Pregnancy Planning in Times of Stress

Trying for pregnancy should be fun and relaxed, most couples manage quite well without a lot of plotting, tools or technique; now in times like this where diet, sleep patterns, work requirements, and financial constraints have been suddenly thrust upon couples, pregnancy planning is more difficult.

That being said, at times when we are all just at home with our partners, there is usually a bit of a bump in pregnancy rates. Not everyone had a spare stash of condoms at home!

But if you are thinking of pregnancy, one of the first steps has to be a bit of a health plan regarding travel and illness exposure. We have gone through this before in flu season (so planning your flu shot), to Zika exposure (a known potential cause of birth defects), to now the exposure to COVID-19 (exposure can be difficult to detect and being it was first identified a few months ago, none of the pregnancies have been tracked from the beginning).

Being at home for the two week lock down is probably not enough to get all couples trying to be pregnant, to actually be pregnant. Statistically between 50 and 60% of couples are pregnant after 6 months of trying.

And like all things in the health sector there are some myths about how to best ‘try’ for pregnancy.

One of the first questions many gynos get: is ‘do I need to lay down for a certain amount of time after we have sex to maximize the chances I will get better? Or can I still quickly run to the bathroom? Or do I need to put a pillow under my hips?! To answer the question of what is the best way to get pregnant regarding whether you need to rest in bed after sex in order to enhance getting pg  Dr.Coroday and collaborators from the University Hospital in Nancy France reviewed the information from 176 medical reports to come to the conclusion that yes, laying back improves your odds of getting pregnant, but by just a bit. It will increase pregnancy rates by about 60%, whether the couple was having sex, or getting inseminated. But the studies were not large and didn’t last very long so many gynos say that the advice to rest after sex is reasonable, but not necessarily a must when trying to get pregnant.

If all the quick little tricks like reclining after sex, plotting your cycle, measuring your temperature, or using ovulation predictor kits, you may want to progress to to progress to intratuterine insemination. Come in to Women’s Health Practice to discuss your options, and to make a pregnancy planning visit.