Ways You Might Be Affecting Your Fertility!

You may be young and in the pink of health, but some things that you're doing now could severely affect your chances of pregnancy in the future.

Just because you won’t be having a baby anytime soon doesn’t mean you don’t have to care about your fertility right now. “Lifestyle choices you make in your teens and 20s can have a significant impact on your fertility in the future,” says Dr Liow Swee Lian, Scientific Director at Virtus Fertility Centre Singapore.

According to her, your odds of success when it comes to childbearing decrease with each passing year. “Age is the major cause of fertility problems in women. The older they get, the fewer the number of healthy eggs they produce,” she says. “The normal monthly success rate for couples trying to conceive naturally at 25 years of age is approximately 20 percent.”

She points out that once a woman is 36 years old, her chances of conceiving naturally are half of what they were when she was 20, and by the time she’s 41, her chances of getting pregnant dip to just four percent. Sure, you may not intend to have a baby that late—but it doesn’t change the fact that it gets harder every year.

Here are six things she recommends doing so your odds of having a baby are better when you eventually try for one.

QUIT SMOKING FOR REAL

It’s no secret that cigarettes are bad for your health, so it probably isn’t surprising that it can affect your fertility.