5 Things That Preclude Pregnancy
The results are negative again, what could go wrong? Actually, there are many things that can stand in the way of your getting pregnant. While you are trying, there are situations holding you back.
As you think babies but nothing happens, life around you seems to teem with pregnant women and babies in arms: they are in commercials on the television screen, in your favorite supermarket carted around the stands in their carriers, and the number of pregnant women living on your street has suddenly grown to an unbelievable extent.
Now that you are eager to join the extended family club, you’ve got conception, pregnancy and babies on your mind, and you imbibe all the information about it you can find. So you know how to set about it, and are probably aware that your first attempt may fail. But do you know what conditions work to diminish your chances of conceiving? You will find here some big reasons why you haven’t succeeded yet.
Being stressed out
Now that your family members and friends know that you want to get pregnant, you begin to hear advice to the effect that you should relax and let Nature take its course. Yes, it’s good advice, no doubt, but can it be followed that easily? There’s always some kind of stress, physical, mental, or both, aggravating your condition and messing with your chances of easy conception. You need a well-balanced mind and a calm body to conceive successfully. And if you simply take time off work, it doesn’t always do the trick, because it is usually accompanied with a self-imposed obligation to conceive, and that in itself becomes stressful. According to experts, the best way to cope with stress is exercise, art therapy, meditation and counseling rather than changing your lifestyle for a while.
Not getting enough sleep
Everybody will tell you that after you have had a good long shut-eye your working morning will somehow get a lot more productive, but when we get to it, the reasons why you should go to bed before the stroke of midnight are numerous and beneficial. Pregnancy is one of them. When you are deprived of sufficient sleep, the body is not ready to function in the best way possible. What’s more, the immune system becomes weaker, opening way for all kinds of infection, and stress level goes up, both affecting the reproductive abilities. (By the way, men are just as susceptible to this as women, especially if they get an infection – because the high heat from the fever can deteriorate the quality of their sperm for the period.) Besides, women with sleep deprivation sometimes develop anxiety strong enough to make them miss their periods. As soon as you have set yourself to become a mom, introduce a bedtime deadline and watch your favorite late-night serials on record.
The weight factor
There may be some problems with conception in store for women who are over or under the average weight. If the body is insufficiently nourished, it may fail to ovulate in a proper fashion. Excessive weight is also known to affect fertility adversely even with regular ovulations. It is not good for pregnancy with just a little extra weight, but as it gets higher above the Body Mass Index’s 25, the situation gets worse yet. Healthy diets and balanced exercising are always important, but twice as much when you begin to think babies.
Getting to know your cycles perfectly
According to naturopathic experts, women’s understanding of their cycles is far from exhaustive. Many of them get no further than the general information given to them in high schools about the 28-day cycle, but they may not realize that actually cycles vary with every single woman. When you want to conceive, timing becomes very important. All women should know that ovulation occurs two weeks prior to the period (not two weeks after, as many of them believe, it is all the same only for those whose cycle is a four-week one). So the idea is to keep tabs on the cycle carefully and engage in sexual intercourse in about the right period. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the very day, because sperm can live in the cervix during three days, so the day or even two days before will be quite all right. Another thing every woman ought to know is that lubricants can impair the transfer and motility of sperm, so it’s better to exclude lubricants if you want to conceive.
Maintaining a positive attitude
Remember that the mind and body are closely connected, and thinking along positive lines plays an important role in preserving the woman’s general healthy condition. There’s no need to relate to any negative information you might come by and remain patient. Once you’ve decided to try, you should remind yourself that conceiving takes some time (some experts say it may be as long as a year). On the one hand it is rather convenient because you have time to alter your routine to fit in with your future lifestyle; on the other hand some women can get worried that it should take so long. In this case a consultation with the healthcare provider may clear up issues linked with your fertility and give guidelines for treatment should it prove necessary.