COMMON CAUSES AND REASONS FOR NOT GETTING PREGNANT!

1. Too Much or Too Little:

It is perhaps the most vital and basic of human needs to have sex and reproduce. However, it is essential to ask yourself-

Are you having intercourse enough number of times to be able to improve chances of getting pregnant?

Are you having too little intercourse that could be hampering your chances of conception?

Either way you swing on the above question, the result won’t be good. It is important to have proper and healthy sex life, with ensuring that the timing is according to the female partner’s ovulation cycle. There are many applications available today that can help track the approximate accurate time for ovulation. However, if you do not have a healthy sex life, it is important you consult a doctor and work towards overcoming any apprehensions and inhibitions that you may have, in order to conceive.

Do you have sex when you are think you are ovulating? It is very easy to skip the fertile period if you are just having sex when you are ovulating. Samuel Wood, the medical director of Reproductive Sciences Center at La Jolla CA, advises to have sex as often as they like, and more frequently during few days before ovulation. If you have irregular periods or problem tracking your fertile windows use an ovulation kit. If the result show that ovulation will happen within 1 or 2 days then make sure to have sex during this time. Keep in mind, that if you just have sex for having baby in mind, then you can’t enjoy the process.

2. Are You Stressed?

A little bit of stress is very normal during pregnancy. However, if you are stressed day in and day out, then you should contact your midwife or doctor right away. Since, constant anxiety can affect the baby directly. The stress hormone cortisol can cross the placenta and affect the building blocks of your child’s emotional and physical development.

Many complex factors can influence the child’s ability to learn and his cognitive ability to relate to the world. So for your baby’s sake you need to control your stress levels.

Here are some ways you can reduce your stress levels:

• Take enough rest and don’t feel guilty about it. Your body is working extra hard to nourish your baby and you. So you feel fatigued most often and need sleep. So go to sleep early.
• You can sing or read to your baby because he or she can hear you from about 23 weeks. This is a great time to bond with your unborn baby. This will give you great joy and reduce stress immediately.
• If you are having a personal problem or you are concerned about for baby’s wellbeing talk to your doctor or midwife. If you are honest while expressing your concerns you will get proper help.
• Talk to your partner about these fears and you may find that he might have similar fears and other thoughts that didn’t occur to you before. Talking it out is a great way to reduce stress.
• You can also communicate or chat with other moms to be in the antenatal exercise class and who are in the same stage of pregnancy as you are. This will help you to understand how others are tackling the same problem and you will get some ideas to solve your problem too.
• Eating well is essential for both your mind and body. Nothing looks good on an empty stomach! A healthy diet of omega 3 essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals can lift your mood. Omega 3 fatty acids are found in fish like tuna and salmon. So try two portions of oily fish every week. You can have yummy preparations made from tuna, salmon, sardines, mackerel, pilchards and trout. Always eat freshly cooked fish and make it at home to avoid food poisoning.

It is also important to have essential amino acid tryptophan to boost your mood. The body can’t produce tryptophan and gets it from food you eat. Tryptophan raises the levels of brain chemicals like melatonin and serotonin that helps you to sleep well and lifts your mood. Having nuts, seeds, freshly cooked chicken and turkey, yogurt, cheese, fish and eggs helps to introduce tryptophan in your body and helps to make you feel rested and cheerful.

• Stay hydrated by drinking enough water because dehydration can cause headache and make you irritable.
• Exercise, though gentle, can improve your mood drastically. It is perfectly safe to exercise during pregnancy and helps to keep your stress under control. Pranayama or breathing exercises and prenatal yoga works magic in improving your mood. It also helps you to look at life from the positive angle and promotes a general sense of overall wellbeing.
• Take a relaxation massage and if you are using essential oils then ask the doctor whether it is safe to use during pregnancy.
• If financial stress is bogging you down then make a list of things you need for your baby post-delivery and see whether you can use them by borrowing it from friends or cousins, this will save a lot of money.
• Read enough but not overload yourself with information. You can clarify whatever you read with your doctor and find out if the claims made by certain book are true.
• If you are working while you are pregnant then talk to you employer about commuting. Talk an early maternity leave or try to work from home. Don’t let work stress eat into you and cause stress.
• Gradually prepare for your family life and express your concerns to the close members of your family and take their advice.
• Read comics or share a good joke with your friends and chat with friends who have great sense of humor. Since laughter is the best medicine to dissolve stress.
• Don’t let negative thoughts and worry take an upper hand stay positive.

Ask yourself this simple question, are you under a lot of stress. Stress affects us in more ways than we recognize and understand. There are a whole lot of online tests available today to assess if you are under stress.

Stress affects the way a woman’s body functions, affects the ovulation and menstruation cycles that could cause a whole lot of timing issues to get pregnant. Also, stress in men affects their sperm count and it often reduces the count by a considerable amount than is normally required for successful conception. Identify your stress level by:

Take a stress test and visit a doctor. See if you are under stress and take action to reduce that stress to cut one of the reasons of not getting pregnant.

[ Read: Food To Get Pregnant ]

3. Are You Running To The Bathroom After Sex?

Many women tend to rush to the bathroom after having sex to clean up, wash or just to relieve them. It is important to mention here that, it is essential to stay in bed for at least a minimum of 20 minutes post the sex activity to ensure that you can conceive and the sperm gets a chance to reach the egg. If you rise, rush and run as soon as you are done with the act, you are letting Mother Nature’s gravity drag the sperm out and the rest of it is washed away when you clean up.

So, it could be one of the reasons for not getting pregnant. Focus on relaxing and lying in bed for a while after the sex so that you can improve your chances of conception and getting pregnant.

4. Are You Drinking And Smoking Too Much?

Sometimes excessive smoking and drinking can reduce the chances of getting pregnant. Both these addictive habits have the ability to reduce the chances of getting pregnant by affecting the reproductive system in the body. To improve chances of getting pregnant, make sure you both quit or reduce smoking and drinking.

5. Are You Both Wearing Undergarments A Tad Too Tight?

Many a times we wear undergarments that are too tight to get the shape right or feel better. It is important to understand that while you are wearing these tight undergarments to accentuate your body and figure and feel good, you might unknowingly be damaging your body’s production of sperm in a man, and reduce the breathing and comfort when it comes to a woman.

Wear well fitted, but prefer cotton undergarments to avoid any kind of infections, reduce sweating and related problems, and allow your privates to breathe and relax.

6. Are You Working Out Too Much?

While you might be a health freak and working out to sweat it all out in the gym, it is important to understand that extreme exercise can be one of the major contributing factors for not getting pregnant. If you are working out too much, you are reducing your fat percentage in the body and as a result sending your menstrual cycles into a toss, leaving your body in a state of not being able to get pregnant. Overweight and underweight are both a problem area for conception.

7. What To Do If You Need Your Daily Dose of Exercise?

While you might feel it is okay to work out as much as you do, it could be important to reduce your exercise levels just a little to be able to get pregnant. Check with your doctor to understand the optimum level of exercise you should undertake to stay healthy and get pregnant.

• Reduce the use of treadmill to an optimum speed and time to get pregnant
• Exercise in moderation
• Don’t stop exercising once you conceive
• If there seems to be side effects, contact and reach out to your doctor

Besides the above given reasons, there might be a steep chance that you are doing everything right and leading a balanced lifestyle and taking good care of yourself, but the ability to conceive still evades you. It could then be a case of a medical condition that can exist in either of the partners. It is important to note that though sometimes, there are cases where lifestyle, living and work patterns become the causes and reasons for not conceiving, at other times there are underlying medical conditions that might need the advice and guidance of an expert.