Keeping Your Eggs Unscrambled
Putting Motherhood on Ice
from Plum - The Pregnancy & Parenting Guide for Women
You can't do much to stop yourself from getting older, but there are
other things your can do--and avoid doing--that will increase your
chances of being able to have a baby later in life.
- Stop smoking. Not only are cigarettes a terrible idea
while you are pregnant, they can also prevent you from conceiving in
the first place. The nicotine and other chemicals they contain
interfere with your body's production of estrogen, which regulates
ovulation, and can make your eggs more likely to have genetic
abnormalities. Smoking is also linked to early menopause. The good
news is that at least some of the damage can be reversed if you quit.
- Watch you weight--both ways. Turns out you can be too
thin. Nearly one in every eight cases of infertility is caused by a
woman weighing too much or too little. Thanks to the body's complex
chemistry, thin women may have too little estrogen and obese ones too
much; either can cause failure to ovulate.
- Have safe sex when you're not trying to conceive. Not
only for the obvious reason of avoiding unwanted pregnancy, but
because infection with sexually transmitted diseases can damage your
fallopian tubes and shut down your chances of ever getting pregnant.
- Exercise and eat right. A recent study by the Harvard
School of Public Health found that women who exercised regularly ate
balanced diets were significantly less likely to suffer ovulatory
disorders. That means avoiding trans fats and sugary sodas, getting
more protein from beans, nuts, and vegetables instead of meat, eating
whole grains, and, happily, indulging in the occasional full-fat dairy
product. The study is the basis for the new book, The Fertility
Diet (McGraw-Hill, 2007) by Jorge Chavarro, MD, Walter C. Willett,
MD, and Patrick J. Skerret.
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