Preparing To Get Pregnant

There are many steps in preparing to get pregnant. Ideally you need to:

• speak to your health visitor or GP about your plans
• stop smoking, if you can’t you need to at least cut down
• cut down on your alcohol, both you and your partner
• stop taking the contraceptive pill at least a couple of months before so you can get back to a normal cycle
• find out if you’re immune to rubella
• find out your blood group
• start taking folic acid and prenatal vitamins
• exercise: this will enable you to better cope with being pregnant
• diet: ideally you need to be eating a balanced diet
• cut out/down your caffeine intake

Folic Acid

Folic acid is a B-vitamin found in some enriched foods and vitamin pills. If women have enough folic acid in their bodies before pregnancy it can help to reduce the risk of the baby developing with brain or spine defects.

Studies have shown that taking at least 400mcg of folic acid during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, helps the development of the babies spinal cord.

Rubella

Rubella is a viral infection. If you acquire rubella while you are pregnant it could seriously affect the development of the baby in the womb

Your GP might look at testing your immunity to rubella (german measles), if you are not covered you can be given an injection.

Once you have had your rubella injection it takes about three months before you gain immunity, so it might be best to wait for those three months before trying to conceive.

When Is The Best Time To Conceive ?

If Day one is the first day of your period and it lasts twenty eight days (i.e. that time to the first day of your next period is twenty eight days) then ovulation occurs around day fourteen. In order to maximise the chances of becoming pregnant you should start having sex three to five days before ovulation and continue two to three days afterwards. Having sex on alternate days is adequate, having sex every day is ok too, unless your partner has a low sperm count.

Ideally the best time to conceive is from 3 days before ovulation (because sperm can live up to 3 days) to 36 hours after ovulation. You also need to work out when you are ovulating and you can do this in many ways:

• Ovulation prediction kits: these test your urine for a luteinizing hormone
• BBT ( basal body temperature) method: this is when you take you temperature everyday, when there is a rise of 0.5 above 37 celsius you are ovulating.
• Vaginal Mucus: your mucus will increase and change in consistency when you are due to ovulate.

Half of all couples tend to conceive after about four months of trying. By six months this has risen to around seventy five per cent of couples. After twenty four months ninety per cent of couples have been successful.

If you have been trying for over six months without getting pregnant it might be time to see your GP or gynaecologist