Trying to conceive: Myths vs. facts

What’s the truth and what are just old wives tales!

It generally happens "When you're trying to conceive, you, the female, are the one

obsessing over it — figuring out when you're ovulating, when is your period date, and the guy is somewhat oblivious. If you're not conceiving, the burden of guilt, so to speak, is on the female. A lot of couples don't realize that 35 to 40 percent of the time, there's going to be a male factor. And they're very surprised when they find out."

Not Able to get pregnant is often a misunderstood condition, which is why there's so much confusion surrounding it. Here are some common myths & truth observeds by Dr. Shobha Gupta, Infertility Specialist at Mother’s Lap IVF Centre – New Delhi.

It's easy to get pregnant, In the best of circumstances, a pregnancy occurs only 20 percent of the time people have unprotected sex. We won't even start (an infertility) workup until patients have gone one year without conception, or the woman is over 35."

Coital positions affect conception "Position doesn't make any difference at all," "You don't have to lie down for 30 minutes after sex; you don't have to hang from the ceiling by your feet. Many people also believe that diet or coital frequency can affect the gender of the baby. Those are myths."

A woman's ovaries are the same biological age she is. "Decreased ovarian reserve" is a phenomenon in which the ovaries and eggs act older than they are. While there are tests to detect this, there is no cure.

Freezing eggs is a good hedge against infertility later in life. "There is a lot of noise in the media about utilizing egg freezing as a way of keeping your fertility. The thing about egg freezing that doesn't come out is that it works best in young eggs. I'm seeing a lot of women in their late 30s and early 40s saying, 'I want to freeze my eggs,' when it often is too late. If you're contemplating egg freezing, you really should do it before age 35."

Birth control pills cause infertility. "The birth control pill does not cause infertility — short-term or long-term.