Trying for a baby can be tough, especially when it feels like when you’ve made all the suggested lifestyle changes and are still getting nowhere.
But a new study has discovered a trick that could help to speed up the process and help you figure out how to get pregnant.
Research carried out by scientists in China, suggests that you are more likely to get pregnant if you have sex twice in the space of three hours.
The study, run by Dr Da Li at Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, found that sperm produced between one and three hours after a man ejaculates had the greatest numbers of proteins.
Proteins in the sperm are needed to help speed up their movement so that they can reach the egg and also help the sperm to fuse with the egg. So the higher the protein level in the sperm, the more likely it is to successfully fertilise an egg.
Published in the journal ‘Molecular & Cellular Proteomics’, the study looked at 250 men from 500 couples. The male participants were asked to provide semen samples either several days or less than three hours after they last ejaculated.
Scientists also looked at how the findings affected success levels in IVF.
They assessed 500 couples who were preparing for IVF and found that cases that used sperm ejaculated up to 180 minutes after a man’s previous ejaculation were a third more likely to be a success.
In general IVF live birth rates are typically around 30 per cent, so this information could help to improve that.
As well as fresh sperm containing more proteins, researchers also believe that older sperm is more likely to be damaged. So if you're wondering why you can't get pregnant, it could be because you're waiting too long to have sex, as the scientists estimate that the longer sperm is stored in the testicles before ejaculation, the more vulnerable they are to DNA damage.
So it might not necessarily be about boosting male fertility, but more about being clever about your tactics.
So if you're doing everything you can to increase your fertility, following a healthy lifestyle and eating what you should eat to get pregnant but still not getting there as fast as you would like to, going at it a couple of times a night might be your answer. There could be worse things…
