Natural Ways to Boost Fertility
The information on this site is for general purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with a physician.
Couples who are willing to make genuine lifestyle changes in their desire to get pregnant are more likely to get pregnant and have a lower risk of complications during their pregnancy.
Eat well: a balanced diet will help ensure that the body is healthy enough to conceive and maintain a pregnancy. This goes for men too, as a healthy diet helps keep sperm production at an optimum level
Watch your weight: being over or under weight can impact on the menstrual cycle. Eating disorders in youth can have a major effect on fertility in adulthood. Excess weight can have a deleterious effect on conditions such as PCOS, and you may be put on metformin to help control the sugar levels in your blood.
Take supplements: women wanting to fall pregnant are recommended to take 400mcg of folic acid per day to protect against pregnancy complications such as spina bifida.
Cut alcohol consumption: alcohol affects fertility in both males and females, and can increase the risk of miscarriage.
Stop smoking: smoking affects fertility in both males and females, and can result in premature or under-weight babies.
Avoid drugs: both medication and recreational drugs may lessen the chance of conceiving. If you are taking medication regularly whilst trying for a baby, ask your GP about alternatives. Marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and other recreational drugs should all be avoided, although limited previous use is rarely a contributory factor to infertility.
Exercise: regular moderate exercise of about 30 minutes per day helps maximise fitness, keeps the weight in check. It also produces endorphins, which help the body to relax.
Relax: stress is often a factor in infertility. Trying to conceive can be demanding! Anxiety and tension have been shown to affect female hormones and lower sperm production, so try to find ways to avoid stressful situations whilst you are trying to conceive.
Stay cool: maximum sperm production happens when the testes are a few degrees cooler than the rest of the body, so it may be advisable to switch to boxer shorts and loose trousers, and avoid saunas and hot baths. Laboratory experiments have shown that just 24 hours of raised scrotal temperatures can cause a malfunction in sperm production.
Sperm take about 9 weeks from creation to ejaculation, so men may need to make lifestyle changes well in advance of trying to make their partner pregnant.
Know Your Fertile Days
The average menstrual cycle takes 28 days, although this can vary from woman to woman, although a regular cycle of 25 to 32 is days is still considered normal.
A woman’s most fertile days will depend upon the length of her cycle:
23 days – fertile days 7 – 10
25 days – fertile days 9 – 12
28 days – fertile days 12 – 15
31 days – fertile days 15 – 18
33 days – fertile days 17 – 20
35 days – fertile days 19 – 22
Women who experience an irregular cycle are not able to predict their fertile days. In this case they may wish to purchase a test-kit from their chemists. If the cycle is very short, very long, or very irregular, ovulation may not be occurring at all.
A natural way to test for your most fertile days is the use the Spinnbarkeit test. Cervical mucous changes in consistency just proceeding ovulation in order to help sperm on their journey into the reproductive tract.
When you think you should be ovulating, use your index and middle fingers to wipe the inside of your vagina. If the mucous there is stretchy and slippery like egg-white and forms a bridge between your two fingers when you move them apart, you are ovulating and ready to have reproductive sex.
Sperm can live up to five days in the uterus, so there is typically a window of a few days in each cycle where impregnation is possible. However, the day that leads to the highest rate of conception is two days before ovulation.
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