Fertility Week: Everything women need to know about their current and future fertility

The main exception to the rule: smoking. A cigarette habit will have an effect on almost all major health systems – your heart, your lungs and even your skin – including your reproductive system. Smoking gives a boost to the loss of eggs – women who smoke enter menopause an average of one to four years earlier than nonsmokers. (The verdict about vaping has still not been made public: "The problem with vaping is that everyone thinks it's not as bad as cigarettes, but we do not really know what it is. is, "says Dr. Knopman.

Weight can also impact your chances of having a baby (this also applies to male partners). "Obesity in women increases the rate of miscarriage and is badociated with worse outcomes for fertility treatments," says Dr. Brady.

The success rates with IVF – often hailed as a quick fix – range from around 5% for women in their early forties. "People are really shocked to hear that," says Dr. Brady.

Really shocked. Fertility doctors meet women every day who have been led to believe that egg freezing and IVF are limited risk insurance policies and optimistic safeguards.

IVF is A revolutionary science that has allowed more than 8 million births to women who otherwise would not have been able to get pregnant, since this procedure was developed in the 1980s. But "the success of IVF lies in much about the age of the woman, "says Dr. Knopman. "The younger you are when you create the embryos, the better the chances of these embryos becoming viable and leading to a viable pregnancy."

It's far from being an irreproachable promise, but the technology (and the advertising campaigns around it) has given an exaggerated sense of confidence about what fertility treatments can and can not do. "People arrive at 40 and say," Oh, I'm going to IVF, "and I tell them okay, but it can take a lot of tricks and it may not work," says Dr. Knopman. In other words, you can not just throw money at the problem: "It's not always a slam dunk," she says.

It is also important where you do your IVF. This is a technically challenging procedure, both artistic and scientific, and not all IVF clinics are up to the task. "Not all laboratories can recover and store eggs in the same way," says Dr. Knopman. "Laboratory conditions can alter the embryo." Before handing over your credit card, your body, or your dreams of future pregnancy, ask the right questions at the clinic: How many eggs did you have frozen? How many eggs have survived the thaw? How many eggs have made embryos?

Look for a clinic badociated with the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology, which monitors and monitors the success rate of a clinic.

"One of the biggest myths I hear is that the pill harms your fertility and that using a long-term pill is not good," says Dr. Knopman. This is not true. We repeat: hormonal birth control – whether you use the pill, ring, patch or hormonal IUD – does not affect your fertility.

"What birth control will not protect you is the loss of eggs," says Dr. Knopman. "Most of us are born with about one to two million eggs. By the end of our first period, most of us have about 350,000 eggs – you lose a lot before you even have your period. "Every month, whether you ovulate or not, about a thousand eggs die, their cells" From the first to the last period, you constantly lose eggs, no matter what you do, "says Dr. Knopman.