How to Naturally Boost Your Chances of Getting Pregnant
Getting pregnant takes time. Even for fully fertile couples in their twenties and early thirties, getting pregnant may routinely take several months. In your late thirties, you may feel you no longer have the luxury of time.
Luckily, you can take a few steps to optimize your natural fertility and conceive as quickly as possible. These include tracking ovulation and timing sex around ovulation.
What Is the Fertility Window?
The best way to get pregnant is to have sex every one to two days during the fertility window.
The fertility window is the five days of a woman’s cycle just before ovulation, when sex is most likely to result in a fertilized egg, as well as the day of ovulation and the day after. This amounts to around seven days of peak ovulation a month.
Typically, a woman ovulates a single egg each month. During ovulation, the egg passes from the ovary into the fallopian tube. If sperm are present in the fallopian tube, fertilization may happen. A man’s sperm can survive in a woman’s body for up to five days.
Ovulation happens a couple of weeks before a woman gets her period. A woman with a 28-day cycle, for instance, might expect to ovulate between days 12 and 14 of her cycle. This places the fertile window between (and including) days 8 or 9 through 15.
Not all women have a 28-day cycle. Normal menstrual cycle length varies among women, and some women have cycles that change length from month to month.
Using Fertility Awareness-Based Methods
Fertility awareness-based methods can help couples better understand a woman’s monthly cycle and when she’s ovulating so that they can make the most of the fertile window.
Fertility awareness-based methods for tracking ovulation include the following:
- Keep a menstrual calendar. This can help you become more aware of when you menstruate and ovulate.
- Take your basal body temperature each morning. A woman’s body temperature may fluctuate around 0.5 degrees F around the time of ovulation, so tracking when that change occurs can help to observe your body’s monthly pattern.
- Check your cervical mucus. As a woman gets close to ovulation, her cervical mucus goes from being thick and cloudy to thinner, clearer, and more slippery.
- Use an ovulation predictor kit. These pee-on-a-stick kits detect luteinizing hormone, a hormone that peaks just before ovulation.
Opt for Fertility-Friendly Vaginal Lubrication or Lube
Some vaginal lubricants may help make sperm move more slowly or decrease their ability to survive inside the vagina. These include commercial, water-based lubricants, saliva, and olive oil. You may want to choose a personal lubricant that’s fertility-friendly instead.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Reproductive Endocrinology recommend the following lubricants as safe for sperm:
- Cellulose-based lubricants, including Pre-Seed and ConceivEase
- Mineral oil
- Canola oil
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