How to Keep Your Body Baby-Ready
Want to be a mom eventually? If you want to increase your odds of getting pregnant later in life, then you need to kick these fertility-wrecking habits now
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Fertility RX 1: Get Screened for STDs
According to the Centers for Disease Control, sexually transmitted diseases are the number-one preventable cause of infertility, with gonorrhea and chlamydia claiming the top troublemaker spots. Since both can usually occur without symptoms, you must always be aware of your sexual health, practice safe sex, and get screened regularly.
Fertility RX 2: Avoid Getting Stressed Out
There's a big difference between being stressed and being stressed out. If you're constantly stressed to the max, your body stays in "fight-or-flight" mode, which translates to you getting bombarded with adrenalin and the stress hormone cortisol. Eventually, it becomes harder to turn off this stress response, and chronic stress may cause infertility because it can disrupt a woman's ovulation. Control your stress and boost your fertility by working out...exercising 30 to 60 minutes three times a week should do it. Plus: Learn how to fall asleep even when you can't shut your brain off.
Fertility RX 3: Maintain a Fertile Weight
Body fat and estrogen are closely related, so having too much--or too little--body fat can affect your fertility. A body-mass index of less than 18.5 or more than 25 can impair your fertility. For a 5'5'' woman, that translated to weighing no less than 111 pounds and no more than 150 pounds.
Fertility RX 4: Quit Smoking Right This Second
In addition to all the other harmful things that smoking can do to you, smoking can make you twice as likely to have a delay in conception and increase your odds of infertility by 30 percent.
MORE: Find out the Top 7 Health Rules for Young Women!
Now that you know the facts, do you know if your guy is man enough to knock you up? Find out why his size matters to learn a lot about a guy's ability to get you pregnant, just by looking at him.
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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.
