To optimize the chances of getting pregnant is a concern of nearly every woman. They try everything to increase their chances of getting pregnant. But, despite of the fact that planning and preparing your body to conceive is so essential, many people don’t even bother about it. Preparing your body for fertility is necessary not just for your own good, but also for the health of your baby.
If you and your partner are in good health, you are more likely to get pregnant. You can enhance your chances for a healthy pregnancy by making small changes in your lifestyle. These may include regular exercises, and quitting alcohol and smoking.
If you have prepared your mind to get pregnant, then the foremost thing you need to do is to visit your gynecologist. This will definitely help you plan your diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies to optimize your health; thereby, increasing your chances to conceive.
Here, Jillian Michaels discuss several tricks that can help you maximize the chances of pregnancy:
1. Stop Using Birth Control Pills: If you are taking birth control pills, then immediately stop consuming those pills. Ask your gynecologist about how to get rid of birth control pills and that when you can hope to start ovulating again. You might start to ovulate shortly, or it may take several weeks to get back on track depending on the pills you were taking. Your body will take some time to adjust and develop its own menstrual cycle.
2. Give Up on Smoking: If you or your partner smokes, then you must stop it without a second thought. Smoking adversely effects fertility in both the genders. In men, nicotine damages DNA of sperm cells. Likewise, smoking decreases the chances of getting pregnant in women, who are trying to conceive.
Not only this, smoking increases the chances of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, damage to follicular DNA as well as decreases follicle count. Smoking is also known to cause placental dysfunction and fetal growth restriction.
3. Cut Back on Caffeine: If on an average you consume one to two cups of coffee every day, it’s just fine! However, if you are severely addicted to caffeine, you need to cut back on your coffee or tea consumption to improve your fertility. Research has proved that excessive caffeine consumption decreases your fertility and may lead to miscarriage or still birth.
Caffeine is diuretic in nature, which washes away calcium and other important nutrients, essential for pregnancy, before getting absorbed by the body. Caffeine also increases your heart rate and may cause insomnia, which is not good, both for the baby as well as mother.
4. Avoid Taking Illegal Drugs: Always keep this in mind that what you will do to yourself will certainly affect your baby. It is obvious that indulging in any unwanted activity will adversely affect your ability to conceive.
Drugs like marijuana, cocainea and MDMA are worst of the things for a developing baby. Drugs harm the baby and affect the baby in a way you can even imagine.
With respect to the baby, developmental delays and mental retardation are to name a few consequences of taking such illicit drugs. If you want your baby to be healthy, then then you must abstain from illegal drug use.
5. Avoid Heavy Drinking: Alcohol can negatively affect your fertility. Your partner should take this fact into consideration. Some people believe that taking alcohol in moderation is okay, and that many women talk about how they had been habituated to drinking until the day they knew that they were pregnant.
Many women experience no complications with conception while drinking regularly. Jillian Michaels says that it doesn’t always cause trouble for everyone, but some women might get affected badly by alcohol than many others. To be precise, drinking habits reduce a woman’s chances of getting pregnant.
This is because alcohol can mess up with estrogen and other reproductive hormones, wrecking your ovulation cycle. It may even completely stop the ovulation process, and no ovulation simply means no pregnancy.
6. Gain a Healthy Weight: Your body weight has a direct effect on your ability to conceive. So, if you are overweight or obese, then this is high time to plan how to lose weight in an effective and healthy way.
For some people, it could be seemingly impossible. However, you can motivate yourself to lose weight for a different, but extremely good reason this time, and can gear up to plan how to increase your chances of getting pregnant.
Choose a healthy diet plan, which includes a lot of fiber and fruits and try to avoid having excess of foods high in fat and carbohydrate.
7. Take Your Prenatal Supplements: While food is the possibly the best way to get the supplements and nutrients that you and your baby need, the truth is that nowadays, we don’t really consume a healthy diet.
There could be several reasons for this; ranging from quality degradation due to over-processing of food to use of fertilizers and insecticides in the soil that depletes the level of nutrients.
To prevent nutritional deficiency, your doctor may recommend a prenatal supplement. Don’t even try to avoid this as this help you conceive while you are planning to get pregnant.icks-optimize-your-chances-getting-pregnant
8. Relax for a Bit: If you are trying to conceive, then you have to completely erase terms like ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ from your memory. Stress can make it really tough for you to get pregnant.
In a study, published in the journal, Human Reproduction, it was observed that women, who were trying to conceive, with increased levels of alpha-amylase – a protein used as a bio-marker for long-term stress – had more risk of infertility in caparison to women with comparatively lower level of alpha-amylase.
To remain stress free, one can opt for meditation or yoga, or could simply take a brisk walk or listen to his/her favorite music.
9. Consider Alternative Medicine: In case you want to go for alternative therapies, then consider seeking an acupuncturist or herbalist, specializing in pregnancy.
You may also opt for other forms of alternative medicine like chiropractic, Ayurveda or even for a massage therapy. If you have already met a practitioner of alternative medicine or planning to the practitioner for the first time, you should share all the details related to your pregnancy with the practitioner.
Meanwhile you may continue to meet these health professionals as you are planning to get pregnant. There are important ways that your health practitioner may help you and they adjust your treatment accordingly, not just for your safety but even to optimize your fertility.
10. Eat Healthy: If you have already concerned a gynae, then you must have started consuming supplements. But, just because you are supplementing doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take care of getting proper nutrition from the food. Supplementing yourself is necessary but remember that nothing can substitute a nutrient-rich diet. Including fruits and vegetables with high content of fiber and nutrients will certainly make for a healthy diet, which will eventually increase your chances to conceive. Also, avoid too much of fat and carbohydrate as it can lead to unnecessary weight gain.
11. Reduce Environmental Hazards: It’s time to make changes in the whole house. You may not believe, but there are so many pollutants around you at your own home. Jillian Michaels says that she nearly had a heart attack when she learned of all the toxins in our home. Whether it is about removing toxic chemicals from the furniture or eradicating bio-hazards from your hygiene products, you would require making considerable changes in your house to get rid of all those harmful chemicals. This is essential not just for you, but for the baby too.
