How to Improve or Increase Fertility Chances
To improve fertility chances, it’s important to know what they are.
It may seem scary or overwhelming to seek the advice of a medical specialist, especially when it comes to something as personal and private as your fertility.
Lots of women and couples try to DIY their fertility work up and try numerous things before seeking help.
Knowing how pregnancy happens and a bit about the statistics involved can assist in understanding if your experience is normal and whether it may be time to seek a professional opinion.
To improve fertility chances, it’s important to know what they are.
So here is the low down.
If you are under 30, your chance of getting pregnant each month is 1 in 5 (20%)
If you are 30 to 35, your chance is 15%
If you are 35-40 It’s 10%
If you are over 40, it’s 5%
These stats assume there is no problem with you or your partner, you have a regular cycle and are having regular sex around the time of ovulation.
80% of couples who are trying to conceive get pregnant within 6 months and 90% within 12 months.
If it has taken longer than that, there is likely to be a problem. Fertility problems are often not absolute. They can be relative. There are those who first struggle but ultimately get pregnant naturally. There are those who can never get pregnant without help and unfortunately, there are some who can never get pregnant.
To improve your fertility chances naturally, look within and improve your health. Make sure you know when you are ovulating (track your cycle, watch for the signs like fertile mucous) but more importantly have regular sex mid-cycle. Twice during the week and once on the weekend should be plenty although some couples prefer every second day. There is actually no advantage at all of having sex daily versus these other options.
Eat healthy, don’t smoke, cut out toxins, exercise, take your vitamins, watch your weight (not too heavy, not too light). All these things are good for general health and your fertility.
Here’s the thing: There are lots of super healthy people who suffer infertility. There are many others with a lot of room for improvement in their diet and lifestyle who have no trouble at all getting pregnant. While it’s ideal to optimise your health, it is important to realise that on the most part, infertility has a cause that is totally outside of your control or that of your partner. Quite often, there can be a number of issues playing a part.
Age is a factor that affects us all, particularly women. Even the most fertile women lose our fertility with advancing age. Age related infertility is due to acquired problems affecting the natural processes involved in oocyte (egg) maturation. Age related egg damage becomes noticeable around the age of 30 and gets much worse very quickly after 35.
Obstetricians in the past termed first time mothers aged over 35 years “geriatric” pregnancies. At Women’s Health Melbourne, we prefer the terminology PA35 (Pregnancy After 35).
Society has changed, and many women now defer when we want to have children. Unfortunately, biology has not had time to catch up and many more women and couples now need fertility specialist help to have a baby.
The number one thing you can do to overcome infertility to get pregnant, no matter what your concerns and problems may be or those of your partner (male infertility is also very common) is to seek help at an early stage.
Getting to your diagnosis and providing the opportunity to either remedy your problems or help you get around them early is your best chance of success. All fertility treatments, even the most sophisticated treatments like IVF become less successful with age.
If you haven’t conceived in 6 months and are over 35 years of age, both you and your partner should be thoroughly investigated.
Women’s Health Melbourne is a comprehensive CREI lead fertility practice, offering the full spectrum of natural and medical specialist fertility treatment modalities.
Written by Dr Raelia Lew
RANZCOG Board Certified CREI Fertility specialist, Gynaecologist and the Director of Women’s Health Melbourne.
Co-host of the Knocked Up Podcast, Co-founder of Lovers intimate wellness solutions. Raelia has a PhD in Preconception Health Promotion and Genetic Screening. Raelia is a leading Australian expert in IVF and egg freezing, pioneering a bespoke model of care.