Getting pregnant
How to get pregnant covers the essentials of getting pregnant and conceiving a baby. The biology of becoming pregnant, as well as a basic checklist of what to consider and do to get pregnant.
Getting Pregnant: the Basics
- The Biology of Getting Pregnant – Timing is everything. You are most likely to conceive the day before ovulation. How do you know when this is?
- Talk about getting pregnant with your partner – its a life changing decision, one you can’t go back on
- You and your partners health – how does your health and diet affect your ability to get pregnant.
Although 75% of couples get pregnant within the first six months of trying – getting pregnant is something that most people take for granted until they consciously begin to think about what’s involved.
The Biology of getting pregnant
You probably like most people and not thought too much about the biological mechanics of what happens when you get pregnant.
A normal, healthy couple only has a 25 percent chance of conceiving each month, even when they have sex right around the time of ovulation. After a year of trying, 75 to 85 percent of couples will have conceived.
Here is a basic explanation of the biology of getting pregnant.
Women are born with 250,000 follicles containing immature eggs, anyone one of which could be fertilized into a baby. The older you become the less fertile you become, hence “the clock is ticking” expression that some people use.
Women in their 20s are at their peak fertility, under 18years and you have a greater risk of having a still born baby or small baby.
Over 35 years have a greater risk of having complications with a greater chance of chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus.
Making a baby:
- Your ovaries must be making healthy eggs that are released when you ovulate each month..Knowing when you ovulate will increase your chances of getting pregnant. Women who have a regular twenty eight day cycle will ovulate around day fourteen, those with a longer cycle will ovulate later. Because sperm can live for 3 to 5 days in a woman’s reproductive tract, it is possible to become pregnant if intercourse occurs several days before ovulation. A better way than relying on the calendar to know when you ovulate relies on taking your temperature every morning, and seeing when your temperature goes up, as your temperature rises after ovulation and stays up until the next period.
- The egg which is released when you ovulate has to be able to move down to one of your fallopian tubes. Any blockages in your fallopian tubes will interfere with conceiving.
- The partner’s testicles have to be producing healthy sperm that can swim upstream through your cervix and uterus and into your fallopian tubes. Only one sperm is needed for you to conceive, however this little sperm needs to be a strong swimmer, and swim the distance equivalent to the swimming the English Channel three times without stopping. Once there the successful sperm needs to then penetrate the egg to fertilize it..
- After the egg is fertilized it then has to move down to the uterus at a time when it can be safely attach itself to the uterine wall, which will depend on your menstrual cycle.
- You and your partner have about three really perfect days during your menstrual cycle The ovum has only twelve to twenty four hours of life in which to match up with the right sperm\, while sperm have twenty four to seventy two hours of life.
To Conceive Boys or Girls
Can you influence your chances of having a boy or girl?
Yes if in theory if using IVF because sperm carrying the X chromosone creates a female and the Y chromosone creates a boy. Its still a subject of great contention and debate about how much intervention is and should be possible.
Another common theory which is contested by some experts (friends have often talked about this one when talking about getting pregnant) is based work by two doctors Landrum and Shettles.
In the 1960s, Landrum B suggested that men have two different kinds of sperm, female and male which behave differently. Male sperm is faster and more fragile than female sperm. The female sperm although slower swimmers than the males, were stronger and could last longer inside the women’s body.
- To increase your chances to conceive a boy – A Dr Shettles suggested to increase your chances of conceiving a boy, you should have sex when you are most fertile which is fourteen days after the first day of menstruation. This would allow the male sperm to swim straight and fast to fertilise the egg.
- To increase your chances to conceive a girl – Your chances of conceiving a girl would be increased if you had sex two or three days before you expected to be fertile as the stronger female sperm is more likely to survive and impregnate the women’s egg.
When to Stop Contraception
Two to three months should be sufficient time between stopping taking the pill or having an coil removed. This will give your body time for the ovulation to regain its regular pattern again. Women who finish with the pill don’t necessarily ovulate straight away.
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Talk about getting pregnant with your partner
Having a baby is one of the most important and life changing decisions a person or couple can make. Everyone is faced with ever increasing hectic lifestyles, careers, and a shortage of free time.
People are choosing to start their family much later in life and to become first time parents in their 30′s.
Having a baby was once described by someone as ” like having a hand grenade being tossed into a relationship”, having a baby creates a lot of change and stress in a relationship so its only right that those involves should discuss it before embarking on having a family.
Women often have the dilemma of continuing to develop a career and wanting to start a family. And then trying to identify the right time, and work through the practical and emotional pros and cons of having a baby.
Reasons for having a Baby
Negative reasons for having a baby
- To save your relationship – having a baby in the hope that this will keep your partner with you is not a good idea, any relationship that is shaky before a baby will continue to be shaky
- To please your parents or friends – don’t give into parent or peer pressure, stand firm and do what’s right for you, after all your baby will be with you for the rest of your life
- To escape having to work – don’t believe the hype. Even if you are feeling frustrated or stressed with your job, having a baby will not be an easier alternative, after all being a mother is 24/7
Positive reasons for deciding to have a baby
- Because you and your partner want to have a child – its a very emotional reason which may be hard to put in words for both partners, but it can “feel right”, as long as both partners want the same thing, after all its a life changing decision
- You want the challenge, pleasure of bring up a child – you want to experience and enjoy every stage of the child’s development, not just the resulting adult
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Read more about how Health and Diet can affect Getting Pregnant |
