We’ve all heard the horror stories, the teenage couple gets pregnant the first time,
or gets pregnant without doing it all à la Scrubs.
but really, how hard is it to get pregnant?
Hey guys Julia here for DNews
As more men and women push back their biological clocks to match up with their professional
ambitions, fertility issues seem to be on the rise.
But the thing is, it’s pretty easy to get pregnant.
Especially if you’re in the prime biological age range, which most researchers agree for
women is between 20-35 and men too experience a decline in fertility as they age.
And before you ask, yes you can get pregnant the first time you have sex, yes you can get
pregnant standing up, yes you can get pregnant if you have sex on your period, yes you can
get pregnant even without ejaculation!
Among couples without fertility problems, 60 percent will be pregnant within three months,
and 75 percent within six months.
About 85 percent of all couples will get pregnant within a year, but it's not all sunshine and
roses and babies.
Besides age, the weirdest things can affect your fertility.
Like research from the from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found
that women who work out too much can have reduced fertility.
In a large study of nearly 3,000 women researchers found that those who train or exercise everyday
and those who train until they’re exhausted had lower fertility than other women.
Smoking is another fertility damper.
One study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found that women who smoked produced
less eggs when undergoing fertility treatments.
For every 10-pack years of smoking, women produced 2.5 fewer mature oocytes and two
less embryos.
And multiple other studies back up the smoking and fertility issues link.
Water bottles too can affect your chances of getting pregnant.
BPA stands for Bisphenol A, can be found in a lot of plastic things, like receipts and
water bottles.
The chemical helps plastic be more flexible keeps it from breaking.
Unfortunately, it leaks from those products pretty easily.
Like into your water in your bottle.
Several studies link BPA exposure to troubles with conceiving.
One study published in the journal Human Reproduction found a link between women’s exposure to
the chemical and lower fertility.
They found that women with higher levels of BPA levels produced less eggs during fertility
treatments, like 24 percent fewer eggs.
But it doesn’t just cause problems with women.
One study found that men who had high levels of the chemical experienced a 20% decline
in fertility.
Basically the chemical mimics estrogen and lowers men’s sperm count.
And men should be wary of another factor, summertime.
Another study published in the journal Reproduction found that men seemed to have trouble during
the summer.
In a study of over 2200 men, researchers in the UK found that men who produced a lot less
sperm, were twice as likely to have produced that sample during the summer.
And the researchers aren’t so sure why that is, some think it might have to do with sunlight.
Sperm is produced a few months before it’s released as ejaculate, so that sperm sample
given during the summer might have been made a few months before when it was dark and grey
in England.
So maybe the lack of vitamin D had something to do with lower sperm count.
More research is needed.
So if you are trying to conceive, avoid smoking, plastic, summer, and some studies say to avoid
tight whiteys too.
And no matter your troubles, researchers say “the most important thing for people trying
to conceive is having a lot of sex.”
And once you are pregnant it seems there’s all these rules and weird superstitions, to
separate fact from fiction, check out this great video on the top 5 pregnancy myths.
So do you have any other questions about making a baby?
Let us know down in the comments below...