Improve Fertility – 5 Natural Tips for Improving Fertility

To improve fertility, you don’t necessarily need supplements! These natural tips for improving fertility will help you get pregnant by putting you in touch with your body.

Here, Niels Lauersen, MD, and Colette Bouchez from the fertility website GettingPregnantNow.com describe how to improve fertility naturally…

“If you’re having trouble getting pregnant but not yet ready for fertility treatments,” say Lauersen and Bouchez, “there are things you can try on your own to encourage a faster conception.”

Lauersen and Bouchez are the authors of Getting Pregnant: What You Need To Know Right Now. These tips are just a small taste of all the natural ways to improve fertility in their book!

5 Tips to Improve Fertility Naturally

Eat Healthy Fertility Foods

While eating a healthy, balanced diet with lots of fiber, fruits and vegetables is always a good way to insure your body is working at peak performance, a recent study of some 17,000 women conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, identified some specific  “fertility food rules ” that improved conception odds.  What are they?

• Eat more monounsaturated fats (like olive oil) and less trans fats (like the kind found in many baked goods or fast foods).
• Eat more vegetable protein (like soy), while reducing animal protein (like red meat).
• Eat  more high fiber, low-glycemic foods — like whole grains, vegetables, and some fruits, while reducing the intake of refined carbohydrates and sugars.
• Keep consumption of  high-fat dairy products — like ice cream, whole milk, and cheese to a minimum.

For more info, read How Food Affects Female Fertility.

Control Your Weight to Improve Fertility

Being overweight or underweight can disrupt ovulation and stop you from getting pregnant. Reporting in the journal Human Reproduction, researchers documented a 4% decrease in conception odds for every point in Body Mass Index  above 30. For women whose BMI was higher than 35, there was up to a 43% overall decrease in the ability to conceive.

At the same time, other studies have shown that being too thin can also impact ovulatory function and keep you from getting pregnant. This is particularly true if your menstrustrual cycle is already irregular – a sign that your weight may already be interfering with your ability to get pregnant.

The good news:  You don’t have to lose – or gain – a lot to simprove your fertility levels.  In many instances  as little as 10 pounds can make a huge difference in encouraging conception !

Hold Hands With Your Spouse to Decrease Stress

As silly as that may sound, the key here is stress reduction – and  a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science found the simple act of holding hands with your spouse can drop stress levels dramatically.  How can that help you get pregnant faster?  Studies indicate that stress hormones like cortisol can interfere with ovulation.  Read Does Career Stress Lead to Infertility in Women? for more info.

Exercise Moderately to Improve Fertility Levels

While most women know that exercise is generally good for your health. But what you may not realize is that too much exercise can actually disrupt your fertility and make it harder to get pregnant.  If you are a workout over-achiever, cut down to no more than 45 minutes three times a week while you are trying to get pregnant.

Know When You’re Ovulating

When is the best time of the month to optimize a pregnancy?  Although an egg lives for only 24 to 36 hours, sperm can live in a woman’s body for up to 5 days!  So, to increase your chances of getting pregnant be sure to be intimate with your partner beginning 3 to 4 days prior to when you expect to ovulate, and up to 24 hours after ovulation. To learn how to test your fertility levels, read How Ovulation Predictor Kits Work.

You want to improve fertility because you’re hoping to get pregnant naturally, right? For more tips, read How to Relax When You’re Trying to Get Pregnant.

Another source of fertility tips is Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility by Jill Blakeway- it’s a bestselling book on Amazon.

These tips are from GettingPregnantNow — which offers more tips on increasing fertility levels, a guide to finding the best fertility centers in your area, and more.

Category: Fertility Tips, Getting Pregnant, Natural Health Tips, Pregnancy Tips