You have decided to have a baby – that’s awesome! To give your body the best chance to conceive, here are 7 indicators that ensure your body is at its best health for pregnancy.
Table of Contents
1. Sleeping Well
There is a strong correlation between sleep and overall health. For women, the lack of sleep over a long period may affect the release of LH, the luteinising hormone that precedes ovulation in your monthly cycle. The lack of sleep may cause irregular menstruation that can make it difficult to conceive. So how do you know if you have enough sleep? Experts say that if wake up feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, it’s a good sign that you have an adequate sleep. If you have trouble sleeping, try not to consume a heavy meal or caffeine just before bedtime and avoid your bright screen devices a few hours before sleeping.
2. Not Guzzling Caffeine
Caffeine is a type of stimulant that can is found in varying amounts in coffee, green and black tea, some carbonated drinks, energy drinks and even chocolate. There is no clear indication of how caffeine affects fertility. However, some studies indicate that women who consume large amounts of caffeine experience difficulty in conceiving. A good rule of thumb is to limit your daily caffeine intake to not more than two cups of instant coffee or one cup of brewed/filtered coffee.
So if you have already bid goodbye to caffeine or reduce it to just one to two cups a day, you are well on your way to optimum fertility health!
3. Having a Healthy Body Weight
Maintaining a healthy weight will go a long way in making it easy for you to conceive. Obesity has been shown to reduce ovulation and poorer quality embryos, which increases the risk of miscarriages. Being underweight will also cause hormonal imbalances and affect ovulation. So if your weight is within a healthy BMI for your height and age, you have the best chance of getting pregnant.
4. Eating Healthy
Ask any mother about conception tips and the first thing they’ll say is, “Eat healthily!” Eating healthy means ensuring that your diet includes an abundance of nutrition such as calcium, magnesium, folic acid, zinc, iron, selenium, manganese, omega 3s, vitamin C and essential fatty acids. Be careful about high doses of vitamin A though, as it may cause congenital disabilities. So if your plate is generally full of dark leafy greens, fruits, cooked mushrooms, raw nuts, seeds, brown rice and seafood with low levels of mercury, you scored high in this category! Now is also an excellent time to supplement your meals with a suitable multivitamin, folic acid, vitamin C and omega-3s.
5. Not Smoking
Did you know that smoking can delay pregnancy by a year or so? It reduces the egg quantity and quality and increases the risk of miscarriages and tubal pregnancies. Those going for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures will find that it reduces the chances of success by an astounding 40 per cent. By not smoking, you have elevated your chances of getting pregnant by leaps and bounds!
6. Not Boozing
There is a reason why women who want to start a family refrain from dunking down that glass of wine after a hard day’s work. Drinking large amounts of alcohol have been shown to lead to heavy and irregular periods as well as affecting ovulation. If you have abstained from consuming alcohol for a while now, your body has a good chance of conceiving.
7. You Are Zen
Unfortunately, stress is part and parcel of our modern life. Managing stress levels, thankfully, is very much within our control. As stress can wreak havoc to fertility health, it is essential to ensure that you practice good habits daily to keep stress at bay. Different people have different types of stress relievers. If you are already practising meditation, yoga, chilling out with friends, exercising, eating healthily and getting adequate sleep, it’s a great sign that you are at your best health to conceive successfully.
Boost Your Chances Further With Clearblue!
With all the good habits you are practising to give your body the best chance to get pregnant, we would also recommend using an ovulation test kit such as the Clearblue Digital Ovulation Test. It works by measuring the change in Luteinising Hormone (LH) levels in a woman’s body, which helps you find out the two best days to conceive. A huge smiley face on the indicator means you are good to go!
