How To Improve fertility?

What You Do, What You Eat, and Your Environment make a difference to your health and ability to conceive. Your fertility is defined by your health to a large extent. If you have a general overall healthy disposition, you are likely to get pregnant more easily than those who are unhealthy.

Diet and Activities

What you put into your mouth will affect your fertility. There are some foods, minerals and vitamins that help to boost the functioning of your reproductive organs and your fertility cycle.

It is essential to include these foods in your diet. It is not just what you eat but also your activities that matter, like irregular sleep and lack of exercise, which makes your bodily functions sluggish and promotes a toxin build-up.

Unhealthy Habits and Environment

Unhealthy habits such as smoking, harmful drugs use, alcohol in excess, high heat conditions, spending time in a polluted or toxic environment or areas with chemicals are harmful to your health and detrimental to your fertility.

Your body absorbs the toxins, you breathe and through the skin as well. These toxins cause your body harm in multiple ways, including affecting your organs in an adverse manner.

Essential Nutrients And Habits to Boost Your Fertility

Let us look at some of the essential nutrients and other things that can help to give your fertility a good boost:

Folic Acid

Nutrition is very important for improving fertility, and one of the most important nutrients for pregnancy is folic acid. Folic acid is prescribed to pregnant mothers, especially during the first few months of pregnancy to help the proper development of the fetus and to prevent birth defects.

Folic acid helps with the development of the spine and the brain. It has been found that taking folic acid before your pregnancy can actually help you to get pregnant.

Folic acid should be taken for a few months leading up to the pregnancy. Folic acid is recommended not just for women, but it helps with male fertility too. Men with poor sperm quality can take folic acid as it helps with the development of the sperm.

Vitamin C

Many people wonder what the big deal about vitamin C. is. This essential vitamin helps the body to build up its immunity against negative factors which could be preventing pregnancy.

Vitamin C also helps the body in absorbing other nutrients from the food you eat. If nutrients are not absorbed, they get flushed out of the body. You can have vitamin C in a natural form by eating foods that have rich content, or you can have a supplement.

Vitamin C is found in foods such as guava, citrus fruits, amla, bell peppers and various others. Vitamin C helps to keep the hormones in balance. Vitamin C increases immunity in the body, which helps to combat autoimmune diseases and also helps ovulation. Vitamin C is also great for improving sperm health.

Foods to Boost Fertility

Good healthy foods can boost fertility. Green leafy vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, cereals and lentils comprise a balanced diet which can help to improve your fertility and the functioning of your reproductive organs.

Different fruits, vegetables and grains have different nutritional value, and therefore, it is essential to eat a well-balanced diet ensuring that you eat some of everything at least 2 or 3 times a week.

Oysters, with its high content of zinc, are especially recommended for male fertility and also give female fertility a good boost. Eating salads helps you to get a good portion of fertility-boosting nutrients.

Importance of Water for fertility

Everyone knows that the minimum intake of water a person should have in a day is 2 liters. Some folks drink plenty of water, but many people who spend most of their waking hours in a temperature-controlled environment tend to drink less than as much water as they are supposed to.

Water helps to flush out toxins and unwanted substances from the body. It also helps with sperm production and movement of the sperm. A healthy intake of water ensures that the cervical mucus remains thinner and more receptive to the male sperm.

Water is not just good for your health but helps fertility too. Drink as much water as you can. Water in its natural state is the most healthy, drinking excessive tea and coffee do not compensate for your water intake, and neither does juice or any other liquids.

Exercise to Boost Fertility

Those who are not into exercising, immediately shirk at the thought of having to go to the gym and get into an exercising routine. Even the thought of a morning walk or jogging is repulsive. ‘No time’ is the best excuse. How about taking the stairs instead of the lift?

This works for some people and encourages you to get active. Exercising can be some fun activity like aerobics, swimming, tennis, badminton, cycling or some other sports. Try to move about in the office as much as possible.

Small things can make a big difference in your life. Being physically active can make a huge difference in your life and your fertility. When you are sluggish in your movements, your body also tends to react similarly.

Importance of Sleep for Fertility

Many people are not sure whether sleep has any impact on their fertility. The truth is that lack of sleep is really damaging your fertility. This may come as a huge surprise to many people. Without getting sufficient rest, not only your brain and your body suffer, but your fertility also gets the brunt.

Leptin is a hormone which is produced when we sleep. This hormone helps in ovulation. Without sufficient sleep, leptin production is hampered and consequently affects ovulation. While you sleep, your body repairs cells and undergoes some self-healing, it also regulates hormones as well among other things.

What You Need To Quit

Fertility is not only about what you need to do; it also includes a list of stuff that you need to avoid. Some habits that have become a common part of the modern-day lifestyle may be quite detrimental to your fertility. Some of these are:

• Smoking tobacco
• Taking drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, opium etc.
• Drinking alcohol
• Caffeine – those who drink coffee have been found to have a reduced fertility. Research has also found that the probability of birth defects increases in coffee drinkers.
• Fast food also termed as junk food. These foods are so named for a purpose – they lack nutritional value and have a number of unhealthy ingredients as well as chemicals that serve as taste enhancers.
• Processed food – found to be part of fast foods, now sold as quick home preparations. Semi cooked or ready to cook foods. Most of these contain taste enhancing chemicals.
• Cold drinks – all drinks that have no nutritional value and are artificially flavoured.

Infertility

Sometimes after doing everything right, you are still not getting pregnant. What are you supposed to do in this situation? You obviously need to find out where the problem is, what is hindering your fertility. Sometimes it could be due to a medical problem that you are not able to conceive.

Boosting your fertility also means that you have to be medically fit. This means that all your reproductive organs should be in proper working condition to enable you to conceive.

What happens if your reproductive organs are not working correctly? Eating the right foods is not going to help. You need to get the problem rectified. Many infertility causing problems do have solutions either with the help of medication or through surgery.

Common Medical Conditions Which Hamper Fertility

Blocked fallopian tubes

Some women have blocked or damaged fallopian tubes from birth, but most of them have a problem that was caused later due to an injury, surgery or infection.

Sometimes the blockage is minor and can be removed surgically. Sometimes there is no solution but to have IVF treatment. The fallopian tubes are very delicate structures and can easily get damaged.

Ovulation Disorders

This is now becoming rampant among the new generation woman. Many women have a problem with their ovaries, which tend to malfunction. Their menstrual cycle is affected. Some women have irregular periods, while others may not have periods at all.

This affects their ovulation as well, and most women who have irregularities with their periods are not ovulating either. Ovulation represents the maturation of the female egg, which is ready to be fertilised by the male sperm. When a woman does not ovulate, there is no way she can get pregnant.

This is because there is no mature egg produced by the ovaries for the sperm to fertilise. Ovulation disorders can be caused due to the presence of cysts in the ovaries or due to a hormonal imbalance.

Both of these conditions are treatable. Cysts in the ovaries can be removed surgically. Hormonal imbalance can be regulated with the help of medication. This can restore the normal functioning of the ovaries.

Low Sperm Count

Almost 30% of the men who visit fertility clinics with their female partners to have a baby are suffering from low sperm count. Low sperm count means that your semen does not contain the minimum required number of sperm for conception.

Men are more fortunate than women because they are constantly producing new sperm. With an improved lifestyle and a healthy diet, they are able to boost their fertility and improve their sperm count as well as sperm quality.

Sperm count and sperm quality can be improved with the help of medication, supplement or eating the right foods. It will take about 3 or 4 months for improvement, but it is worth the wait.

Hormonal Problems

Both men and women are equally susceptible to hormonal problems. In men, a hormone disruption can affect the production of the sperm. Either less sperm is produced or no sperm depending on the severity of the hormonal problem.

The female reproductive cycle is totally dependent on the hormonal balance and release of the required hormones at the precise times for the next step in the fertility cycle to take place. Irregularity of the female hormones hampers ovulation without which fertility cannot take place.

Autoimmune Diseases

Many people suffer from autoimmune diseases. These are conditions which affect the immune system of the body and cause a malfunction in a certain area. diabetes is one such condition which affects fertility.

Thyroid gland malfunction interferes with the hormone regulation in the body, and this has an adverse effect on the body. Women with overactive or underactive thyroid have a problem getting pregnant naturally.

Frequently Asked Questions