5 Surprising Ways to Boost your Fertility Naturally

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[Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or medical practitioner. Any medical information is strictly my opinion based on research and personal experience, and not to be taken as advice. Always seek the advice of a licensed physician for your medical needs. Read my full disclaimer here.]

Assuming you know the basics, I’m going to skip the obvious for now (c’mon people, if you need a blog to tell you that you should maintain a healthy weight + stop smoking if you want to increase your chances of getting pregnant, then…well, that’s a separate issue).
So here are some not-so-obvious, evidence-based ways to boost your fertility naturally:

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1. Eat more seafood.

In this study, men + women who ate 8 or more servings of seafood per cycle had a 61% shorter time to pregnancy than women and men who ate less. In other words, eating seafood may help you get pregnant more quickly. Just don’t eat seafood with high levels of mercury!
(As a side note, researchers did comment that seafood proved to be an aphrodisiac — so couples eating more seafood did have sex more often — but they still concluded that it couldn’t completely explain the high rates of pregnancy.)
*Check out my fertility-boosting original recipe for Hawaiian-style tilapia tacos (that don’t taste fishy!).

2. Get some sun.

And if you live in a place with dark winters like me, take a Vitamin D supplement. Although exactly how much of an impact Vitamin D has on fertility is somewhat debated, overall the results seem to be very positive. (Check out these studies by Lerchbaum, Chu, and Fung.)
On another note, Vitamin D has also been linked to an increase in AMH levels according to several studies, including this one. (Not sure what all that means? Check out my post on AMH levels here.)
(Not to mention, it’s a well-known fact that Vitamin D can improve your mood. So regardless of what’s the chicken and what’s the egg when it comes to anxiety and infertility, it can’t hurt to improve your mood!)

3. Eat more avocados.

I decided to include this at the risk of including something “obvious” here. If you’ve read any research related to infertility (or even just fertility blogs), you’ve likely come across this idea. Well, it’s true: monounsaturated fat can boost the rate of implantation (read my post on 2 ways to boost your odds of implantation here).

4. Take cough medicine.

This is a bit unconventional, and could be debated as a “natural” remedy. But studies have shown that it actually could work! Although the study on this is quite old, it did find that women with poor cervical quality mucus got pregnant fairly quickly when “treated” with Robitussin.
Important to note, though: a specific kind has to be taken at a specific time — read more on how to take Robitussin to improve fertility here.

5. Try acupuncture.

There have been dozens of studies that have shown the positive effects of acupuncture on fertility. I won’t list all of the studies here (if you want to read them, check out my post here), but there have been numerous studies proving not only that it improves conception rates, but also time to conception.
It is worth noting that there have been some studies proving that the placebo is just as effective. That bring me to my last point —

Lastly: Whatever you try, don’t be negative about it.

This is my own conclusion, drawn after reading dozens of studies that found a placebo to be just as effective as a lot of the treatments with vitamins, supplements, and acupuncture. Or reading this study that showed that pessimism correlated with negative IVF outcomes. Oddly enough, optimism didn’t necessarily correlate with positive outcomes. In other words, being neutral works too — you just can’t be pessimistic. So just don’t be negative! (And if you find that tough, like I do, check out my top 5 ways to stay positive when TTC!)

Also check out some practical ways that you can change your lifestyle to improve your fertility!

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