Pregnancy health centre

Getting pregnant: Ways to improve your fertility

For some couples fertility and getting pregnant are as easy as eating cake. For others the world of reproductive technology becomes the only hope for conception.

However in between are a growing number of couples playing the fertility "waiting game”. Some may not yet be ready to turn to technology, while others may have failed to discover their problem even in a high-tech arena.

It is for this group that many doctors are now looking to the everyday factors that might make a difference.

"Sometimes everything looks good from a treatment standpoint, but still women don't get pregnant - so we have begun looking at other factors that might play a role”, says Dr Margareta Pisarska, editor-in-chief of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine News.

Behind the fertility smokescreen

Among the most important of these outside factors, say doctors, is smoking. While most people are aware that cigarettes and pregnancy don't mix, fertility experts say fewer seem to realise the impact that smoking has on fertility. The NHS says that not only is a woman’s fertility rate lowered by smoking, but a male who smokes can have a reduced sperm count - and that the sperm present are less mobile. Smoking can also lead to an increased number of deformed sperm.

In one study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, sperm counts averaged 17% lower in smokers. More recently, a Polish study showed that smoking dramatically lowered sperm count and disrupted the health of sperm. Pisarska says that women who smoke not only have a higher rate of infertility overall, but, if they do get pregnant, it takes a much longer time to conceive.

"We also know that smokers undergoing fertility treatments usually require much higher doses of fertility medication than non-smokers”, says Pisarska.

However, it's not just the smoke from your own cigarettes that matters. In a study published in Human Reproduction, doctors showed that second-hand smoke also reduced pregnancy rates in women undergoing high-tech procedures for infertility.

There is good news: reduce your exposure to cigarette smoke and you may fall pregnant faster and easier. The NHS says that boosting your fertility is one of the reasons to stop smoking - for both men and women.

Reduce stress, fertility prospers

Although the links between stress and fertility are slightly less clear, doctors are increasingly recognising that it does exist.

"There's no large data showing an obvious direct link, but that said, we are seeing more and more smaller studies that indicate stress-reduction techniques do have an effect on fertility, and I believe it's only a matter of time before someone puts all the pieces together and sees the overall impact of stress on the reproductive system”, says American fertility expert Dr Allen Morgan.

Dr Morgan says he and his colleagues have had some success when women undergoing treatments for infertility are also given a relaxing foot and leg massage just prior to embryo transfer.

Even more encouraging are the findings of Alice Domar, a stress expert at Harvard University in the US. She reports that a number of women undergoing stress-reducing therapies to help them deal with the frustrations of infertility actually got pregnant - simply by learning how to relax.