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Conception

When's the best time to get pregnant? Use our interactive ovulation calculator to work out when you're most fertile and most likely to conceive.

Original poster

how ever did people get pregnant 30 years ago and beyond?

36 replies

wannaBe1974 · 28/07/2006 11:14

it always amazes me when people talk about ttc how you should drink this, and take that, and have sex in this position, and lie like that for ex minutes, and watch your temperature, and assess your cervical fluid ..... that I can't help wondering how people ever got pregnant before all this sort of thing was public knowledge.

Years ago people got married, had sex and had babies. It was never scientific, they did the deed and ivariably they got pregnant. and yet today with all this knowledge the birth rate has gone down and the infertility rate has gone up (with one in six couples struggling to conceive).

So are we taking it all a bit far now? should we maybe just lie back and relax and let nature take its course? after all if we have sex regularly then chances are if we're fertile we'll fall pregnant?

OP posts:
FrannyandZooey · 28/07/2006 11:22

STOP IT

FrannyandZ0oey · 28/07/2006 11:21

Apparently the water is full of hormones, as well.

Alcohol and cigarettes are also not a great boon to fertility.

FrannyandZooey · 28/07/2006 11:19

I think fertility is being majorly affected by chemicals in our food, things like mobile phones, pollutants in the atmosphere and hormonal disrupting chemicals in toiletries etc. Apparently men currently aged 30 to 40 are a better bet if you are trying to conceive now, then men aged 20 to 30. I think in the latter age group something like 1 in 4 will have fertility problems.

schneebly · 28/07/2006 11:18

I think it is too easy to get stressed out while ttc (understandably) but it is counter-productive to the whole process. You hear so many stories about couples who have been ttc for a long time without success and give up or go on holiday and bang it happens. I think relaxing is a big factor but also agree with morningpaper!

Beccy1974 · 28/07/2006 11:18

maybe they just had better sex then. more doggie style going on :-)

NotQuiteWanky · 28/07/2006 11:17

I think a lot of it is the fact we leave it later. Oh, and also the expectation that we can always fix problems of this sort.

foxinsocks · 28/07/2006 11:17

we know a few childless older couples - also dh's parents could not conceive more than one child. As Kelly said, as nothing could be done in those days, people had to accept their lot.

foxinsocks · 28/07/2006 11:16

we leave it later and our fertility decreases as we get older

Kelly1978 · 28/07/2006 11:16

not invariably though did they, I knwo quite a few old coupels who didn't have children because it didn't happen. People jsut accepted it mroe then I gues, since there was nothing that could be done.

hunkermunker · 28/07/2006 11:15

Lots of people didn't have children though. There are a lot of elderly childless couples.

morningpaper · 28/07/2006 11:15

They didn't shove hormones to suppress their fertility down their throats for 20 years before trying to conceive though

So that gave them a wider window of opportunity

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