I'm Dr Emma Gray, and I'm the Lead Clinical Psychologist at the British CBT & Counselling
Service.
And this is the first of eight videos in my new series, 'How To Get Pregnant Fast'.
So, this series is about preparing your mind and body for pregnancy, and, also, how to
survive the time it takes you to get there.
We're going to look at how to use your diet to boost your fertility, the supplements to
take, how to maximise your chances of conceiving, how to get your work-life balance in a good
place to boost your fertility.
I'm going to talk to you about the best complementary approaches out there, how to use your emotional
well-being to boost your fertility, how to survive miscarriage, and a little bit about
conceiving over the age of 35.
Okay, there is a book to accompany this series, and I'm going to put the link in the description,
but it's available on Amazon in paperback and to download onto your Kindle for £6.99.
In this video, we're just going to look, a little bit, at getting your mind in a good
place, before you start the process of trying to conceive.
So, three tips, the first tip—to bear in mind that conceiving is a game of chance.
So, those people that say to you, 'Oh, my partner just had to look at me, for me to
fall pregnant', they're not more fertile than everybody else, they're just luckier.
The odds of conceiving in anyone's cycle are 20% to 25%—that's for the most fertile people
in the population, that's people aged 20 to 24.
So, each month you roll the dice, literally.
And some people have to roll that dice more than others before they hit the jackpot.
But the thing to remember is you are more likely to get pregnant than not.
Only 5% of fertile couples, that's those people that haven't been identified as infertile,
won't conceive within two years of trying—and this is regardless of age.
And the data actually ends there, so, of that 5%, more will get pregnant beyond that two-year
point.
So, I suppose the point here is, the longer you stay in the game, the more your chances
are of conceiving.
And this programme will help you to focus your energy in a helpful way.
It will help you to get control over those elements you can control, and put to one side
those that you can't.
It will also give you the psychological tools that you need to stay in the game as long
as you need to.
Okay, so, the second tip is about the 12-month pregnancy.
So, it's a good idea to start preparing your mind and your body three months before you
start actively trying to conceive.
And this is because it takes three months for the immature egg and sperm cells to mature,
so the quality of your embryo is going to be dictated by what was happening four months
before you get that positive pregnancy test.
And it's this fact, along with the fact that the greatest risk to the foetus of congenital
and birth defects happens in the first two to eight weeks of your pregnancy, that has
led experts to suggest we think about the whole process as a 12-month process, rather
than a nine-month process.
So, this programme is going to help you and your partner prepare your body so that your
building blocks for your baby are of the best quality.
This will maximise your chances of conceiving.
It will maximise the chances of you carrying to term and not having a miscarriage.
And longer-term, it will benefit your child's physical and psychological well-being.
Okay, one more thing, one more tip.
When you're trying to conceive, particularly if it takes you a little bit of time, it's
reassuring, comforting, to know you're doing everything that you can.
But, it's really important that you don't put your life on hold for this, all this is
going to do is increase your stress, your resentment, and your frustration—and this
is going to have a negative impact on your fertility.
So, to stay in the game for as long as possible, make sure that you keep the other aspects
of your life going: those aspects that give you happiness, satisfaction, a sense of achievement—all
of these things.
Tailor this programme to you so that you can keep these things going, and keep in mind
the 80/20 rule: so that is, 80% of the time you do all these things, these healthy things;
20% of the time, give yourself a break, allow yourself a little treat because that is good
for you too.
Okay, so, this is the end of the video.
If it was helpful, please like, subscribe, and share with your friends.
My next video is going to be about using your diet to supercharge your fertility.
I'll see you then.