What to Avoid to Prevent Infertility in Women

Infertility is when one cannot be able to get pregnant for at least one year of trying, and six months if the woman is 35 years old or older. A woman may also be infertile even if she gets pregnant when she is unable to stay pregnant.

Since the inability to get pregnant is what infertility is all about, let us first know the process on how one becomes pregnant:

First is ovulation where a woman’s body releases an egg from one of her ovaries.

After ovulation, the egg must go through a fallopian tube toward the uterus or womb. Next is when fertilization happens—where the man’s sperm must join the egg along the way. Implantation follows when the fertilized egg attaches to the inside of the uterus.

Infertility can happen if something goes off with any of these processes. Consequently, the essential factors to become pregnant are: you need to ovulate, your partner needs sperm, you need to have regular intercourse, and you need to have open fallopian tubes and a normal uterus.

One can preserve fertility by taking control of lifestyle choices and becoming aware of the risk factors associated with certain behaviour. Here are the things you should avoid:

Getting pregnant too late

The quality and quantity of a woman’s eggs begin to decline with increasing age making conception harder and more prone to miscarriage. Around one-third of all couples with a female partner 35 years old or older will have problems getting pregnant. And by the age of 40, roughly 50% of the women will not be able to get pregnant on their own.

Smoking

Smoking can negatively affect your ability to have children aside from causing cancer and heart disease. Smoking increases the risk of ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage while it can also damage your cervix and fallopian tubes. A study in the United Kingdom even showed that nearly 13% of female infertility is caused by cigarette smoking.

Being overweight

Studies have also shown that being overweight or significantly underweight may affect normal ovulation. Accordingly, obesity accounts for six percent of all female infertility while on the other side of the coin, low body weight makes up the other six percent. Therefore, you should evaluate your body weight and that of your partner. Maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI) may increase the frequency of ovulation and the likelihood of pregnancy.

STDs

Among the leading causes of infertility are sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia and gonorrhea which can damage the fallopian tubes. Infertility then could be the end result of having unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners should one acquired these infections.

Caffeine and Alcohol

By simply reducing, if not abstaining from caffeine and alcohol, the couple can benefit from the increased ability to get pregnant. 

There studies that say women who drink large amounts of caffeine may take longer to become pregnant and may be more prone to pregnancy termination or miscarriage. Do not consume more than 200 milligrams of coffee a day. This is equivalent to one to two cups of 6 to 8 ounces of your daily coffee intake.

Drink alcohol moderately and consume no more than one alcoholic drink per day since heavy alcohol use may lead to decreased fertility. Also, the health of the developing fetus will be badly affected by alcohol.

Workplace Hazards

Exposure to reproductive hazards in the workplace is now an increasing health concern. These may affect one’s fertility and can cause miscarriage, and birth defects. Exposure to toxins such as lead, mercury, Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and other chemical compounds should be avoided to protect one’s reproductive health.

Stress

It is widely accepted nowadays that stress and fertility are connected. The women’s levels of day-to-day stress and lowered chances of pregnancy are closely linked. Furthermore, when a woman is stressed, she would most probably have sex less often and is more likely to smoke or drink too much alcohol or caffeine. Thus, manage your stressors well and your ways of dealing with those stress as it affects your fertility.

To sum up, if you are thinking of getting pregnant in the future and want to optimize fertility, you should keep a normal weight, quit smoking, avoid or limit alcohol and caffeine intake, avoid hazardous places, and reduce stress.

But if lifestyle adjustments still have not resulted in a pregnancy, it may be time to consult a fertility specialist to determine if there are other causes for your difficulty conceiving. Seek medical help from a trained reproductive specialist by visiting a walk-in clinic in Calgary. As we now know, time is important in reproduction, so delaying appropriate medical treatment may add to infertility problems.

Always be mindful of the things that could affect your ability to get pregnant and the ways of avoiding those risk factors that can cause infertility. Finally, make decisive actions about your future by seeking professional intervention.