5 Lifetime Changes that Enhance Fertility

Infertility is one thing that can bring a woman down emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. Leaving aside all scientific reasons and procedures, there are itty bity life style changes that just might enhance a woman’s’ chance of fertility. Read below:

1. Eliminate Trans Fats

Trans fats are basically the bad type of fat. If you want to get pregnant soon enough, you are going to have to cut it out. They are found primarily in snack foods, animal products, french fries and some margarines. They are bad because they increase insulin resistance. High insulin levels cause a lot of metabolic disturbances that affect ovulation. HOW? Insulin helps move glucose from the bloodstream to the cells; resistance means it’s harder to move glucose into the cells. The pancreas keeps pumping out more insulin anyway, and the result is more insulin in your bloodstream.

2. Choose Vegetable Sources of Protein

Plant protein (from beans, nuts, seeds and tofu) consist of healthy fats and are  relatively low in calories and can be helpful for weight loss. Replace chicken sometimes with beans, tofu, or nuts. Animal protein is not bad, it is just healthier to replace them with plant sources of protein when trying for a child, because it cuts away all the unwanted fats that can hinder conception.

READ ALSO:  A Guide to a Healthier Lifestyle With Cooking Oil

3. Avoid and address stress

Stress can create fertility troubles because the body thinks that a stress-filled body is not a safe place for newborns. It triggers the production of cortisol, the hormone that activates the sympathetic nervous system. This in turn knocks other hormones like progesterone, which is responsible for pregnancy, out of balance. Whether it’s related to work and life or the prospect of raising kids, anything you can do to reduce stress will send the reproductive system a message that it’s safe to get pregnant.

4. Have sex on your fertile days

Every woman has a highly fertile day each month, if you understand this, it might not be as hard to get pregnant. The problem however, is that many women misunderstand their true fertility cycle, and it varies from month to month. Women base their fertility calculations on the way we were all taught, ovulation occurs on day 14 of our cycle. One very easy way to predict fertile days is through your cervical mucus. Women release one egg per cycle, so this fluid comes only around the time the egg is going to be released. At that time, the cervical fluid becomes more wet and slippery. Philip E. Chenette, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist at Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco, California says that a guideline for timing baby-making sex is to do it early and often.

READ ALSO: How Cervical Mucus Can Predict your Most Fertile Days

5. Relax!

When the mind is too occupied, it is difficult to actually enjoy or focus on anything. Then again, your body sends out signals, as if to shout “No baby Zone”. Researcher Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., executive director of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health at Boston IVF in Waltham, Massachusetts, recommends trying these relaxation techniques, 10 to 20 minutes a day, twice a day:

Meditation: Sit in a quiet room and concentrate on the in and out of your breath. If your mind won’t stop chattering, focus on a phrase (like “ahhh”). Whenever you feel your thoughts wandering, gently bring your focus back to the phrase.

Progressive relaxation: While sitting or lying down, concentrate on squeezing and relaxing each of your muscles, beginning with the top of your head and ending with the tips of your toes. For each muscle, squeeze as hard as you can for about eight seconds, and then relax, letting the tension leave you through that part of your body.