entirely hate the label, when I first saw it. Truthfully, there was a small part of me that felt almost grateful for the coining of a specific phrase for this particular chapter of life.

Naming things can be powerful. It can create space for experiences that were previously invisible. The obvious comparison is how some women and birth workers have sought to label the three months after a baby is born as the ‘fourth trimester’, to acknowledge that the intense physical demands on a body don’t stop once the umbilical cord is cut.

Then again, perhaps an unmet desire for recognition is precisely why the pregnancy-prep influencer business model works.

Trying to conceive the first time around, long before I wrote publicly about having miscarriages, was one of the loneliest times of my life, I think.

It’s a clever demographic to target, especially if you can make ‘trimester zero’ seem cute ‘n’ aspirational with the right branding and social content, because fundamentally you’re selling to a group who feel unseen and uncared for.

Preconception care in the UK is basically non-existent. Besides which, it’s not always easy to share with people that you’re trying for a baby, even before you add infertility or loss into the mix. All that hope and expectation can feel too fragile to casually pass around.

So can I say with confidence I wouldn’t have bought a ‘trimester zero’ supplements bundle had they existed at the time? Not with my hand on my heart, I can’t.

I understand, deeply, that impulse to want to make an uncertain, unfamiliar time feel more fun and shiny. When you desperately want to do something rather than simply wait, I can see how a complicated ‘trimester zero’ routine might feel like the answer.

But here is what it boils down to for me. ‘Trimester zero’ is unhelpful because it’s not sustainable. It’s too much to track; too many things to avoid and think about and control – not least if you would also like to maintain a job and a personality.

Take it from someone who has tried, really quite hard and for really quite considerable stretches of time, to eat, drink and exercise as if they were pregnant before they actually were in order to minimise all possible risk: It’s no way to live.

At a certain point, having invested all that effort can start to make each negative pregnancy test or overly prompt period (rude) feel even more demoralising. Everything you’re doing – and all for a non-existent baby rather than for yourself and what makes you feel good – can start to feel like sacrifice, even punishment, instead of self-care.

And prioritising the needs of a theoretical unborn child over your own well-being – you, as a fully formed, living, breathing, gloriously complex, changeable, nuanced human being? That doesn’t sound like a road we want to go down at all.

1. Although, interestingly, the original use of the term has been attributed to a sociologist, Miranda Waggoner, who published a book called The Zero Trimester in 2017 – an academic work about the rights and wrongs of medicine treating women of reproductive age as de facto pre-pregnant at all times.