Some common reasons include stress, not timing baby-making sex with ovulation, residual effects of hormonal birth control, and certain health conditions. As much as we may try, pregnancy really can't really be planned—but you can increase your chances by being aware of common pitfalls.
Dr Priti explained, “An unhealthy lifestyle, weight issues, high stress and confusion about the fertile period could be possible reasons for not getting pregnant.”
Common causes of infertility include: lack of regular ovulation (the monthly release of an egg) poor quality semen. blocked or damaged fallopian tubes.
If they are having regular unprotected sex: more than 8 out of 10 couples where the woman is aged under 40 will be pregnant by 1 year. more than 9 out of 10 couples will get pregnant by 2 years.
If your menstrual cycle lasts 28 days and your period arrives like clockwork, it's likely that you'll ovulate on day 14. That's halfway through your cycle. Your fertile window begins on day 10. You're more likely to get pregnant if you have sex at least every other day between days 10 and 14 of a 28-day cycle.
What Causes Infertility? Problems with ovulation are the most common reasons for infertility in women. A woman's age, hormonal imbalances, weight, exposure to chemicals or radiation and cigarette smoking all have an impact on fertility.
There are some relatively controllable factors that may be slowing down a couple's ability to conceive. For women, they include being too overweight or underweight, eating disorders, excessive exercise, smoking and drinking.
Urination: Some people incorrectly believe that urinating after sex can flush out sperm from the vagina. However, as urine comes out of a small hole called the urethra, peeing after sex will not remove sperm from the vagina.
Because a certain percentage of our eggs are abnormal at any age, and because fertilization has to happen within a narrow window after ovulation occurs, even a young, healthy woman trying to get pregnant has only about a 25% chance each month.
Peak male fertility is around 25-29 years old. Sperm quality begins to decline at 30. At 45, men begin to experience a significant decrease in semen volume. Older men can also take longer to conceive a child.
Of all couples trying to conceive: 30 percent get pregnant within the first cycle (about one month). 60 percent get pregnant within three cycles (about three months). 80 percent get pregnant within six cycles (about six months).
You could be worrying that you never will. However, there are many possible reasons why you aren't conceiving, including ovulation irregularities, structural problems in the reproductive system, low sperm count, underlying medical problems, or simply not trying enough.
“And, at your fertile time, the mucus is quite receptive to sperm right there.” The fastest and healthiest sperm go right into your cervical mucus “instantaneously,” she says, making pretty much zero difference whether you lie there for a while after sex or get up and move.
How many sperm do you need to get pregnant? It takes just one sperm to fertilize a woman's egg. Keep in mind, though, for each sperm that reaches the egg, there are millions that don't. On average, each time men ejaculate they release nearly 100 million sperm.
Is it possible? Pregnancy is very unlikely if a person wipes semen on the outside of the vagina — the vulva. For pregnancy to happen, semen has to get inside the vagina.
The days before and during menstruation are the least fertile days of the menstrual cycle. People with a menstrual cycle that is shorter than 28 days could ovulate within days of their period ending.
A first-of-its-kind study, published earlier this year in Human Reproduction, found that couples in North America are most likely to start trying to conceive in September, but that they are most likely to succeed in getting pregnant in late November and early December, especially if they live in southern US states.
The best time to try for a baby is on the days leading up to ovulation and the day of ovulation itself (ovulation is the process when an ovary releases an egg). Since sperm can live up to 5 days inside a woman's body, timing sex for the days leading up to ovulation can also lead to pregnancy.
Some studies suggest that moderate ejaculation (2–4 times per week) is associated with a lower prostate cancer risk. However, ejaculating more often doesn't mean your cancer risk drops even more.
Semen needs a healthy concentration of sperm for optimal fertility. Fertile semen contains at least 20 million sperm per mL, with a total volume of at least 2 mL. In other words, a healthy male should release at least 40 million sperm per ejaculation.
Summary: Sperm in the first fraction of ejaculate are more numerous, move more and present better quality DNA than those lagging behind.
The concentration of sperm is what makes the semen cloudy and thick, so if your ejaculate is watery it is possible that you have a low sperm count. This doesn't mean you're infertile (so precautions to prevent pregnancy still need to be taken for couples that don't want to get pregnant).