5 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF CONCEIVING
1. Stay healthy. Reproduction is not a prime concern of the unhealthy body. Eat well, sleep well, maintain an even and lean body weight. This includes getting regular checkups from your doctor to ensure that you do not have medical conditions that may make you unhealthy. This goes for both partners.
2.Treat your body well. Here is a list of things that men should do to treat their bodies well:
a. Reduce alcohol consumption. Keep it down to less than 2 glasses of wine or beers daily.b. Eat organic foods to avoid pesticides
c. Avoid soy. Soy-based foods
d. Re-evaluate medications. Some prescriptions can decrease fertility in men so check with a doctor or pharmacist to see if these could be an issue.
e. Don't overheat the testes. Testes are meant to be cooler than body temperature (don't ask me why). Avoid hot tub, hot baths and saunas. Showers are fine.
f. Take antioxidants. Men should probably take "prenatal" vitamins too, that include antioxidants. Currently, the value of vitamin supplements have come into question with government trials rating them an "F" in oxidative health. However, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and grains or whole food supplements may have value here.
g. Stop smoking. Nicotine is a known toxin to the testes.
h. Reduce stress. Exercise, yoga, massage or acupuncture are all superb ways to reduce body stress stemming from work, emotions, finances and other free-floating anxieties.
3. Timing, timing, timing! As they say in life, timing is everything! Conception requires that an egg meet a sperm. The problem is that the egg is only available to meet sperm 2 days a month, when it is "ovulated". Timing sex to cover those 2 days is critical for conception and pregnancy. So, women should know when they are ovulating. In a general way, this is done by having sex in the middle of the menstrual cycle (You can calculate this by determining your cycle length in days from the start of one period to the next; divide this number in half; Add the halved number of days to the start of the next period or menses to determine about when ovulation will occur during your cycle).
A better way to determine ovulation is to note a drop and then a rise in your measured body temperature on consecutive days (determined before you get up in the morning… before drinking hot coffee). This is referred to as taking "basal body" temperatures. You might also note thinning of the vaginal fluid around this time of the month, an important indicator that the body is getting prepared to ovulate and accept sperm.
An even better way to determine when you will ovulate is to buy ovulation strips from the pharmacy. These "sticks" detect a hormone in the urine called LH that precedes ovulation by 24-36 hours and can give you a day's notice in advance of ovulation.
4. How often? Sex for babies is best done every other day, as men need to "recharge" the sperm load and daily sex may not be sufficient time for this. In addition, most (80%) of pregnancies occur with sex BEFORE or DURING ovulation as opposed to after ovulation. This makes it important to know when ovulation is expected so that sex can be "front loaded" before it.
5.The best position. Despite what you may have heard or read, there is no "best" position for sex to conceive. Methods for improving the chances of conceiving or for determining baby gender are ancient, even prehistoric, and range from astrological, to dietary to sexual position. You may have heard that positions that deposit the sperm closest to the cervix - such as the missionary position (man on top) - are more promising for conceiving boys than other positions. However, there is no real evidence that any particular sexual position is more likely to lead to conception of a boy or girl. Whether sexual position during intercourse can influence the gender of the baby is also controversial and unsubstantiated. .
LINKS:
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine
- American Fertility Association
- Open Path (San Francisco based infertility lay group)
- The Turek Clinic
About The Turek Clinic:
The Turek Clinic is a next-generation men's healthcare medical practice specializing in issues facing reproductive age men, including male infertility, vasectomies, vasectomy reversal, varicocele repair, and other minimally invasive procedures. The practice was founded by Dr. Paul Turek, a leading surgeon and former endowed chair professor at the University of California San Francisco in May, 2008. Dr. Turek's work combines innovative and cutting edge techniques with the wisdom of old-world medicine to treat and solve the problems of men ages 21 to 55 years of age.
For more information, visit www.TheTurekClinic.com
