Women Pregnancy

Ready to get pregnant? These easy health and lifestyle changes can increase your odds. Despite everything you’ve been told since puberty, getting pregnant doesn’t always happen the minute you have unprotected sex. “In any one month, the chances for the average couple are just one in five,” says Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., director of the Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. But that doesn’t mean they need high-tech intervention. “About 85 percent of couples will be successful after trying for a year,” says Domar, “but they should still be aware of the lifestyle habits that can raise or lower their chances.” If you are currently trying to have a baby or would like to soon, try these eight simple steps to protect and enhance your fertility.

1. Get On A Regular Sex Schedule
The standard advice to have sex midcycle isn’t a surefire road to pregnancy. Common wisdom says that ovulation occurs 14 days before your next period is due and that you’re most likely to conceive on that day and the five days before (because sperm can survive in a woman’s reproductive tract for several days). But a recent study shows ovulation isn’t so predictable. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that the exact day varies from woman to woman. To complicate matters further, you may ovulate on different days each month.

Tracking your basal body temperature or using an ovulation-predictor monitor can signal one or two fertile days. The best plan is probably to have unprotected sex two or three times every week, says Allen J. Wilcox, M.D., an epidemiologist at NIEHS and the lead researcher of the study. “That way, you have a better chance of covering your bases.”

2. Quit Smoking
Numerous studies have shown that women who smoke even a few cigarettes a day take longer to get pregnant, says Robert Barbieri, M.D., chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and coauthor of 6 Steps to Increased Fertility. Most recently, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found that a chemical in cigarette smoke actually causes eggs to self-destruct.

3. Avoid Alcohol
Most of us know that we shouldn’t drink once we become pregnant but don’t realize that alcohol can affect our ability to conceive in the first place. Women who have one to five alcoholic drinks a week are 39 percent less likely to get pregnant compared with women who don’t drink, according to a study of 430 Danish couples published in the British Medical journal. Those who had more than 10 drinks a week lowered their odds by 66 percent. Researchers aren’t sure exactly how alcohol affects fertility, but they suspect it upsets hormone balance and prevents ovulation.

4. Aim For A Healthy Weight
Being too thin or too heavy can stop you from ovulating (even if your periods seem normal) or might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. One study of 3,586 women undergoing fertility treatment found that having a body mass index above or below the healthy range (between 20 and 24.9) reduced the odds of getting pregnant by 19 percent. Reaching the right weight often corrects the problem in just one or two cycles. When you’re trying to get pregnant, it is important to be sure to balance calorie intake and exercise levels.

5. Go Easy On Caffeine
There’s been a lot of conflicting advice about the effect caffeine has on fertility and miscarriage. Having a cup or two of coffee doesn’t seem to cause any problems, but more than that might delay conception. The cutoff point is about 300 milligrams a day. Given that caffeine is found in many other places besides coffee, reaching that limit isn’t very difficult. (Some caffeine counts: 8-ounce cup of coffee, 137 mg; Dunkin’ Donuts large coffee, 161 mg; Starbucks Grande, 280 mg; 12-ounce diet cola, 50 mg; 8-ounce cup of tea, 47 mg; an ounce of dark chocolate, 5 to 35 mg; Z Excedrin Extra Strength tablets, 130 mg.)

6. Address Emotional Issues
“Women with a history of depression are twice as likely to become infertile at some point during their reproductive lives,” says Domar. No one knows exactly why, but one theory is that negative moods might increase the body’s production of the hormone prolactin, possibly disrupting the menstrual cycle. Some studies suggest that simply being stressed out makes it harder to conceive, but experts disagree about the impact of stress on fertility. Research has shown that the pressure of trying to get pregnant can lead to depression, sometimes in just a few months. Fortunately, stress management or a support group can help. In one study, nearly 44 percent of women who had been struggling with infertility for one to 10 years got pregnant after participating in a program that combined relaxation techniques with group support.

7. Watch Your Medication
A variety of prescription and over-thecounter drugs have been associated with fertility problems in both partners. Of course, you should never stop taking a prescribed drug without discussing it with your doctor, but let her know that you’re trying to get pregnant. There may be a safe substitute you can use.

For women, the biggest offenders appear to be antidepressants, tranquilizers and thyroid medications. (In the latter case, the problem could be dosage, says Dr. Barbieri.) Regular use of aspirin, ibuprofen or acetaminophen may also disrupt ovulation.

In men, antibiotics like tetracycline, the heartburn drug Tagamet, antidepressants and blood-pressure medications may affect sperm quality or quantity. Both men and women should be careful about taking herbal supplements. In one test tube study, Saint-John’s-wort, ginkgo and echinacea were found to have damaged eggs and sperm. No one knows if the herbs would have the same effect in the human body, but it seems prudent to avoid them.

8. Improve Your Lovemaking
First, assume the right positionmissionary. No studies prove the superiority of the traditional man-on-top option, but many fertility experts say that this position places sperm closest to the cervix. Choose lubricants carefully. Many of them (even saliva) slow down sperm and reduce the number of them that reach the cervix. Enough foreplay usually eliminates the need for lubricants, but if you want to use one, try a little vegetable oil, says Paul J. Turek, M.D., director of the Male Reproductive Laboratory at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. (It may seem a bit odd-and might be a little messy-but it’s perfectly safe.) Afterward, stay on your back for 20 to 30 minutes to give the sperm the best chance of reaching their ultimate destination.