After having a miscarriage, you may have feelings of sadness, guilt, frustration, anger and hopelessness. You are not alone. It is believed that 25% of all pregnancies result in miscarriage. According to some researchers, if you include women who were unaware of pregnancy, this number may be as high as 70%.
How do you know the right time to conceive?
Many women focus on when their body is ready to conceive, but it will be equally important to make sure you are mentally ready for pregnancy again. Attempting to get pregnant after a miscarriage involves the ability to relax and be patient. It may take some time to get pregnant after a miscarriage.
It may be difficult to trust again that you will get pregnant and have a full term pregnancy after miscarriage, but following are things you can do to increase your chances of having a full term pregnancy with a healthy baby.
How To Get Pregnant Naturally After Miscarriage
While doing research for this website, I ran into a great website by Lisa Olson, a nutritionist and fertility consultant, who herself experienced miscarriage before becoming pregnant with 2 healthy children. I recommend reading through her website to see what she did to create a “healthy baby” environment in her body. You can find her website here, Pregnancy Miracle.
In this article I’m going to explain to you the best time to get pregnant after miscarriage and 3 suggestions that will help you get pregnant quicker after your miscarriage.
How do you know when your body is ready?
You will not be as fertile right after your miscarriage. This is due to the fact that your body needs some time to readjust to ovulating again. It may take your body anywhere from four to six weeks for ovulation to normalize again. As soon as ovulation renormalizes itself, fertility is restored.
How long you should wait to get pregnant again after miscarriage largely depends on the severity of the miscarriage. However most medical professionals agree that even if you have regained normal ovulation cycles, that you should wait at least two months to six months before attempting to get pregnant again. If you’ve had multiple miscarriages it is best to wait longer than the suggested time to get pregnant as there may be other medical factors at play that need deeper assessment.
You may become pregnant after miscarriage as soon as your ovulation has restarted and has begun to normalize. If a woman has had a D&C treatment due to miscarriage, it is suggested that she waits a month to a month in a half at minimum before attempting to get pregnant again. This allows your body to heal itself after this procedure.
What’s a D&C Treatment?
D&C treatment is a surgical procedure which involves the opening of the cervix (dilation) and removal of the remnants of pregnancy from the uterus (curettage). Curettage is usually done by vacuum extraction or by scraping the uterus with a special instrument. D&C treatment usually only happens in pregnancies that were in the 10th week or beyond at time of loss.
3 Ways To Get Pregnant Sooner After Miscarriage
There are three things that you will need to be cognizant of before attempting to get pregnant again that will help you get pregnant sooner after your miscarriage.
1. Let your body heal
The first suggestion is allow your body to heal fully. You may want to start the process of getting pregnant right after the miscarriage and rush to become sexually active again. This can cause more damage, as the healing process is hindered and has the potential to introduce infection. Ideally you want to wait until you have had 2 to 3 normal menstrual cycles before attempting to conceive.
2. Is it really that important?
Oftentimes we may skip over a healthy diet and try to find “magic” solutions, but a healthy, organic diet will be essential if you want to conceive again. There are some foods that are harmful to your body that can increase the chances of miscarriage or reduce your chances of getting pregnant.
What are you putting as fuel in your body? Eat foods that are conducive to fertility, which includes a balanced diet that is full of whole grains, fruits and vegetables and protein. Whole foods are best, those that have not been genetically modified or processed. You may even want to introduce more raw foods in your diet, those foods that are in their natural state and uncooked.
Foods To Eliminate
Dangerous Oils – When cooking, whenever possible choose olive oil or sesame oil. Cold pressed cottonseed oil can inhibit fertility. Take a look at the foods you eat in packages before consuming. Many packaged foods are made with cottonseed oil.
Caffeine – If you are a heavy coffee drinker, try to reduce or eliminate (better) coffee from your diet. Replace it with non caffeinated drinks. You may also want to eliminate or reduce your consumption of soft drinks (sodas) and chocolate. You will have to become a label reader on this one, some cold remedies also contain caffeine. The more caffeine you consume the least likely you are to conceive. Caffeine can reduce your chances of becoming pregnant by up to 50%.
Smoking & Alcohol – It is widely known that smoking and drinking should be eliminated during pregnancy, but when you are trying to conceive they should be eliminated also. Both reduce your chances of conceiving.
Aspartame – This is found in many sweeteners. If you are a big Diet Coke fan, you may want to eliminate it from your diet. Move more to unprocessed, whole foods. Aspartame can possibly increase prolactin levels, which can prevent ovulation from occurring.
Milk – This may be surprising but reducing or completely eliminating consumption of milk will be helpful in conceiving. Many dairy products are rich in galactose and women with the highest concentrations of galactose are infertile.
When trying to conceive, the best thing to do is to focus on organic, whole foods which are free from pesticides and are not processed. Foods closet to nature are going to create a healthy environment in your body that is conducive to pregnancy.
3. Best exercises to help fertility
Doing gentle exercises such as yoga can help one get pregnant quicker. Of course get the approval of your physician before engaging in any exercise activities. Yoga and other gentle exercises can help one reduce stress, make one feel better about them self, and help massage the internal reproductive organs which strengthen them. A healthy body is a body that is conducive to getting pregnant easier.
Be careful: Don’t overdue exercise, strenuous exercise can have a negative effect on conceiving.
Going through a miscarriage is difficult. There is so much information on the internet and in books that you can easily get confused. It is best to choose a program to follow and stick to it. One of the best programs I have seen on the internet that involves eating natural foods and preparing your body for pregnancy is Pregnancy Miracle by Lisa Olson. You can visit her website here, Pregnancy Miracle.