Imagine this: you finally started IVF after months and months of discussions with your partner, but now there are too many questions to consider all at once about your lifestyle. Can you still have your morning coffee? Is that glass of wine now completely off the table? Should you keep exercising? When should you wake and sleep? What sort of diet should you have? Can you still have one smoke to take the load off? What happens if you have a week full of stress and anxiety?
Suddenly, everything you do seems to entail a question mark, and it can be deeply frustrating when you have to keep shooting arrows in the dark for an answer. But while it’s easy to feel that every little decision you make during an IVF is going to decide whether your cycle works out or not, thankfully, your reproductive system is not quite that fragile. Yes, the kind of lifestyle you lead does matter during a fertility treatment, but it’s not in the all-or-nothing way you may have been led to believe. So, keeping that in mind, let us take a look at what parts of your lifestyle are going to be responsible for controlling your IVF’s outcome and what you can do about it.
Does your lifestyle really affect IVF treatment?
Yes, but only to an extent, really. Yes, your lifestyle can influence certain parts of your health and reproductive system. But frankly, factors such as age, the underlying cause of infertility, ovarian reserve, embryo quality, and the specifics of your treatment will have a somewhat larger influence on the outcome of IVF.
This can be confusing at first, especially if you’ve already searched for things on this topic. There are countless IVF rules online telling you exactly what to eat, how much to exercise, which supplement to take, and even how to behave in your everyday life after an embryo transfer. Some of them may sound convincing, but the evidence behind most of them is nowhere near as strong as the internet would have you believe. Most research that has gone deep into this topic – studying the effects of particular diets and lifestyle interventions – has only come up with mixed results, with no single thing proven to guarantee a successful cycle.
All that is to say, your lifestyle is only one part of a much bigger picture, not the deciding factor for IVF. You can technically create conditions that will improve your general well-being. Still, there is no right way to sleep or specific exercise that will guarantee a pregnancy. Remember this because this process can be emotionally taxing and can easily make you feel responsible for every possible outcome if you’re not well informed. Plus, rely on a good IVF clinic in London instead of the internet – they’ll be in a better position to share which changes genuinely matter for your specific scenario.
What should you avoid or limit during IVF treatment?
Now, if there are some lifestyle changes that you should pay attention to, they are going to be the ones involving substances that have long been established to have effects on reproductive health and pregnancy. Take smoking – tobacco exposure is very well associated with poorer reproductive outcomes, and evidence also links smoking with a lower likelihood of assisted reproductive techniques working. Even secondhand smoke is not something to overlook, as it can produce similar effects in your body. Recreational drugs, including cannabis, are also best avoided during fertility treatment and pregnancy, because while the evidence is not quite concrete around them, some of the findings are already concerning enough that it’s best to err on the side of safety.
Alcohol is a slightly more complicated topic than smoke when discussing your fertility because there is no consistent picture that could establish a link between specific outcomes. However, once an IVF cycle does turn out to be a success and you become pregnant, it is best to avoid alcohol because no established level of alcohol consumption is safe during pregnancy. Follow a similar approach for caffeine, if possible, or at the very least reduce your consumption as much as possible.
You should also be a bit careful with your supplements, and if you’re on any routine medication, let your fertility team know during the first few steps of the process so they can revise the treatment plan accordingly. Their advice should take priority over any supplement routine you may have started after online research.
How important are exercise, sleep and stress during IVF?
During IVF, exercise can still be part of your routine, and you don’t need to drop it to improve your chances—no need to become sedentary simply because you have started treatment suddenly. In fact, it is best to maintain a good level of physical activity for your overall health and wellness during this period. What may change is how much you can push yourself. During ovarian stimulation, for example, your ovaries become enlarged, so your fertility team may advise you to modify your activity level or avoid high-impact and strenuous activity of any kind.
Getting enough good-quality sleep also supports your general health, energy, and ability to cope with everything IVF throws your way. Not that one restless night is going to ruin your cycle, though – don’t try to turn sleep into some performance metric that you must keep tracking during the fertility treatment. Doing so will only create unnecessary pressure or stress when, really, it should be treated as part of looking after yourself.
The biggest one to focus on, though, is your stress level. IVF is already a process that can be thoroughly exhausting, both physically and emotionally. It can easily leave you feeling emotional, anxious, frustrated, or overwhelmed, especially if one cycle doesn’t produce the outcome you wanted. While HFEA notes that there is no evidence linking stress with lower chances of having a baby, it will have some effect on your general well-being. To that end, try whatever stress management technique works best for you – whether that’s meditation, journaling, engaging in your hobbies, socialising, or something else. If you have a stressful day, try not to think of it as you somehow sabotaging your IVF treatment.
What lifestyle changes are worth making during IVF?
At this point, you should have a very good idea of what really matters during IVF. You don’t need to reinvent your life once IVF begins. As long as you focus on a few basic things that can support your health and not put any unnecessary load on it, you are practically good to go. To reiterate: eat a balanced diet, stay active, avoid smoking (and recreational drugs), limit alcohol, limit caffeine, get good-quality sleep as consistently as possible, and manage your stress as best you can. None of these things is complicated to the point that you’ll need to reinvent your whole self or life. Plus, your fertility team should help you through these things while handling the medical side of your IVF cycle. So follow their instructions as best you can, ask questions when you are unsure, and look after yourself while treatment is underway.
