10 basic facts you need to know about fertility

The question of fertility for a woman is very complicated. In fact, she spends a good part of her life trying to avoid pregnancies. At that juncture she is continually overwhelmed by questions such as: when will you have a child? And she already has one: when will you do the second one? Once she has had it she will probably say: that’s enough right now? Unfortunately, people don’t know how to mind their own business!

Especially when he dares to say: but now that you’re 40 isn’t it too late to have a child? Or: couldn’t you have thought of it before?

The choices a person makes are usually dictated by their personal experience. What we care about here is to help you in your decisions so that you can make them with awareness so as not to fall into: “if I had known before”

Given that we live in this body second after second and throughout our lives, knowing it and understanding the mechanisms that govern it also in terms of fertility both to avoid and to seek pregnancy, I believe it is a duty as well as a right .

So here are some of the cornerstones on fertility that we should all know:

What happens at conception?

Every month an egg cell matures in one of our ovaries and is released at the time of ovulation. When released, it is captured by the nearby tube where it can be fertilized by a sperm. If conception occurs, the zygote resulting from this union travels to the uterus where it implants itself in the endometrium ( nesting ).

If, on the other hand, the egg cell is not fertilized within the first 12-24 hours after its release, it degenerates.

When are you fertile? And for how long?

The egg cell remains fecundable for a maximum of 12-24 hours but the more hours pass the less it is fecundable. Spermatozoa can survive inside the female body for up to five days, so the effective “fertility window” is 7 days, the 5 days preceding ovulation, the day of ovulation and the day following it.

Once the egg cell has degenerated (24 hours after ovulation) the woman is no longer fertile until the following month when one of the two ovaries releases a new egg cell.

For this reason it is important to monitor the symptoms well whether you want to avoid or get pregnant.

How do you know when you ovulate?

On average, a woman ovulates 14 days before the next menstrual period (more correctly from 11 to 16 days before as this interval includes a normal length of the luteal phase).
Therefore most women do not ovulate on day 14 as many are still led to think. This error is often responsible not only for unwanted pregnancies but also for pregnancies that do not arrive because the days of targeted intercourse are wrong.

If you are regular, i.e. if the same days always pass between one menstruation and another, you can use calculators as a first point of reference, but then you actually need to have confirmation that you are ovulating at that time by observing the symptoms through ovulation tests , or cervical mucus or even better, using basal body temperature.

Are irregular cycles a sign of infertility?

Having irregular cycles does not mean being infertile or having who knows what infertility problems.

The key to fertility is ovulation, a necessary condition in order to get pregnant naturally.

Women with irregular cycles may have trouble conceiving, simply because it’s harder for them to track ovulation or predict when it’s about to happen. Once they can tell when they are ovulating there is no problem getting pregnant if there are no other problems.

If you have irregular menstrual cycles and have been trying for a baby for about a year without success, it is better to do some checks to understand the causes of the irregularity. In fact, although the irregularity can be caused by simple and treatable reasons such as stress, there are particular conditions such as PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome ) and endometriosis , which can affect fertility in a more relevant way.

What are the lifestyles that promote or damage fertility?

Fertility can be affected by several conditions that are (in part) out of our control (such as PCOS or endometriosis), but there are some steps women can take to try and maximize their chances of ovulating regularly.

And they are the following:

• Quit Smoking: There are billions of reasons not to smoke, and this is yet another: smoking ages ovaries
• Maintain the right weight: being overweight or underweight are conditions that can upset the hormonal balance and prevent regular ovulation.
• Practicing safe sex and getting regular checkups. STDs can harm your fertility without experiencing obvious symptoms. Calmidia and gonorrhea, when left untreated, can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), a serious condition that can cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissue In the United States, for example, PID causes infertility in more than 100,000 women each year. If you are sexually active, it is important to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases especially since most women with chlamydia and gonorrhea experience no symptoms. Even in the absence of symptoms, these diseases can harm the reproductive system.
• Limit alcohol and caffeine.
• Don’t exercise too much: In general, regular exercise is good for you, but if it’s too intense and frequent, it can cause fertility problems. It would be preferable to limit vigorous physical activity to less than five hours a week if you are trying to get pregnant.

How long does it take to get pregnant?

There is no one-size-fits-all rule. On average, 85% of women succeed within a year of targeted relationships. If you have been trying to get pregnant for more than a year without success, it is better to do some in-depth examinations (after six months if you are over 36 years old)

Men can be infertile too

Fertility is not just a female problem. Male fertility problems account for about 40 percent of infertility cases.

How Does Aging Affect Fertility?

Women’s fertility declines gradually: measurably from about age 32 but more rapidly after age 37. This does not mean that women over the age of 32 or 35 or older cannot get pregnant. It just means that women who are over 35 and are trying unsuccessfully to conceive should be quicker to consult a fertility specialist than younger women (if pregnancy does not arrive within the typical 6 months, the time frame in which many couples succeed to become pregnant). to you,

How do you know if you are fertile?

Just as there are many factors that influence fertility, in the same way we women have various tests available to evaluate reproductive capacity. They are tests that vary from hormonal dosages to specific and invasive diagnostic investigations that evaluate the shape and structure of the uterus and tubes.

What are the options to go through if there are fertility problems?

Since there are numerous causes of infertility, the treatments also vary according to the condition.

Drugs that regulate hormonal imbalances, others that stimulate ovulation, or surgery or a more or less invasive assisted fertilization treatment may be required.

Recently, egg freezing has been introduced to preserve a woman’s fertility, a treatment in which a woman’s healthy egg cells are removed and stored for future use. It is a highly debated and controversial solution. Some argue that the procedure’s current success rate (24 percent) is too low to justify its high cost.