Ways To Increase Your Fertility

Fertility by decades
 
The way women think and feel about their fertility is often dependent on their age, and the experience of getting pregnant is colored by the stage in life at which we experience it. In our teens we tend to have a carefree attitude towards our fertility, and pregnancies at this age are often unplanned and unprepared for, whereas by the time we reach our early forties, a pregnancy may have taken some time to achieve and can seem more precious, but it may be overshadowed by concerns about possible risks and problems. Just as a woman's fertility changes with age, so does her experience of pregnancy and motherhood.

Ways To Increase Your Fertility

Getting pregnant in your teens

Teenage pregnancy is often seen as an indicator of government failure to provide adequate education and accessible contraception to young people. Although we are all aware that getting pregnant when we are older carries medical risks, we may be less aware that there are medical risks for teenagers who get pregnant too. Teenage mothers are more likely to develop anaemia and high blood pressure, to go into labor prematurely and to have a low-birth weight baby with a greater risk of health problems.
 
Teenage mothers may face other social difficulties that can cause problems, along with the fact that they may not access regular antenatal care early in their pregnancies. There are also the obvious hardships of attempting to finish an education, establish a career and become financially secure while caring for a young baby.
 
'I was 17 when I got pregnant. We wanted it to happen but we hadn't thought it through properly. We were both really happy, but after a few weeks we were thinking, oh my God, what have we done? I've always wanted to be a mum, and I don't regret it now. By the time my son is 18, 1 am going to be 36, so I'll still have most of my life ahead of me" Fran, 20
 
I was 18 when I found out I was pregnant. It was a big shock. I went to my GP to talk about having an abortion, but that's as far as it went. Changing my mind was the best thing I ever did. lt was hard; there's that whole stereotype about young mums scrounging on benefits and stuff, and we were determined not to be like that. I started my nursing training when my son was two, and we've bought our own house.' Emma, 27
 
Getting pregnant in your twenties
 
Biologically, this is the ideal time to have a child. Women in their twenties are twice as likely to conceive as women in their late thirties. Your body is young, you probably have a good egg supply, you are more likely to get pregnant quickly and less likely to miscarry or have pregnancy-related problems.
 
However, in just about every other way, this may seem far from the best time to have a child. We still feel young in our twenties, we want to enjoy life, to travel and have fun, and we don't want to be tied down with responsibilities. We may be in full-time education and want to find a job we enjoy, to establish a career, sort out our finances and make a home for ourselves before thinking about having babies. Perhaps more vitally, many women in their twenties have yet to find a partner they feel they would like to settle down and have a child with. So when our bodies are at their reproductive peak, many of us are far from ready to make the most of this.
 

'I was 26 when I got pregnant. I think I'd always imagined I'd have children one day, but it certainly wasn't planned. I did miss out on some things. I don't think I have the financial stability that I would have liked ideally, and I do think perhaps I could have lived my life more fully.' Louise, 30. To find out more, you can check out Ways To Increase Your Fertility.

Woman Trying To Get Pregnant

Do you smoke, take recreational drugs or drink too much alcohol? 

These can all have adverse effects on your fertility, and make you more likely to miscarry or to have problems with the pregnancy when you conceive. If you are a smoker, try to give up, and if your partner smokes, get him to stop too. Smoking, and even passive smoking, has been clearly linked with reduced fertility. Heavy alcohol consumption, binge drinking and recreational drugs can all have an impact on your fertility too.
 

Woman Trying To Get Pregnant

Do you lead a healthy lifestyle?
 
Eating healthily and taking regular exercise will help keep your body in good physical condition, which will maximize your chances of conceiving. You don't have to sign yourself up for a punishing fitness regime to reap the benefits of exercise, particularly if you tend to be a bit of a couch potato. All you need is regular gentle exercise to increase your physical strength and stamina, and it can also improve your general well-being. Trying to ensure you have a healthy diet is often difficult when you lead a busy life, but if you can manage to eat healthily you are more likely to be getting the essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals that help your reproductive system to work properly.

How old was your mother at her menopause? 

If you know that your mother had a very early or late menopause this may have a bearing on your own fertility. It is believed that there is often a genetic link when it comes to the biological clock, and that your own menopause may be early or late depending on your mother's experience.
 
Home testing
 
You can now buy tests, from a pharmacy or online, that aim to help you assess your own fertility. They check your hormone levels to try to give you an idea of the quality and quantity of eggs remaining in your ovaries, known as the ovarian reserve. Some use a simple urine test that can be done in the privacy of your own home, and give an instant result. Others involve a blood test that has to be sent away to a laboratory for analysis.
 
The tests work by measuring your levels of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone), which is an indicator of the ovarian reserve. When the ovaries are full of good quality eggs, your body doesn't have to work particularly hard to ripen and release them, but as the eggs get older and their numbers decline, the body has to produce higher levels of FSH to help them on their way. Some tests also measure inhibin B and anti-Mullerian hormone, (AMH) as low levels of these hormones may suggest a poor ovarian reserve.
 
Although these hormone levels can give some indication of ovarian reserve, they often fluctuate from cycle to cycle. One test alone may not give a particularly accurate picture of what is happening in your ovaries, and for this reason some of these products include two tests so that you can check your initial findings. The tests can be expensive, and if you are really worried that you may be approaching the menopause, you may be better off going to see your doctor and having tests done professionally.

 
It is also important to remember that a test result indicating a good ovarian reserve doesn't give you the green light to assume that you will get pregnant if you wait another two, or three, or five years before you try to have a baby. Although they may be useful at alerting you to a problem with your eggs, the tests can't assess other aspects of your fertility. It is quite possible to have a good outcome and yet to find that there may be other factors that could make it difficult for you to get pregnant naturally. To find out more, you can check out Woman Trying To Get Pregnant.

Help With Getting Pregnant Fast

Assessing your own fertility
 
So, is it possible to tell whether you're one of those women who will be able to get pregnant easily if you put it off until you are older, or whether you really ought to start trying as soon as you can if you want to have children eventually? Unfortunately, it is impossible to give any kind of definitive answer, but there are some indicators that may help you assess whether you are more at risk of having problems.
 

Help With Getting Pregnant Fast

Fertility indicators
 
Are your periods regular?
 
Women who have regular periods are more likely to ovulating, and less likely to be entering the perimenopause (the term given to the years which lead up to the menopause itself). If your periods are irregular or absent, this can suggest problems with your hormones, and may also be a symptom of polycystic ovary syndrome: a condition that can prevent normal ovulation. Very heavy bleeding is sometimes a symptom of fibroids, benign tumors that grow around the womb and which can affect your fertility.

The length of cycle is also relevant. Anything between 25 and 35 days is generally considered normal, and if you have a regular cycle of this kind of length you are more likely to be ovulating.
 
Have you had a sexually transmitted disease? 

Women who've had chlamydia and gonorrhoea are at greater risk of having fertility problems, as is anyone who has had pelvic inflammatory disease, which is not always sexually transmitted. Many women with these infections experience no symptoms at all, and yet if they are left untreated they can lead to scarring in the ovaries or fallopian tubes, tubal blockages or ectopic pregnancy. Those most at risk of sexually transmitted disease are younger, sexually active women who have had multiple partners and who don't always use condoms.
 
Have you had surgery in your pelvic area? 

If you have had surgery to remove an appendix or ovarian cyst, or any other kind of surgery on your womb, ovaries or fallopian tubes you may be more at risk of infertility, as this can leave scarring that may block the fallopian tubes.

Are you very overweight or underweight? 

Being naturally slim or on the rounded side is not going to stop you getting pregnant, but weight problems can have serious consequences for your fertility. Women who are underweight often stop ovulating, and those who have a history of eating disorders will often find that their periods are affected. Equally, very overweight women may have ovulation problems, which make them less likely to conceive.
 
Doctors use the Body Mass Index, or BMI, to calculate whether people fall outside the healthy weight ranges for their height. If you want to work yours out, you divide your weight in kilograms by your height in metres squared (that's your height in metres multiplied by itself). If your maths isn't up to it, you can find lots of easy calculators on the Internet to work it out for you, where you just type in your weight and height. The general rule is that a BMI of over 30 or under 20 could affect your chances of conceiving.

BMI is a rather blunt instrument and doesn't take account of an individual's frame or muscle, which weighs more than fat. It is possible for a super-fit athlete to fall into the overweight bands by being extremely muscular, but this isn't an excuse that will apply to most of us. Generally a very high or low BMI does suggest we should look at our diet and levels of exercise.
 

Do you have endometriosis?
 
Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the spongy womb lining is found elsewhere in the body, usually in the pelvic area around the ovaries and fallopian tubes. The most common symptoms are pelvic pain and irregular or heavy periods, although some women are unaware that they have the condition. Many women with endometriosis get pregnant without any problems at all, but it is estimated that between 30 and 40 per cent of sufferers have difficulty conceiving. To find out more, you can check out Help With Getting Pregnant Fast.

Things To Try To Get Pregnant

It's an unfortunate fact that the female reproductive system has been rather left behind by the changes in women's lives during the last century. We expect to be able to finish our education, establish our careers, settle down with the right partner and have some degree of financial security before we think about having babies. We want to wait until we feel we are ready to start a family, but this may mean our bodies are past their fertile best.
 
Although there have been recorded cases of women conceiving naturally in their early fifties, and of far older women getting pregnant after fertility treatment with donated eggs, these are rare exceptions. More usually, women will find that their fertility is in decline by the time they reach their forties. It is true that many older women get pregnant naturally and without any difficulty, but for others putting it off until their forties, or even their late thirties, may turn out to be a gamble they have lost.

Things To Try To Get Pregnant

We are so accustomed to being in control of our fertility that it's easy to forget that this is a relatively new-found freedom. It wasn't until the introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s that women gained real control over their reproductive systems. Society had changed, women had attained a greater degree of equality in education, the workforce and the home, but our fertility has remained one area in which we are far from equal. We are born with our lifetime's supply of eggs, whereas men can continue producing sperm throughout their lives, and although they experience some age-related decline in their fertility, it is far from absolute. Men may still be fathering children when they are drawing their pensions, but most women run out of viable eggs during their forties.
 
We are sometimes lulled into a false sense of security about our fertility, and having spent many years preventing pregnancy when we don't want it, we assume we will be able to exercise a similar level of control when we do want to get pregnant. For some women, this may turn out to be the ease, but others will find conceiving a child much more difficult.
 
'Education should actually inform women that they shouldn't leave it too late. In schools it's all about safe sex and contraception and you mustn't have a baby. Maybe we should be a bit pro-baby as well, preface the safe sex with,"Don't forget, if you want to have a baby, you should do it at a sensible age:" Susan, 34

The biological clock
 
The female biological clock begins ticking when we are born. We lose eggs from our ovaries throughout our childhood, and by the time we reach puberty and are able to conceive, our egg store has already been depleted. Our fertility declines throughout our adult lives, but every woman's biological clock runs at a different rate. One woman may get pregnant naturally in her early forties, while another may run out of eggs in her twenties, experiencing a premature menopause.
 
'People don't understand that your biological age can be very different to your reproductive age. At 29, my reproductive age was 42 and that's a big problem. People say they're going to delay it because they aren't ready and they think if they leave it until they are 38 or 39 that will be their reproductive age, but it's not necessarily the case: Rachel, 35
 
As recently as the 1970s the average age for having a first child was 25, but now most women have reached their late twenties by the time they give birth for the first time and many more delay motherhood until they reach their thirties. By this age, most of us are approaching the end of our optimum fertility, and there is a growing awareness that delaying motherhood may lead to fertility problems, as the biological clock starts to speed up as we get older.
 
The endless discussion in the media about the way female fertility declines with age could lead some women to seek medical solutions too quickly for what may be little more than a natural age-related delay in conception. However, there is also an assumption that assisted conception offers women a safety net when nature lets us down. In fact, fertility treatment is much less successful as you get older, and it cannot turn back the biological clock.

'When we got married there wasn't as much in the media about fertility as there is now. I wish that what's in the media now about the fact that you're much more fertile when you're younger and that having a baby isn't something that happens automatically had been higher profile then. I would have come off the pill on the wedding night' Lano, 37. To find out more, you can check out Things To Try To Get Pregnant.