Fertility & Pregnancy Myths

You shouldn’t exercise much.
Actually, one of the worst things you can do to your body is to stop exercising before or during pregnancy. Starting a pregnancy with low energy and too much weight will put you in line for joint problems, hemorrhoids, the sodden feeling we all get when we don’t have enough activity and a tough weight loss challenge once the baby is born.

It is true that some kinds of exercise are not safe for pregnant women: squatting and abdominal exercises in particular should be avoided.

But your trainer or aerobics coach will tell you what you shouldn’t do, and other than that, plenty of regular physical activity will keep you healthy throughout your pregnancy. If you’re not much of an exerciser anyway, you may want to start exercising some months before getting pregnant just to help yourself weather the strain on the back and to keep your energy levels higher.

Too much exercise would be something that a few athletes, ballet dancers or eating-disordered women do to keep their weight well down before normal levels. If you exercise so much that your periods are irregular or have gone completely missing, you probably won’t be able to get pregnant anyway because your body will have temporarily shut down its ovulation schedule. In this case, you should check in with your doctor to plan an exercise schedule that is moderate and a diet that will help your baby grow strong and healthy once you have conceived.

Men’s underwear can prevent pregnancy.
Only if you sew him into it! There have been studies that showed that men who wore briefs had lower sperm counts than men who wore boxers. Millions of “briefs” men switched to boxers in order to do their part in making a baby, enduring the discomfort of having everything suddenly loose around their legs until their partners passed the pregnancy test. There are also studies that have shown no statistical difference in the fertility of men due to their underwear. The scientific opinion seems at this point to be that it doesn’t much matter what a man does with his underwear as long as he takes them off every once in awhile. That’s pretty much key in babymaking.

Men should postponed sex to “store up” sperm.
Naah. Unless a man has a definite problem with low sperm count, he has plenty and I mean PLENTY of sperm to get the job done, each and every time.

Women can’t get pregnant during menstruation.
While technically this is true, let’s discuss the exception that makes hundreds of women into mothers each year. While during your period you can’t get pregnant because you are not ovulating, you can have sex during your period, the sperm can hang around for a sperm lifespan of five days, and if you ovulate a little early while that sperm is still enjoying his post-coital cigarette, hey! Presto! And you’re pregnant. The chances are slim, though, and if you’re trying to get pregnant, sex during your period probably won’t be much help on the path to parenthood.