Fertility Problems

To decrease your risk of infertility and increase your chances of becoming pregnant, use the following guidelines.

Track ovulation at home

• Estimate when you are ovulating by practicing fertility awareness, including:
  • Tracking your cervical mucus changes.
  • Tracking your basal body temperature on a monthly Fahrenheit temperature chart (What is a PDF document?) or Celsius temperature chart (What is a PDF document?).
  • Tracking your luteinizing hormone (LH) levels with a home ovulation predictor test. Many doctors now recommend home ovulation tests as the best method to track ovulation at home.
• Try this interactive tool to calculate your peak fertility .
• If you know when you will be ovulating, do not have sex during the 5 days before your 6-day "fertile window," which is ovulation day and the 5 days leading up to it. (Not ejaculating for a few days helps build up a man's sperm count.) Then have sex one time each day of your fertile window, including ovulation day. If your partner has a low sperm count, have sex every other day, since frequent ejaculation does temporarily lower sperm count.
• If you don't know when you will next be ovulating, have sex two or three times each week.⁶
• If you exercise strenuously most days of the week, reduce your level of activity. Very strenuous exercise can cause women to ovulate less often.

Protect sperm count and quality

• Avoid alcohol, smoking, marijuana, and other illegal drugs. Any one of these may affect fertility.
• If you use a vaginal lubricant during sexual intercourse, select one that does not kill or damage sperm.
• Stay at a reasonablebody mass index (BMI). This will increase the health of your reproductive system. A high BMI has been linked to reduced semen quality and changes in a man's hormones that may reduce fertility.
• If you exercise strenuously most days of the week, reduce your level of activity. Very strenuous exercise may be a cause of lower sperm counts in some men.
• High scrotal temperatures decrease sperm count and quality⁷, so avoid hot tubs and saunas.
• Try to control fever when you are ill. High fever has been known to have an adverse effect on sperm for 2 to 3 months afterward (sperm take this long to grow from germ cells to mature spermatozoa).

General measures

Now more than ever, it's smart to get regular exercise, eat a healthy diet, reduce or stop caffeine intake, and drink plenty of water. Women who are trying to get pregnant should avoid using alcohol and medicines (including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs], such as ibuprofen or aspirin).

Start taking a vitamin-mineral supplement. For women, taking a daily vitamin supplement with 0.4 mg (400 mcg) of folic acid before becoming pregnant reduces the chance of having a baby with a birth defect.

For more information, see the Planning for a Healthy Pregnancy section of the topic Pregnancy.