Hints to Help Get Pregnant

Couples who are looking to get pregnant often think that simply engaging often in sexual intercourse should do the trick. While this works for many, others need additional help getting pregnant. Armed with knowledge and information, many couples can apply the following methods to get pregnant within a year.

Lifestyle

• Consider your lifestyle. Couples who are looking to get pregnant should abstain from alcohol and tobacco. Physical activity should be a mainstay in your lifestyle, however, men should avoid tight fitting pants or underwear, as well as long bike rides. Both parties should maintain a healthy weight and be consuming a healthy, nutritional diet. Both parties should take a multivitamin with the female making sure that hers has both iron and folic acid included in the pill.

Ovulation

• Watching her cycle should be an important part of any woman's routine. She should use her calendar and cervical mucus production to calculate her most fertile days. The average woman ovulates at the middle of her cycle, usually day 14. The first day of her period starts on day one of menstruation. Her cervical mucus will be thick and white during ovulation. This is usually noticed by changes in discharge left on her underwear.

  Additionally, a woman can note her fertility based upon her basal body temperature. Each morning, prior to getting out of bed, take your resting or basal body temperature. Be sure to chart it daily. During ovulation, your body temperature will rise slightly, sometimes as little as a degree. However, you are most fertile the two days prior to the rise in temperature. The rise in temperature lasts for three days. Monitoring this on a monthly basis will help to better predict your ovulation in the upcoming month.

  If charting proves to be too complicated, ovulation prediction kits can be purchased. These kits, however, require very accurate, targeted sexual intercourse to time the conception precisely. This can make the process very clinical.

  Sexual intercourse could prove successful in fertilization up to five days prior to ovulation. Frequency is not as important as having healthy, viable sperm. Try to have sexual intercourse two to three times a week and at least once per day leading up to ovulation. The increased frequency, however, will reduce sperm count in males. This is not an issue for most men, but if the male has a low sperm count to begin with, this should be taken into consideration.

When to Get Help

• Seek a doctor's help if you have tried unsuccessfully for a full year to get pregnant. A couple under the age of 35 should be successful in pregnancy within a full year of trying. A couple over the age of 35 should seek a doctor's help after 6 months of unsuccessful trying.