I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Meera Shah, Fertility Specialist and Reproductive Endocrinologist of Nova Fertility, on Instagram about all-things fertility. If you would like to see our full interview, CLICK HERE to watch or you can listen to the interview as a Podcast by CLICKING HERE.

 HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR FERTILITY

• Eat a healthy, well balanced diet. Make sure you are including lots of fruit and vegetables. Try to minimize processed foods.

• Take a prenatal vitamin and minimize caffeine and alcohol intake

• Exercise to be optimally fit for pregnancy. The recommendation is 150 minutes every week (or 30 minutes 5 days a week), but anything is better than nothing!

• Ask your primary care provider to order a baseline workup to make sure your reproductive health is in order to start trying to conceive. The tests Dr Shah recommends are: Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH), CBC (blood), Vitamin D (blood), Hemoglobin A1c (blood), and Thyroid Tests (blood). If your partner will be contributing sperm and you have concerns, a sperm analysis can be ordered

• If you are under 35 and have a regular, monthly cycle: try by having sex every 1-2 days during your fertile window* for 12 months prior to a referral to a fertility specialist

• If you are over 35 and have a regular, monthly cycle: try by having sex every 1-2 days during your fertile window for 6 months prior to a referral to a fertility specialist

• If you are any age and NOT having a regular, monthly cycle, ask for a referral to a fertility specialist

Thank you so much to Dr Shah for lending her expertise and time! You can find Dr Shah on Instagram, where she shares about fertility and women’s health.

 *Your fertile window is the day your egg is released each month and the five days beforehand, when you are most likely to get pregnant. You can use ovulation urination tests to pinpoint your ovulation, but that only shows you the date you ovulated (not the five fertile days before). I got tired of my bathroom smelling like pee and decided to invest in an AVA. AVA is a wearable sensor bracelet that you wear for at least 4 hours at night. It uses 5 physiological markers to predict “real time” your fertile window (Skin Temperature , Resting Pulse Rate, Heart Rate Variability Ratio, Perfusion, Breathing Rate). Once it “learns” your patterns, it predicts with 90% accuracy your 5 day fertile window (the 5 days before ovulation). It is ideal to know when you ovulate so that sperm can be hanging around to fertilize the released egg. I used Ava to conceive both of my babies and it helped to eliminate some of the stress I put on myself and I get that I could rest assured that I was doing everything possible to get pregnant.

You can order AVA here and use their ‘Pregnant in a Year’ guarantee. You can see my unsponsored review of AVA HERE. Ava does not work if you are undergoing fertility treatments.sxwqz