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The Right Way to Get Pregnant
By William Grigg
If you don't conceive the baby you want in a year or so of regular intercourse, talk to your doctor. You may be the one couple in six that has a fertility problem. Simple tests can often pinpoint and help overcome it. The problem can reside in your man about as often as in you, so he will need to be tested, too.
At some point, you may be referred to a fertility clinic or specialist. You may be prescribed a drug to trigger ovulation, and your mate's best sperm will be introduced by the doctor at that time. There are other technologies, too – some of them very expensive. There is also some risk of triggering two or more eggs and having a bigger family than you expected.
A: Certainly your doctor can increase your chances for a healthy outcome if you see him or her as soon as you're pregnant, but to get the very best odds for yourself and your baby, you should try to see your doctor well before you get pregnant.
Your doctor will have diet and lifestyle suggestions that should make for a healthier baby – and a healthier you, as well. You shouldn't wait until you know you're pregnant to eat well and take vitamins. You should check out what drugs you need to stop to prevent harm to your baby – before you even know you're pregnant. Also, as mentioned, if you are having trouble getting pregnant, your doctor can help with tests and suggestions that fit your situation.
Even with the best of care, there are hazards ahead.
In an NIEHS study of healthy women who wanted a baby, about one in five fertilized eggs failed to survive six weeks. That would be before you and/or your doctor even would know you are pregnant. It may be nature's way of sparing a mother the burden of carrying an embryo that cannot survive. Further along in pregnancy, a much smaller number of additional fetuses are lost in spontaneous miscarriages. That's always sad, but 95 percent of the women losing a fetus in the study got pregnant within two years afterward.
