- Welcome to Fertile Minds.
My name is Robert Lahoud.
I'm a fertility specialist and reproductive endocrinologist
and I work as a clinical director
at IVF Australia, in North Shore.
Today, I'm gonna talk about fertility in the 30s.
Around the world, patients are now trying to have families
later than decades ago,
and this phenomenon, I guess,
it has to do with our lifestyle nowadays.
It happens not just in Australia,
but it's really common in Europe
and other parts of the world.
And it does have certain implications
on the chances of conception.
For example, a woman at the age of 40
with everything we can do including several level IVF cycle
has got a 50-50 chance of having just the one child
and it'd be very difficult to have two.
So when people try to decide when they want to conceive,
they need to consider that it does get harder
and some people miss out as they get older.
Furthermore, you may want more than one child
and each time to fall pregnant,
have a child and then be ready to fall pregnant again
does take time.
So this is something that's important for planning.
So as soon as someone's ready to have a child,
I guess they should look at trying rather than delaying.
That would be always our recommendation
as much as possible.
And it is important for both partners,
male and female or
female and female to understand
that this is an important part
and that the biological clock
will keep ticking no matter what sort of thing.
With regard to how long does it take to conceive.
A woman at 30 will, on average,
take about six months to conceive.
At 35, it'll be eight to nine months.
And at 40, it'll be about 12 months.
So as people get older, the time to conception increases
and with that comes the rate of miscarriage going up,
conditions such as Down Syndrome going up.
And so it can take a lot longer
to achieve a healthy birth of a baby sort of thing.
So from that point of view, it's always important
to consider trying to fall pregnant
as soon as possible.
With regard to looking at ovulation
and the timing of the menstrual cycle,
this is a really important part to understand
when the ideal time is to try to fall pregnant.
So generally, we would encourage people
to keep a calendar to see
how long the menstrual cycle is
from the beginning of one period
to the beginning of the next period.
If that's within five weeks,
it's likely the patient or the person is ovulating.
If it's longer than that,
there may be a chance that they might not be ovulating
and it would be worthwhile to seek some help
from your medical practitioner.
When you try to conceive, I've got two principles,
one is to try regularly, if that's possible
and to try before ovulation
and not to wait till it's too late
because we can't always predict ovulation easily.
I almost think it's best not to kind of
make it too scientific,
but to try regular as long as that's possible.
If people want to know when the right time is for ovulation,
a lot of people use these ovulation kits,
which you can buy from your chemist or supermarket
or order online and they use urine tests to see
when the hormone called LH, or luteinizing hormone rises
and this happens usually before ovulation.
So it gives them a prediction when the likely time
is that ovulation will occur.
And these tests aren't always perfect.
And that's why I would always say to be a little bit liberal
and try before that too,
so that you don't miss out
on your chance of falling pregnant.
Otherwise, it's really a matter of trying for a while
to hopefully achieve a pregnancy.
When should you seek help from a fertility specialist?
Generally, would recommend that after six months of trying
it would be good to seek medical help.
In patients who have a history
which is suggestive of infertility,
this may be done earlier.
So if the man, for example, an undescended testes,
it would be good to do a sperm count earlier.
If the woman has very irregular menstrual cycles,
then that may be suggestive of not ovulating.
It would be good to see a fertility specialist earlier.
So these are the sort of the criteria we use.
If you would like to have a discussion
about your individual circumstances,
please reach out to one of us fertility specialists
and we'll be more than happy to talk to you
and assess your case.
With regard to lifestyle modification,
this is really, really important.
So preconception health is a really important part
of improving your chance of falling pregnant
and hopefully making the pregnancy and the baby healthier.
So we recommend a healthy diet
which involves regular meals and healthy choices.
And look that may vary from individual to individual,
but generally, that would be a good guide
to have healthy choices in your diet.
It's important to be relatively fit.
So we would encourage you to exercise within reason
so that you feel fit and ready to fall pregnant.
We recommend the use of folic acid,
which is of vitamin that reduces
neural tube defects in the baby.
And that's part of many multivitamins
that are used in pregnancy.
We'd also recommend not to smoke
because smoking is quite detrimental
to short term and long term fertility,
both for men and women.
With alcohol, alcohol in moderation is fine
before you are trying to fall pregnant.
But once you are pregnant, not recommended
to continue to drink.
With regard to caffeine,
caffeine in moderation doesn't appear to affect
female or male health.
But again, moderation is the important word here.
Otherwise, really it's about living
or becoming as healthy as you can
in preparation for your pregnancy.
Thanks for watching Fertile Minds,
and don't forget to subscribe.
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