With a new year comes new hopes, dreams, goals -- and sometimes new challenges. If 2021 is the year you decide to start on the path to parenthood or begin fertility treatment, there are a few things you can do to improve your chance of success in the new year.
1. Maintain a Healthy Weight
Being over or underweight is one of the most common causes of infertility in women. For underweight women, menstruation can become irregular or cease altogether. Those who are overweight may experience irregular menstrual cycles and have been shown to have lower fertility rates than those who are a healthy weight.
For men, being overweight has been linked to lower sperm counts, making it more difficult for them to impregnate their partner.
1. Kick Your Vices to the Curb
Whether it’s cigarettes or alcohol, if you’re trying to conceive, it would be best to quit now. Heavy alcohol consumption has been tied to reduced fertility in women and men. Smoking has been shown to decrease a woman’s egg count and quality, and negatively impacting sperm quality in men.
For women, in particular, giving up smoking and alcohol is important if they are planning to conceive – not only because it decreases a woman’s chances of conceiving, but can impact the health of her baby when she does get pregnant.
3. Get the Right Vitamins
Most women already know the vital role vitamins can play in their daily health and when they try to get pregnant. According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, women should begin taking folic acid once they start trying to conceive and throughout their pregnancy to help prevent birth defects. Vitamins such as Vitamin C, D, and B-12 can also help improve outcomes for mom and baby.
4. Reevaluate Your Diet
While maintaining a healthy diet won’t guarantee success when trying to conceive, small tweaks to your diet can help your chances. For example, women who consume full-fat dairy have been shown to have a lower incidence of ovulatory infertility than those who consume low-fat dairy.
5. Speak to a Specialist
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine suggests that couples, where the woman is under 35, should seek fertility help after a year of trying to conceive without success. While women over 35 should seek fertility help after six months. Women who are 40 or older should speak to a fertility specialist as soon as they decide they’d like to conceive.
If you’ve been trying to conceive without success, contact the fertility specialists at IVF FLORIDA today to schedule a consultation or contact us at 954-247-6200.
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IVF LORIDA at 23 Dec 2020
Traveling during the holidays can be stressful for anyone, but add fertility medication and COVID-19 to the mix and the stress can become too much to handle especially for those who are mid-cycle. To help relieve some anxiety associated with holiday travel during fertility treatment, the fertility experts at IVF FLORIDA are here to provide some helpful tips to make your trip as stress-free as possible.
Tip 1: Plan Ahead
If you’re in the midst of an IVF cycle, you know that timing is everything, and traveling during an IVF cycle requires a strict schedule. Before booking your travel arrangements, speak with your care team to make sure you get anything you’ll need (from monitoring to additional meds) ready to go before you leave town. Some key things to speak with them about include:
- Monitoring: If you’re in the middle of your cycle, it’s important to schedule monitoring appointments at a fertility clinic located in your destination. Practices that are part of a large network, like IVF FLORIDA, have partner practices all over the country with qualified fertility teams that can monitor you while you’re out of town.
- Medication: You may need to obtain prior authorization from your insurance company for things like blood draws and medication if necessary, including refills of extra medication for your trip if needed.
Tip 2: Be Informed and Check with Your Airline
If you are traveling by air, reach out to your airline before your trip, so you have all of the information you need well ahead of your vacation. Your airline can let you know about specific protocols surrounding syringes, needles, and medication that needs to be refrigerated. Remember that every airline is different, so some airlines may only allow certain packing materials to keep meds cold and may have specific rules for traveling with liquid medications.
In addition, when you arrive at the airport, speak with the TSA to let them know you are in the middle of fertility treatments and carrying medication and supplies including syringes. You can also request an X-Ray exemption if your doctor informs you that your medication shouldn’t go through the x-ray process. You may need a note, so check with your doctor before you go.
Tip 3: Pack Accordingly
Never place your fertility medications or supplies in your checked baggage. Airlines regularly lose checked bags, sometimes taking weeks to get them back to you, which can wreak havoc on your fertility treatment schedule and completely throw you off of your cycle. Instead, make sure to properly store your fertility medications (and any other materials you may need, like gauze or alcohol wipes) in your carry-on bag, so they are easily accessible during your trip. Finally, make sure to carry the emergency contact information for your clinic and pharmacy on you – just in case.
Traveling during an IVF cycle can be stressful, but with some careful planning and help from your team of fertility experts, it doesn’t have to be.
Remember, your care team at IVF FLORIDA is here for you every step of the way! If you have any questions regarding traveling with fertility medications or would like to schedule a consultation, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
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IVF FLORIDA at 7 Dec 2020