Fertility hub

Fertility and Conception: What Moves the Odds

Timing sets the ceiling. Nutrition, weight, sleep, thyroid and iron decide how close you get to it — and which changes are worth your effort.

A healthy couple in their late twenties has roughly a one-in-four chance of conceiving in any given cycle with well-timed intercourse. Nothing in this hub turns that into a certainty. What the evidence does support is closing avoidable gaps — a low vitamin D level, undiagnosed iron deficiency, an untreated thyroid, alcohol, smoking — and giving the timing its best possible chance.

This hub answers
  • Which supplements have real evidence behind them?
  • What should I stop eating or drinking?
  • Could low iron be the reason nothing is happening?
  • How long is 'too long' before seeing someone?
Fresh whole foods arranged as a fertility-supporting diet
5 guides

Everything in this hub

Each guide is written to be read on its own, and every one links back here.

What works

Natural Fertility Boosters: What the Evidence Supports

Sorted into three tiers: the changes with real evidence behind them, the ones worth trying in specific situations, and the ones sold hardest with the least support.

  • Timing intercourse to the fertile window is the single largest lever, and it costs nothing.
  • Folic acid is non-negotiable pre-conception: 400 µg daily, or 5 mg if you are in a higher-risk group.
12 min read 5 questions answered
Micronutrients

Vitamin D and Fertility: Sorting Signal From Hype

Low vitamin D is associated with worse fertility outcomes. Whether topping it up improves them is a different question, and the honest answer is: it depends who you are.

  • Vitamin D deficiency is common — in northern latitudes, in winter, in people with darker skin, and in anyone who covers up or stays indoors.
  • Observational studies consistently link low vitamin D with lower IVF success and higher miscarriage rates.
9 min read 5 questions answered
Diet

Food to Avoid for Fertility — and What Is Overstated

A short list of things genuinely worth avoiding, a longer list of things people avoid unnecessarily, and the reason those lists keep getting confused.

  • Trans fats have the clearest dietary association with ovulatory infertility — largely gone from supermarket food, still present in some fried and imported baked goods.
  • Alcohol is the item with the strongest case for cutting: heavy intake reduces fertility, and no safe level is established in early pregnancy.
10 min read 5 questions answered
Underdiagnosed

Anaemia and Infertility: The Link People Miss

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world, it is easy to test for, and it is routinely missed because the standard blood count looks normal.

  • You can be significantly iron deficient with a completely normal haemoglobin. Ferritin is the test that finds it.
  • Large cohort data links higher iron intake — particularly from supplements and non-haem sources — with lower ovulatory infertility risk.
10 min read 5 questions answered
Odds and timing

How to Increase Your Chances of Getting Pregnant

Realistic monthly odds, how long it normally takes, and the handful of decisions that genuinely move the number rather than just feeling productive.

  • About 8 in 10 couples conceive within a year; roughly 9 in 10 within two years, if the woman is under 35.
  • Sex every one to two days across the fertile window is the highest-yield timing. Every two to three days all cycle works nearly as well with no tracking.
11 min read 5 questions answered
Start with the dates

Not sure where you are in your cycle?

The calculator gives you an ovulation day, a six-day fertile window and the day to start testing — from your last period and your own cycle length.

Open the ovulation calculator
Keep going

The other two hubs

Ovulation.guide provides general information, not medical advice. See our medical disclaimer.