Tips for Getting Pregnant

As a fertility doctor, one of the most common questions is, “How do I get pregnant?” 

I’ve created a few YouTube videos about baby-making sex, and this blog post will distill meaningful information about getting pregnant. 

Let’s start by reviewing the five main things to consider when you’re ready to start a family. 

Think about when to stop your birth control and medications. 

If you’re on a long-acting form of birth control such as Depo-Provera (a shot of progesterone that you get every three months), it can take anywhere from 3-12 months for your body to start ovulating again once stopped. For other forms of birth control, like birth control pills, you can often ovulate a complete of weeks later and, as a result, conceive quickly. 

Consider a preconception visit if you’re taking prescription medications or have chronic medical conditions. I strongly recommend this for people with heart disease, high blood pressure, and prescription medications. Make sure your health is optimized before you get pregnant. 

Start learning about your menstrual cycles. 

When you’re thinking about getting pregnant, you’ll need to know when you’re ovulating. Tracking your cycles is a good first step to determining this. 

Most women don’t learn about tracking their cycles in health class (although we should). It’s helpful to know your cycle’s typical length, whether it’s 28 or 32 days long. If you do not have regular menstrual cycles after three to six months of stopping birth control, this might indicate that you’re not ovulating. 

It can be frustrating to find out that you’re not ovulating a year (or even two) into trying to start your family. In season one of my podcast Baby or Bust, Karen Jefferies of Hilariously Infertile mentioned that she wished she’d seen a doctor sooner to diagnose and treat her PCOS.  I highly recommend marking down when you get your period, even on a paper calendar, so that you can observe the trends over a few months. 

Other people track their cycles by taking the basal body temperature or using ovulation predictor kits. There can also be physical signs of ovulation, such as changes in cervical mucus. 

There’s an excellent book called Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler that can teach you all about your cycle. This book revolutionized education about cycles and helped people understand how to figure out their own body’s cycles. 

Kick unhealthy habits. 

The healthier you are, the more fertile you are, so if you’re planning to get pregnant, now is the time to kick any habits that aren’t ideal for your overall health. 

Quit smoking and vaping now; it poorly impacts your reproductive and overall health. Alcohol, while likely okay occasionally when trying to conceive, can disrupt sleep and be full of additives that are challenging for our bodies to process. (Once you’re pregnant, quit alcohol altogether to avoid the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome.) You also might want to avoid foods that can harm your fertility.

Start healthy habits. 

Fantastic if you're already healthy and feel great about what you're doing. 

If you’d like to be healthier to increase your fertility potentially, now is the time. Consider your nutrition and favor more fruits, vegetables, and plant-based proteins. Think about moving your body (not to extremes), but to get into an exercise routine. 

It’s also a great time to start a prenatal vitamin with adequate folic acid. You also might want to consider taking vitamin D, which I often recommend to my patients here in Seattle. 

Optimize your fertility by modifying your lifestyle in moderation. If you can eat well, move your body, get sleep, take care of your mental health, and focus on self-care for 80% of the time, that’s perfection in my book. 

Time intercourse for conceiving.

I have a video on how to time intercourse for making a baby, which I hope is helpful. The summarized version is that you’re fertile about six days before ovulation, and this period is called the fertile window. The egg is viable about 12-24 hours after ovulation, and sperm can live in the reproductive tract (to find the egg) for up to five days. 

Ideally, you want to have intercourse two to three times within your fertile window. You don’t need to have intercourse daily, and the sex position does not matter. Evidence also does not support higher chances of success if you keep your hips up afterward. 

If you’re getting ready to get pregnant, it’s all about planning. Be as healthy as you can within moderation. Take your prenatal vitamin. Have a preconception visit. Think about medications, and view this time as a way to be healthy before pregnancy. Lastly, learning about your cycle is essential not just for making a baby but for empowering yourself. 

Comment on my YouTube video if you have any questions. I hope this is helpful.