Getting Pregnant After Going Off of Birth Control

Getting Pregnant After Going Off of Birth Control

June 27th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

If you think about it, we do so much to prevent getting pregnant when we’re young or simply not ready. Many women go to great lengths to ensure that they don’t get pregnant before they are ready to welcome a baby into their lives. They pick their partner carefully and often turn to various forms of birth control to ensure that pregnancy is not an option.

Many women end up taking the birth control pill at some point in their lives. This is a very popular method by which you can prevent pregnancy, and therefore many women turn to it. Some women take it for a number of years as it’s easy, so long as you remember to take it each and every day. If you want to avoid pregnancy or at least hold off for now, then the pill is the way that many women choose to go.

When it does come time for a woman to want to start thinking about pregnancy however, there can be concern about the number of years that she’s taken the pill. Will this hamper her chances of getting pregnant? Do you have to wait a certain amount of time before trying?

The Opinions Have Changed

Essentially what the pill helps in doing is preventing a woman from ovulating. This is an essential part of a monthly cycle, particularly when a woman is trying to get pregnant. Once a woman gets off of the pill, her ability to start ovulating comes back again. The amount of time that it takes a woman to start having a regular menstrual cycle may vary quite significantly. However once the cycle is back and a woman is ovulating and then getting a monthly cycle, she is certainly able to conceive.

You can see that according to most sources that it generally takes an average of two to three months for a woman’s cycle get back to normal and become a bit regulated. Because of that fact, many experts used to say that a woman had to wait a period of two to three months before even trying to get pregnant. This isn’t necessarily the case as it’s not a steadfast rule that a woman must wait to start trying. She may very well not be successful until things even out and her regular cycle is present. However, there is no real time limit that a woman must wait before she starts trying to conceive. It just won’t work until ovulation and a full monthly cycle is in effect, but no time limit is required anymore.

Listen To Your Body

Though the average amount of time that it takes for a monthly cycle to return is two to three months, it’s important to remember that this is just an average. It can take up to a year for a woman to get her body back into its normal state, and therefore you want to keep this in mind. If you have aspirations of getting pregnant down the road a couple of months, it can always be wise to get off the pill and see what your body does. Talk to your doctor as you decide to come off of the pill so that you know what you may be up against, depending on the type of pill you’ve been on and the amount of time you’ve been on it.

Every woman is different; therefore you want to always listen to your body. You will know when things are working as they should, and therefore conceiving will happen when your body is ready for it.

What You Need to Know About Pregnancy after 35

What You Need to Know About Pregnancy after 35

March 13th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

It is very common for women to wait until later in life to have children. Either they don’t find a partner until then and/or they choose to pursue their career before they settle down to have a family. Either way, the number of women who have their first baby later in life has increased significantly. The article “Babies Later in Life” on iParenting states that the number of women having their first baby between the ages 30-39 has doubled in the past 15 years. Women over the age of 40 having their first baby has increased by 50%.

This is important because there are special considerations for a woman when she has a baby over the age of 35. The first of these considerations is that a woman’s fertility begins to decline at around the age of 30. This means that by the age of 35, it can be more difficult to become pregnant as ovulation becomes unpredictable and erratic. It also becomes more possible for a woman to release two eggs during one ovulation and this means she will conceive fraternal twins.

When a woman who is age 35 or older decides to have a baby, her pre-pregnancy health is of the utmost importance, more so than if she were younger. Pregnancy over the age of 35 entails far more risks than pregnancy in younger women. Think about it like this. Females are born with all of their eggs. The eggs don’t form as women grow up or when they hit puberty. Every egg is already in a female’s ovaries when she is born. As the girl turns into a woman and the woman ages, so do the eggs. Over time, some of the aging eggs can become damaged or develop problems.

One of the risks with older eggs is the higher chance of a baby being born with chromosomal abnormalities. Down syndrome is one of the most common of these chromosomal abnormalities. The chances for younger women to have a Down syndrome baby are 1 in 1250. Once a woman reaches age 35, her chances are 1 in 378. By age 45, a woman’s chances of having a Down syndrome baby are 1 in 30! The chances of a baby with birth defects being born to an older mother increases as well.

Pregnancy itself is riskier when a woman is older. There is a higher risk that there will be complications. There is a higher risk of the mother having gestational diabetes, high blood pressure (known as preeclampsia), and vaginal bleeding. It is also more common for there to be problems with the placenta, placing both mother and baby at risk.

Of course, even with the higher risks, there are many, many mothers over the age of 35 who have happy healthy deliveries and babies. Having a baby when you are older does have its advantages. The mother is more mature and has more life experience to bring to her children. Of course, overall having a baby later in life is a personal choice that a woman must make. The important thing is that she makes that choice an educated one, being fully aware of the risks involved. Even more important is to make younger women aware of these risks. That way, if they don’t want to take the chances those risks entail, they may be able to choose to have their children at a younger age. If you do choose to have your children later in life, then take heart in knowing that successful pregnancies happen all the time and healthy babies are frequently born to older parents. No matter what you choose, enjoy the experience because there isn’t anything else like it in life!