How To Improve Egg Quality: 8 Ways To Increase Fertility

Whether you're trying to get pregnant with your first baby or ready to bring a new addition to your growing family, making the decision to bring a new life into this world is an incredibly exciting one.

Unfortunately, it is not abnormal for many couples looking to get pregnant to face fertility issues and there are a number of reasons why this is the case. One of these many reasons is the quality of a woman's egg.

Taking steps to improve egg quality can sometimes help increase fertility. In our modern society, many people are having children later, and it is natural for a woman's egg quality to decline with age. In fact, at the age of 36, a woman is half as likely to conceive naturally as she is aged 20. Once a woman hits 41, her chance of conceiving is only 4% per month. The reason our fertility rate decreases is due to the lack of healthy, available eggs that a woman produces as she grows older.  The number of healthy eggs a woman produces after 36 is drastically lower, and this continues to decline as she ages. Other factors that might affect women, including premature menopause and chemotherapy, can speed up the reduction in the number of eggs a woman produces as she ages.

There is lots of advice on the internet for people seeking information on how to increase their egg quality and fertility. If issues around pregnancy are causing you stress, you can read our article on how to talk to your doctor about anxiety.

While there is no magic pill to improve egg quality in 30 days and no quick fix for improving eggs, the good news is a number of steps can be taken to try and improve your egg quality and in turn your fertility. We know having trouble getting pregnant can be a hard time, so we've taken the stress out of the research to give you the best chance of improving your egg health, quality, and fertility. Check out some of the best tips below, and we've got a huge range of helpful pregnancy content including information on what to do when you've just found out you're pregnant too.

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Improve Fertility By Starting Now

While this isn't a specific activity so to speak, it is an important part in improving your fertility and egg health. Results won't come overnight. Whether you want to improve egg quality for IVF, improve egg quality after 40 or improve egg quality with PCOS, the common factor is that your behavior changes have to start now. Any changes you make to your lifestyle, diet, and mental state to improve your chance of pregnancy will take time to kick in and actually impact the quality of your eggs. So starting now is essential. You'll notice the changes in time, but if you keep delaying the important changes below, your ability to improve your eggs for pregnancy will be delayed.

Put Your Own Health First

Improving your own health is a great way to improve the health of your eggs. A person who places importance on living a healthy life and taking care of their body will often see that health reflected in their egg quality. While this isn't always the case, putting your health first, with everything from food and diet to exercise could help improve your eggs and your chance for reproductive success. If you're overweight or you have a high BMI, taking steps to reduce this will improve your own health and could have positive impacts on the health of your eggs. You can speak to your doctor about exercising and amending your diet to lose weight if that's the situation you're in. If you're overweight and trying to improve egg quality naturally, prioritizing your own health by losing a few kilos could have positive results.

Eat Well

The internet is full of a million and one diets that promise to fix every issue and ailment. The world of fertility is no different. There is an endless list of diets and claims one food will solve all the world's fertility woes, fix every hormone, and give you the ultimate reproductive health boost. Unfortunately, many of these claims aren't true and everybody's reaction to specific diets is different. We've found that a healthy, well-balanced diet is best. Avoiding processed foods, and choosing healthy, good foods with clean energy can make a big difference to your health, energy levels, hormones, and hopefully as a result, to your fertility and egg quality too. Vitamin-rich foods, vegetables, fruits, and organic foods where possible are great starting points for improving your diet and in turn your egg health and chance to conceive.

Take Supplements

Taking supplements can be another effective way to improve your egg quality and fertility. The world of fertility supplements, fertility vitamins, and fertility boosters is an extensive and confusing one. The best fertility supplements and best fertility pills will be proven to work with dedicated teams of researchers showing evidence to back their claims. However, when you Google "vitamins for female fertility" or "vitamins to increase fertility" a million results will pop up, and it can be very hard and confusing to distill the information. The unfortunate thing is that there are many supplements on the market that claim to do things like improve egg quality and quantity but have no evidence to back the claims up. Folic acid, Vitamin A and E, and CoQ10 (coenzyme Q10) are supplements known to help with egg fertility. Any supplement for fertility that you want to take to support your rates of success as you try to conceive should be discussed with your doctor first as should any medicine you take while trying to conceive and once you fall pregnant.

Stress Less

Although stress may not directly affect your fertility, some research suggests that, regardless of age, women who lead highly stressful lives, or who are highly stressed, tend to take longer to get pregnant. Ensuring you're only experiencing a healthy level of stress could help support good ovaries and egg function. No matter your age, abnormal amounts of stress and the hormones that are associated with stress are known to cause a range of health issues for women and men alike. It's a good idea to find a healthy way to de-stress your body. Whether that's reading, writing, working out, or catching up with friends, do things that help you relax and your eggs and your whole body will thank you for it.

Consider Freezing Your Eggs  

Modern medicine has made incredible advances in supporting women and men experiencing fertility issues. There is IVF, DNA genetic testing, supplements like CoQ10 and so many developments to improve reproductive rates. Egg freezing is an option for women who want to protect their eggs and fertility so they can try to become pregnant via IVF later down the track. Technology such as IVF and egg freezing can help improve the success rates of pregnancy in women over 35 and women as they age and struggle with their ability to conceive. Egg freezing is often used by younger women, particularly women who aren't ready for pregnancy but want to have a child as they age. However, it can be expensive and it is important for women to understand that it comes with no guarantee of pregnancy and should be discussed with your doctor before you commit to anything.

Stop Smoking

Smoking has many negative health effects on our body and fertility is no exception. Your eggs' quality is affected by smoking. It is often considered that smoking adds years to the health of your eggs, meaning a smoker who might be in their mid-20s may have eggs with similar health to those of someone older. Speak to your doctor for support on quitting.

Do Things To Help Your Blood Flow

There are a number of ways you can increase the blood flow around your body. More healthy blood, rich in oxygen, flowing through your veins means more of the same blood going to your ovaries. This helps to improve egg quality for pregnancy. Exercise, ensuring you are hydrated and activities such as yoga can all help increase blood flow and help your body and cells prime themselves for pregnancy.

If you found this article helpful, then why not take a look at our tips for first-time dads or our [guide to freezing sperm] too?