10 natural ways to boost your Fertility
Boost your fertility with some useful tips that will help you increase the chances of having a baby as soon as possible.
1. Make a check-up
This applies to both men and women: factors such as smoking, being overweight, stress, or even poor nutrition can reduce your fertility. Consult your doctor and, if necessary, follow the ad hoc treatments. Another essential piece of advice for having a pregnancy, with the best possible conditions, consists of undertaking some useful examinations such as blood tests, hormonal tests, updates of the vaccines, or a smear.
2. Track your menstrual cycle
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, ovulation takes place around 14 days before a woman expects to have her next period (for a monthly cycle of 28 days). Most women ovulate between days 11 and 21 of their cycle. The first day of their last menstrual period (LMP) is day 1 of the cycle. Ovulation does not always occur on the same day every month and can vary by a day or more on either side of the expected date. Doctors call this part of the cycle around ovulation “the fertile window” because a woman’s chances for pregnancy are highest at this time. For example, if a woman ovulates on day 14, she can conceive on that day or within the following 24 hours. However, her fertile window began a few days before ovulation because sperm can survive for up to 5 days inside the uterus. So, even if a woman does not have sex on day 14 or 15, it is still possible to become pregnant if she had unprotected sex on days 9 to 13.
When a woman’s cycles are regular, she can accurately determine her ovulation period since it occurs 14 days before the start of her period.
3. Follow a balanced nutrition
The right nutrition is the best way to balance hormones and therefore increase fertility naturally. You may have noticed in your life that an insufficient diet can influence and disrupt your cycles. In addition, certain deficiencies or deprivations that you inflict on yourself can make you feel tired, or depress. So, follow a healthy and balanced diet based on fresh fruits and vegetables, animal or vegetable proteins, slow sugars, dairy products, and lipids.
4. Avoid foods that cause inflammation
Inflammation is your body’s natural response to injury or illness. However, prolonged inflammation can lead to insulin resistance and studies suggest it is linked to many conditions that may affect fertility, such as endometriosis, PCOS, implantation failure, and recurrent miscarriage. So, avoid foods that would cause inflammation in your body as much as possible. Forget alcohol, soya, genetically modified, and processed products. Fruits and vegetables are high antioxidant foods that help neutralize the action of free radicals that cause inflammation. Oranges, olive oil, green tea, pineapples are foods that help reduce inflammation in the body.
5. Sleep well
Sleep plays a vital role in our life, affecting its quality, overall health, and most importantly, fertility. Getting a good night’s sleep helps refresh and restore your brain and body organs and regulate important hormones, including fertility-related hormones. Both in men and women, the same part of the brain that regulates sleep-wake hormones (such as melatonin and cortisol), also triggers a daily release of reproductive hormones. The hormones that trigger ovulation in women and the sperm-maturation process in men, may be related to the body’s sleep-wake patterns.
For example, if you are a woman, long-term lack of sleep may directly affect the release of luteinizing hormone (LH) -a hormone that triggers ovulation-, as part of regulating the menstrual cycle. This irregularity means that it might take longer for you to conceive. So, make sure you get 7-8 hours of sleep each night, following a consistent sleep schedule.
6. Make love at the «right» time
The ideal is to have sex every 3 days outside the ovulation period and every other day in the ovulation phase. The lifespan of the sperm lasts between 4 and 6 days, so it is preferable to make love just before ovulation, precisely 5 days before. If you are having trouble keeping track of your cycle, there are ovulation tests in the market, that can help you locate yourself.
7. Stop smoking
Chemicals (such as nicotine, cyanide, and carbon monoxide) in cigarette smoke increase the egg loss rate. Unfortunately, once eggs die off, they cannot regenerate or be replaced. This means that menopause occurs 1 to 4 years earlier in women who smoke (compared with non-smokers). Male smokers can suffer decreased sperm quality with lower counts (number of spermatozoids) and motility (spermatozoids ability to move) and increased numbers of abnormally shaped spermatozoids. Smoking might also decrease the spermatozoids’ ability to fertilize eggs. Therefore, now is the right time to quit this bad habit!
8. Exercise outdoors
Exercise may boost a man’s sperm count and thus may improve a couple’s chances of conception, according to a new study of Harvard’s School of Public Health. In particular, men who spend time working or exercising outdoors tended to have a higher-than-average spermatozoids concentration in their semen. Men engaging in exercise for seven hours or more per week, essentially one hour a day, had 48 percent higher concentrations than men who were engaging in less than one hour per week, according to the same study. But for women, exercise is also beneficial. Being active and spending less time sitting down (known as being sedentary) can help to get pregnant.
9. Protect yourself from sexually transmitted infections
Gonorrhea and chlamydia are two sexually transmitted infections that can cause infertility if left untreated.
10. Focus on B vitamins
The B-complex vitamins work closely to achieve the proper functioning of the body, as their lack can lead to serious health problems. For example, vitamin B12 deficiency can directly affect female fertility. Also, vitamins B9 and B12 are able to prevent the risk of neurological damage to your baby. These vitamins are mainly found in asparagus, spinach, liver, fish, eggs, chicken, and cow’s milk.
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