Couples who want to get pregnant are usually unwilling to wait several months to achieve this goal. Most women can wait up to two or three menstrual cycles without stressing too much about their fertility. However, as time goes by, and the couple can not get pregnant, insecurities begin to emerge.
"Is there something wrong with my reproductive system?"
Each decrease in menstruation becomes a disappointment and the dream of having children can end up becoming a stress factor in the life of the couple. The problem is that pregnancy anxiety alone can be a perpetuating factor of infertility.
There are those who appeal to natural products or sympathies, have to have sex every day, there are those who try new positions and there are those who seek professional help to get pregnant.
In this article we will explain how to optimize the natural fertility of man and woman, thus increasing the chances of a faster pregnancy.
Differences between fertility, infertility and sterility
To make it easier to understand the text, it is worthwhile to reinforce some concepts so that there is no confusion when it comes to explaining how to get pregnant faster.
Fertility is the natural ability of the individual or couple to produce a pregnancy through sexual intercourse. A fertile man is one who manages to conceive a woman through one or more sexual relations. Likewise, a fertile woman is one who can become pregnant after one or more sexual relations.
For a couple to be considered fertile, both men and women have to be fertile. If either is infertile, the couple will be infertile. Generally, a fertile couple is one who, having frequent sexual intercourse, manages to become pregnant within the 12-month period.
Infertility is the reduction of fertile ability, causing greater difficulty in producing a pregnancy. Infertility is usually a transient state, which can be reversed with or without medical treatment. For example, a woman who stops taking contraceptives after years of use may take a few months to get fertile again. There are several causes for infertility, both in men and women, many of them reversible.
A couple is said to be infertile when it can not produce a pregnancy after a year of frequent sexual intercourse (obviously without use of any contraceptive factor, such as a condom or pill, for example). The fact that the couple is considered infertile does not mean that a pregnancy can not arise without medical treatment. This couple can get pregnant naturally after 2 or 3 years. Therefore, what classifies a couple as infertile is not the inability to have children, but rather a greater difficulty in having them. Some doctors prefer to call fertility infertility.
On the other hand, sterility is the permanent and irreversible incapacity to generate a pregnancy. A sterile person is one who can not reproduce, even if he has had unprotected sex for years, with one or more partners. Examples: A woman who is born without the uterus is barren. A man who does a vasectomy becomes sterile. Men who remove the testicles or women who surgically remove the ovaries become sterile.
The vast majority of people who have difficulty getting pregnant are infertile. Only a small portion is sterile.
A spermatozoon needs to find an egg to become pregnant. For this to occur, it is necessary to have sex close to the time the woman is ovulating.
Without performing medical examinations, such as ultrasound of the ovary, it is impossible to discover the exact day of ovulation. However, there are ways to try to estimate this day. We know that ovulation occurs 14 days before the next menstruation. This means that if the first day of the new menstruation was on May 28, ovulation occurred on May 14. Therefore, if the woman has very regular cycles, she can estimate when the next menstruation will come. To know the day of ovulation is enough to subtract 14 days. In women with irregular cycles, who at one month menstruates at 35 days in the other with 28, it is impossible to estimate the day of ovulation.
The ovule is only viable for 12 to 24 hours. If after ovulation no sperm reaches the ovum within 24 hours, the sperm becomes degenerate and is absorbed by the body.
If on one hand the egg has a very short life, on the other the healthy spermatozoon can remain viable for fertilization for up to 5 to 7 days. This means that intercourse occurring up to one week before ovulation can lead to pregnancy. Studies show that the period of greatest chance for pregnancy occurs when intercourse occurs within 48 hours before ovulation. This is the period in which the spermatozoon is healthier and more active. Older spermatozoa, which are already 4 or 5 days in the female reproductive tract, no longer move as they should have more difficulty crossing the tubes to reach the ovum.
The quality of man's semen is affected by the time of abstinence. Most studies indicate that ideal semen, measured in terms of motility, morphology and total sperm count, occurs with a two- or three-day interval of ejaculatory abstinence. That is, if the man ejaculated today, his sperm will be ideal again in two or three days. After five days without ejaculating the semen quality begins to fall. Therefore, the highest rates of pregnancy occur in couples who have intercourse at intervals of one or two days.
Based on what has been explained so far, we can conclude that the greatest chance of becoming pregnant occurs if the sexual intercourse is performed within 48 hours before ovulation, the man being no more than 3 days without having ejaculated.
As it is not always easy to predict the day of the next ovulation, the most advisable is that, as soon as the menstruation leaves, the couple begins to have 3 sexual relations per week, never more than 3 days of interval between them. If after 6 months of keeping this schedule the couple has not been able to establish a pregnancy, the help of a fertility doctor may be necessary.
Factors influencing the chance to getting pregnant
There is no evidence that the position in which sex is practiced has an influence on the rate of fertilization. Staying with your legs up or any other type of position at the end of intercourse also have no influence at all. There is nothing to indicate that there is a decrease in the chances of fertilization if the woman returns to her daily activities soon after the end of intercourse. Similarly, the act of the woman having had orgasm does not seem to change the fertility rate.
The use of some vaginal lubricants like KY and Astroglide inhibit sperm motility and may reduce the chances of fertilization. For couples with difficulty getting pregnant, it is suggested to avoid them.
Saliva inhibits sperm motility, so in theory, oral sex before penetration may decrease the chance of fertilization. This is only theoretical because there are no studies to prove that the presence of saliva in the vagina actually decreases the chance of becoming pregnant.
The age of the woman has great weight in the fertility. Women are most fertile between the ages of 19 and 26, at which time the chance of getting pregnant having intercourse on the fertile day is 50%. In women between 27 and 34 years the fertility rate is 40%. Between 35 and 40 years the chance is only 30% in each cycle and over 40 the chance is less than 20%. The age of man has a much smaller influence.
Physical exercise helps improve fertility, but women who do intense activities, such as more than 7 hours a week of aerobic activity, have a higher rate of infertility. In men, the practice of physical activity does not seem to influence, except when done with a bicycle. Men who spend more than 5 hours a week sitting on a bicycle usually have worse semen quality.
Recent work has shown that frequent use of laptops in the cervix decreases the quality of the man's semen and can cause infertility. This effect seems not to be exclusively from the heat, but also from the radiofrequency waves that the machine emits. There are suspicions that cell phones can have the same effect.
Still talking about men, tight briefs also worsen sperm quality. Boxer-type wide briefs should be given preference.
Stress is an important factor. In older couples who are in a hurry to have the first child, the anxiety generated each time the menses come down, confirming that there was no pregnancy, causes a snowball effect. Frustration generates more stress and anxiety, which in turn decreases the chance of success in fertilization.
Smoking reduces the chances of pregnancy, both on the male side, by decreasing semen quality, and on the female side by decreasing the motility of the fallopian tubes and by damaging the ovarian follicles. The cigarette accelerates the aging of the ovaries, and can anticipate the menopause in up to 4 years.
These damaging effects on sperm and egg quality improve after 1 year without cigarette smoking.
Sons and daughters of women who smoked during pregnancy have a higher rate of infertility in adulthood due to poor sperm and ovary quality.
Obesity
Women with BMI greater than 27 kg/m2 have anovulatory cycles (cycles without ovulation) more frequently. Likewise, the quality of male semen is also altered in overweight men.
Excessive thinness also decreases fertility. BMI below 17 kg/m2 reduces the chance of ovulation and worsens sperm quality.
High alcohol consumption
Occasional alcohol consumption does not appear to influence fertility in men, but more frequent drinkers who drink almost daily may have reductions in fertility. The effects of alcohol on fertility are more evident in females, so it is suggested that women avoid alcoholic beverages in couples who are difficult to conceive.
After a first pregnancy the chance of getting pregnant again is greater, especially in the first 6 menstrual cycles after the return of menstruation. Stories of couples who needed treatment to get their first child are common, but they managed to have the latter by natural methods. This increased fertility occurs even in women who have had abortion in the first pregnancy.
