Tips to help maximise your chance of conceiving

Are you ready to start trying for a baby? Here are some simple tips to help prepare your body for pregnancy and maximise your chances of conceiving.

1. Maintain a healthy diet and weight

A balanced diet benefits your overall health and can help you maintain a healthy weight. We recommend using the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a guide to maintain an appropriate weight. Evidence suggests that fertility improves significantly if a woman with a high BMI can achieve a 5% reduction in weight.

2. Stop smoking and recreational drug use

Active and passive smoking harms sexual and reproductive health in both men and women. For women it can damage egg quality and increase the chances of premature menopause. For men it can increase the chances of miscarriage and increase the risk of cancer in children.  Smoking during pregnancy can have adverse effects on the growing baby and contribute to many childhood illnesses.

3. Alcohol and Coffee in moderation

You don’t have to stop of all the good things in life but try and follow the rule of “everything in moderation”. A cup of coffee a day won’t reduce your fertility but 6 cups of coffee a day would. Similarly a glass of wine a week is appropriate but daily consumption of alcohol or binge drinking will affect fertility for men and women.

4. Regular moderate exercise

Moderate exercise such as walking or yoga is beneficial for your overall health and wellbeing.

5. Take Folic Acid

Begin taking 0.5mg folic acid daily 3 months before conception and continue to take it until the end of the first trimester of pregnancy. Folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

6. Visit your GP

Visit your local GP for a review of any current medications and their implications for pregnancy. Also get blood tests to check for rubella and chicken pox status, blood group, Rh factor, Hep B, Hep C and STDs that might cause problems with the baby’s development during pregnancy. This is a good time to update your vaccinations, get a flu vaccination and check that you are immune to pertussis (which causes whooping cough and is very dangerous in babies and young children).

7. Understand your menstrual cycle

Every woman’s cycle is individual and may vary month to month. It is important to understand your menstrual cycle, when you ovulate and your fertile window. You fertile window refers to the most fertile days in your cycle so you know when is the best time to have intercourse. This is the days leading up to and immediately following ovulation. Sperm are viable for at least three days where as the egg is only viable for 24 hours hence it is important to have sex leading up to ovulation.

8. Have regular intercourse

It is recommended to have regular intercourse 2-3 times per week and more importantly in the 2-3 days leading up to ovulation. It is a misconception that men need to abstain to build up the ‘potency’ of the sperm; in fact it is the opposite. After about 5 days of abstinence while the quantity of sperm is high the quality and DNA fragmentation is poor.

Deciding you’re ready to start trying to conceive can be exciting  but also challenging if it is not happening as quickly as your expect. The average fertile couple has just a 20% chance of falling pregnant in any given month. These tips can help you improve your chances of falling pregnant naturally.

If you are under 35 and haven’t fallen pregnant after 12 months or six months if you are over 35, you should ask your GP for a referral to a fertility specialist for investigations and advice.

 

By Dr Juliette Koch, IVF Australia Fertility Specialist