If you are contemplating 'mommyhood' at some point in your future these three tips may help you protect and boost your chances of getting pregnant.
Don't Douche. Douching can wipe out normal, protective bacteria in the vagina, upsetting the natural balance and putting you at risk for bacterial vaginosis, a common but often overlooked vaginal infection. This infectin, if left untreated, has been linked to preterm labor and may be associated with higher risk of miscarriage and infertility.
Don't Smoke. Smoking is just bad for our health, period. But if you do smoke and need some extra motivation to quit, think about your fertility. Cigarette toxins not only damage a woman's eggs, interfering with the fertilization and implantation process, but also cause the ovaries to "age." You do not want your eggs to be 'older' than you are, especially if you are hoping to get pregnant! The good news here is that while smoking can cause permanent damage to your reproductive system, quitting smoking can help bring back some ovarian function.
Limit Alcohol. Too much alcohol can affect fertility in women, according to recent studies. Alcohol changes estrogen levels, which may affect implantation. Even two glasses of wine a day may hurt your chances of becoming pregnant. So if you want to have a 'baby belly' soon, it's best to skip the wine altogether. And research shows that that women who drank any alcohol along with more than a cup of coffee each day were half as likely to conceive as women who abstained from alcohol and drank little or no coffee per day. But drinking a cup of coffee each day in itself does not appear to affect fertility.
So if you are working on getting pregnant-- skip the wine and limit the java to one cup a day.
Read more about fertility at Parents.com