Steps To Boost Your Pregnancy Chances
Trying to become pregnant could be one big waiting game – you never can tell if this will be month that pregnancy test turns positive. But luckily, there are a few ways to help boost your chances of getting pregnant. Sure, you can track your cycle and follow all the baby-making tricks in the book, but sometimes what you do not do is just as important as what you do.
Here are break down of foods, activities and habits to avoid when trying to conceive.
Smoking
You are probably already planning on quitting smoking once you get pregnant (and you definitely should), but avoiding cigarettes now will be a huge benefit too. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, it takes longer for smokers to conceive, and smoking makes a woman’s eggs more prone to genetic abnormalities.
Smoking increases the risk of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. In fact, the habit wreaks so much havoc on fertility that female smokers who have in vitro fertilization (IVF) have to attempt it almost twice as many times as nonsmoking women do in order to conceive. Oh, and your partner should quit smoking too – research shows that men who smoke cigarettes have lower sperm count and motility (swimming speed), and more sperm abnormalities.
Too much caffeine
Relax: You don’t have to cut out your morning cup of coffee. But if you consume more than 200 milligrams of caffeine – that is about one to two eight-ounce cups – per day, you should ease up. Heavy caffeine consumption has been associated with fertility problems – in fact, one study found that women who consumed more than the equivalent of one cup of coffee per day were half as likely to become pregnant, per cycle, as women who drank less.
Plus, you won’t want to overdo it during pregnancy (caffeine interferes with your ability to absorb iron, can dehydrate you and, in high doses, can increase miscarriage and preterm birth risk), so it’s worth cutting back now
Excessive drinking
Sorry to break the news, but you might want to skip your friends’ evening bar crawl while you’re trying to conceive, or at least stick to sparkling water while you’re there. That’s because drinking to excess (more than two drinks each day) is linked to irregular periods, lack of ovulation and abnormal estrogen and progesterone levels, which can make it harder to conceive. Plus, if you’re charting your basal body temperature, it can make it challenging to get accurate temp readings.
The other reason why you might want to miss the alcohol?
Drinking during pregnancy is widely frowned upon, since it puts baby at risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and it’ll take about two weeks (or more) after you conceive to know you’re actually pregnant. Consider asking your partner to limit his alcohol intake too, since there’s evidence that even moderate drinking (five drinks a week) can reduce his sperm quality.
Extremes in weight
Do you think you might be extremely overweight or underweight? Calculate your body mass index (BMI) using this tool now. Having a low BMI (18.5 or less) or a very high BMI (over 30) could cause you to have irregular or missed periods, and being extremely underweight could make you stop ovulating altogether.