My Fertility

As many as one in seven couples in Europe have difficulty conceiving. In healthy couples with both partners under the age of 30 and regularly having unprotected intercourse, the chances of getting pregnant are between 25% and 30% each menstrual cycle. A woman's peak fertility is usually in her early 20s, and as she ages beyond 35 (and particularly after age 40), her fertility and chances of achieving pregnancy decline to less than 10% each month.

At birth, a baby girl is born with a finite number of follicles (usually around two million). By the time she reaches adolescence and the age of menarche, the number of ovarian follicles drops to about 400,000, of which less than 500 will achieve ovulation during her reproductive lifetime.

Unlike oocytes (eggs), sperm is produced in very large quantities. Each ejaculation can contain up to 300 million sperm, but during love-making only about one million (less than 1%) will make it as far as the cervix, and only 200 to 300 will meet the egg in the Fallopian tubes (about one in a million).

Getting pregnant requires very specific conditions to be satisfied. These conditions are only satisfied a few days each menstrual cycle. This is why the chances of getting pregnant on any day of the month are very slim.

This section contains information about the menstrual cycle and how monitoring your ovulation can help you to get pregnant naturally. You will also find out how different ovulation signs can help you to identify your fertile days more accurately, and what are the factors affecting your fertility.

We have also included a section on infertility, its causes, treatments and tests needed to diagnose different conditions.

We hope you enjoy browsing through this section and find useful information on what you are looking for. Please do not hesitate to contact us or ask one of our fertility experts if you have any questions.