| MAKE A BABY |
Fertilization
To have a baby you need to make love. It may seem obvious, but you stand a greater chance of conceiving if you make love during your most fertile period, or ovulation, when eggs are released from your ovaries.
In a normal 28-day cycle, ovulation takes place around the 14th day, in a 35-day cycle, it occurs on the 21st day, but fertilization is also very likely in the days leading up to ovulation.
Making love
Trying to conceive is the ultimate excuse for making love whenever and wherever you can! But remember that you're not very likely to fall pregnant the first time you try, the spontaneous conception rate (chance of becoming pregnant) for two healthy, fertile people, stands at around 15 - 20%, so don't worry if it takes longer than you expect. one thing is certain however - the more often you make love, the more likely you are to conceive.
Trying to conceive is the ultimate excuse for making love whenever and wherever you can! But remember that you're unlikely to fall pregnant the first time you try, the spontaneous conception rate (chance of becoming pregnant) for two healthy, fertile people, stands at around 15 - 20%, which means that if you make love without contraception during your fertile period, you have one chance in four to six of falling pregnant. These chances decrease with age, but one thing is certain - the more you make love, the more chance you stand of giving birth nine months later. You'll give yourself a much better chance by looking after yourself and getting enough sleep - exhaustion does not a sex beast make!
Keep an eye on your weight
Being underweight will harm your chances of conceiving as much as being overweight. Watch what you eat, but avoid strict diets which can play havoc with your hormones and alter your cycle.ItIt Ihas been proven several times that being significantly overweight supresses fertility, so be careful not to put on too much weight if you're trying for a baby. It can also make pregnancy more difficult, putting more pressure on your heart and causing high blood pressure, diabetes and circulation problems.
On the other side of the coin, you should also avoid dieting, which can play havoc with your hormones and disrupt your system. Look after yourself, eat a balanced diet and above all, don't crash-diet if you're trying for a baby.
Male Fertility
Only 10% of couples will experience significant problems with infertility. And roughly half of the cases are because of male fertility issues. With these statistics in mind, you can better address the concepts of male fertility issues to progress towards natural conception. Learning about what to do and what not to do while the couple is trying to conceive is integral to the success of the conception.
If you have been trying to get pregnant for over a year without success, it is time to look into fertility testing. Since male fertility testing is much less invasive than it is for women, the first step of fertility testing usually involves a semen analysis. Male fertility can be influenced by a number of factors, similar to how a woman’s ovulation cycle can also be affected by outside influences.
Male fertility problems can be influenced by a range of genetic and permanent or short-term problems. If the man is having any problems with ejaculation, the source of the infertility might lie there. If there is an inflammation of the testicles, swollen veins in the scrotum or the testicles themselves have been abnormally developed, you can see problems with sperm count.
There are some things that men can do to promote a higher sperm count and reduce the impact of male infertility while the couple is trying to conceive. Other than having a pre-existing condition or hormone disorder, the man should avoid wearing restrictive or tight underwear. Wearing tight underwear will keep the testicles too close to the body, raising the temperature of the scrotum and reducing thesperm count and therefore, overall ability to conceive.
Other things to avoid in order to promote sperm count would be hot tubs and laptops. In the case of hot tubs, the heat of the water will have the same effect that tight underwear will have for the testicles. In addition, most individuals place laptops in their lap (hence the name!) and the heat from the computer can affect the testicles as well. Leaving your laptop on your lap for hours at a time can be detrimental to your sperm count. Finally, long hours of strenuous and hard bike riding can also be bad for sperm count since the placement of the testicles during bike riding is not beneficial to their natural production of sperm.
Knowing what affects and influences male fertility can help you promote healthy sperm production and conceive naturally with your partner in a more effective manner
Uterine Fibroid
If you are one of thousands of women trying to get pregnant, you might need to learn more about something called a uterine fibroid. Almost all women have uterine fibroids at one point in their life. If you are dealing with uterine fibroids or know that you have them, you can be looking at a potentially complicated issue. Approximately 20 – 40% of women older than 35 have fibroids and while many women will never have a problem with it, some uterine fibroids will affect their lives in tremendous ways.
Fibroids and pregnancy can be inter-related. Many times, a woman can be prevented from getting pregnant because she has uterine fibroids. While they are serious in some women, other women can get pregnant with no problem at all. However, once they are pregnant, they might then experience the problems that can accompany uterine fibroids. Sometimes, however, if you have the uterine fibroids removed, the treatment for the fibroids can result in infertility, making future conception and pregnancy impossible.
How can uterine fibroids make things more complicated if you are trying to get pregnant? Uterine fibroids can impact your uterus and affect the overall conception process. In addition, they can change the size of your uterus, making it the size it would be if you were already pregnant. You can see these images through an ultrasound or MRI.
What should you do if you have been diagnosed with uterine fibroids and want to get pregnant in the future? There are treatment options for women who want to get pregnant with children in their futures and that treatment is called myomectomy. The treatment of myomectomy is not always a possibility, depending on the number and size of the uterine fibroids –or where they are located – but it is an option for some women who are still trying to conceive. Just because you have a myomectomy, too, it does not mean that the fibroids will not reappear again in the future.
If you are trying to get pregnant, you can get a UFE or a Uterine Fibroid Embolization. A Uterine Fibroid Embolization can effectively spare the uterus, which makes it a great choice for women who still want to get pregnant. Having a Uterine Fibroid Embolization, however, has made some women have a higher rate of preterm delivery and malpresentation. However, if you are trying to get pregnant and have uterine fibroids, a UFE is a possibility.
Irregular Period
How much have you thought about your periods? When you are trying to get pregnant, your period can turn from a monthly nuisance to the focus of your concentration. Having an irregular period can cause frustration when you are trying to get pregnant because understanding your cycle is an integral part of your future success with conception!
In order to define an irregular period, you should know what a regular cycle is first. Many women do not have a cycle that lasts 28 days even though this is considered the “perfect cycle.” Some women see a 20-day period, while others have one every 35 days. Each woman is unique, so the best way to tell your cycle is to keep a chart.
Roughly 30 % of women experience an irregular period on average. An irregular period is anything from a shorter or longer menstrual cycle to late or early periods, bleeding between periods, missed periods, continuous periods or having two periods in one cycle. As you can see, all of these different possibilities can make getting pregnant a little trickier than you might have first thought!
So what are the factors that can cause an irregular period? Irregular periods are essentially the result of hormones that have been thrown out of balance for whatever reason. If you are stressed, have anxiety or have changed your typical routine, your hormones can get out of sync and cause a late or missed period. Some other common problems might include:
* Exercise – Everything in moderation is the saying and it’s very true with exercise. If you have been intensely exercising, the result may be an irregular period
* Menarche – defined as a girl’s first period, menarche is the stage when your body is just starting to menstruate. It can take up to 3 years before the body settles down into a normal pattern.
* Diet – if you are losing weight rapidly or have lost too much weight, you can struggle with an irregular period. If you have anorexia or bulimia, you will frequently not have a period at all.
If you have PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome, you will also have irregular periods. The periods that do occur will have heavy bleeding. If you are trying to get pregnant with PCOS, this situation can make your attempts to conceive even more troublesome and can lead to complications. For this reason, most women with PCOS will receive medication in order to induce their ovulation and put them on a regular cycle schedule.
Smoking While Pregnant
If you are a smoker and are thinking about getting pregnant, the first step you need to take is to quit smoking. If you are like most smokers, you may have thought about or tried quitting before. However, if you are pregnant or trying to conceive, you now need to not only think about your health, but the health of your baby. Smoking will affect your child’s development and future growth.
Roughly 13% of women in the United States smoke during their pregnancy. This is an outrageous number, when you consider that there would be an estimated 10% reduction in infant deaths if these women quit.
Cigarette smoke contains thousands of chemicals – approximately 2,500 chemicals are being entered into your child’s bloodstream with every puff on a cigarette. Nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide are the most dangerous and most toxic to the fetus, impacting them during the most crucial development stages while inside the womb.
Even if you do not smoke, your child can be impacted by a mother who is frequently exposed to cigarette smoke. The second-hand smoke can be just as harmful to both the mother and the child. A woman who smokes or is exposed to frequent second-hand smoke is more likely to have a baby born with low birth weight and stunted growth. The sooner the woman quits or stays away from the second-hand smoke, the better the chances of good health for her and her child.
Smoking has been associated with a higher risk of an ectopic pregnancy, which is when the embryo has been implanted in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. When this happens, medication has to be taken to remove the embryo, or in the worst case, the tube must be surgically removed. Smoking will also increase the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage and vaginal bleeding that is severe enough to harm the baby.
Smoking while pregnant can make the child develop slower, increasing the risk for low birth weight and the risk for a preterm delivery (the child is delivered before 37 weeks of gestation) by 30%. You may also see an abnormality such as cleft lip, cleft palate or other birth defects. Babies born of smoking mothers are more likely to die from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and can have higher chances of asthma, behavioral problems and learning disabilities from the slower developmental growth.
It’s clear that smoking while pregnant – or being near second-hand smoke as a pregnant woman – can affect you and your baby throughout the pregnancy and early years of his or her life.
Recreational Drugs and Fertility
If you are currently engaging in illegal drugs, you know it’s not good for you. Imagine what it is doing to your child. If you are trying to get pregnant, using illegal drugs can be incredibly destructive to your kid. If you take illegal drugs, even ones as “safe” as marijuana, you can harm both yourself and the child you are trying to conceive.
What can recreational drugs do to your future pregnancy? Illegal drugs can cause miscarriages, low birth weight, premature labor, future addictions, fetal death and even the death of the mother.
Marijuana, otherwise known as pot or weed, can cause some problems to your future attempts at conception. Marijuana can put toxins near the baby, which will prevent the baby from getting its full share of oxygen. If you have smoked before you conceived, you can see birth defects occur. However, you need to quit smoking as soon as you realize either that you are pregnant or are trying to conceive.
Cocaine is another popular recreational drug that can affect and disrupt your pregnancy. Whatever you take into your system also enters your child’s system, which is the case with cocaine. As the cocaine enters your blood stream, it will go into your child’s blood stream, but whereas it might leave you at a normal pace, it stays with your child much longer. Each hit of cocaine, therefore, increases and disturbs your child’s system more and more. Increased use of cocaine can cause miscarriages and placental abruptions that will lead to either severe bleeding, preterm birth or the death of the fetus. There has not been any proof that doing cocaine once or twice prior to cocaine will hurt your child, but repeated use can significantly impair him or her.
Heroin is another popular and unfortunate source of many birth defects and problems from women who engage in this illegal drug prior to conception. Heroin is a very addictive drug so if you do the drugs before conceiving you are likely to have a child that is addicted to heroin and will suffer from withdrawal symptoms, including irritability, fever, convulsions, diarrhea. Also, if you inject heroin, you are highly susceptible to HIV, which will be passed onto your child as well. If you take heroin, you will need to get off the drug for a number of reasons, including if you want to have a child. You will want to look into methadone and other treatments like counseling to ensure the future healthy success of you and your child.
Alcohol and Pregnancy
If you are trying to get pregnant, can your drinking habits affect your fertility? If you want to conceive, you might need to take a hard look at how much alcohol you have been drinking. After all, drinking alcohol can have adverse effects on your fertility and your overall ability to conceive. In addition, once you are pregnant, drinking alcohol can affect the development of your baby so analyzing your drinking habits now can have both short- and long-term benefits for you and your child.
Chronic alcoholism can definitely affect your child while developing in the womb, but how does it affect your child and fertility before you conceive? Most doctors will ask you how much you drink when you are attempting to have a baby. If you engage in more than light consumption of alcoholic drinks each day, your fertility could suffer. Light alcoholic consumption is typically described as a daily consumption of one or two drinks per day. If you drink more than eight drinks every day, you would be suffering from alcoholism.
What are some of the specific adverse reactions to alcohol intake? You can suffer both from infertility as well as an increased risk for a spontaneous abortion and impaired growth of the fetus and its development. You can have problems getting pregnant and then if you are pregnant, might see a miscarriage, pre-term birth, stillbirth or other serious implications. Alcohol abuse will also affect your body by causing amenorrhea, which is a total absence of menses or anovulation, which is a lack of ovulation. Any time you mess with your ovulation cycle, you will definitely decrease your chances of getting pregnant in an easy and natural way. Knowing that alcohol abuse is a cause of these problems can help you work with your own natural conception goals.
What about the male partners? Can alcohol consumption affect your partner’s fertility with excessive alcohol consumption? In general, men can see a rise in estrogen levels, which will impact their fertility. The increased levels of estrogen will interfere with sperm development overall, as well as imbalanced hormone levels. In addition, alcohol can kill off sperm-generating cells in the testicles which will decrease production of the sperm overall. Sperm can take at least three months to develop so if you have not drank in 3 – 4 months, you can check your sperm count again with presumably better results.
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