
How to get pregnant?
Verified on 4/28/2025
Bienvenue chez Gapianne ! 👋
Ici, nous guidons les femmes vers des solutions adaptées sur toutes les questions liées à leur santé gynéco et leur bien-être intime, grâce à un parcours d’accompagnement personnalisé.
You and your partner are on the same page: you want to have a baby. Great idea, congratulations! To maximize your chances of getting pregnant quickly, there are several things you and your partner can do. How to get pregnant? As an e-concept store dedicated to women's intimate life, Gapianne had to address this topic! In this article, find out everything you need to know to get pregnant.
The essentials
- A woman is fertile for a few days each month, just after ovulation. This time is called the fertile window. Pregnancy occurs when an egg and sperm meet, most often after intravaginal intercourse with ejaculation.
- To get pregnant, the first steps include stopping contraception and tracking your menstrual cycle to identify your fertility window.
How to get pregnant: the main principles
Before we explain where to start to get pregnant and the solutions to increase your chances of getting pregnant quickly, let's take a few minutes to remind you of the basic principles of pregnancy. How do you get pregnant biologically?
Reminders on female fertility
The rhythm of female fertility is driven by the menstrual cycle. The latter takes place between 4 phases and moments:
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Follicular phase is the phase during which an egg develops in the follicles;
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Ovulation: Once mature, the egg is released from the follicles. This is ovulation. It marks the end of the luteal phase.
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Luteal phase: This phase begins with ovulation. This 14-day period is when the menstruating person's body prepares to receive the fertilized egg.
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Period: When the egg is not fertilized, it is expelled from the uterus, along with the unwanted endometrium. This is the period, also called menstruation.
A menstruating person is fertile in the days following ovulation, at the beginning of the luteal phase, when the egg moves down the fallopian tubes. The lifespan of an egg is estimated to be between 12 and 24 hours. In other words, a menstruating person is fertile for approximately one to two days per month.
How does getting pregnant work?
Pregnancy is the meeting between an egg and a sperm.
The most common way for this encounter to occur is through sexual intercourse involving ejaculation inside the vagina. Semen is a substance containing tens to hundreds of millions of sperm. It protects the sperm as they travel through the vagina and then to the cervix and uterus. It is estimated that the lifespan of sperm in the female reproductive system is approximately 5 days. If the sperm encounter an egg during this time, pregnancy can occur.
If you have difficulty getting pregnant, medically assisted reproduction (MAP) may be considered. Fertilization then takes place in vitro, outside the body, and the fertilized eggs are then implanted in the uterus of the menstruating person.
How long does it take to get pregnant?
It is estimated that it generally takes 7 months to achieve pregnancy. After a year of trying, 97% of couples have succeeded in having a child.
Typically, professionals begin prescribing tests to understand a couple's difficulties conceiving after a year of trying or three consecutive miscarriages. These tests may be performed earlier in the process in the case of conditions that can cause difficulty conceiving, such as endometriosis or PCOS.
Where to start to get pregnant
With these reminders in mind, we can move on to the topic that most certainly interests you if you have arrived at this article: where to start to get pregnant?
Stop contraception
The first step when you are planning to become pregnant is to stop using the contraception you are using. Contraception is designed to prevent you from getting pregnant, either by blocking the entry of sperm into the vagina (condom), by mimicking a pregnancy to prevent fertilization (pill and hormonal IUD), or by making the uterus uninhabitable (copper IUD). Stopping your contraception is therefore the first step towards being able to conceive a baby.
Have intravaginal intercourse
This may seem obvious to you, but it's worth writing it down anyway: pregnancy can only occur when an egg and sperm meet in the female genital tract. The second essential step to getting pregnant is therefore to have unprotected sex with your partner, including intravaginal ejaculation.
Track your menstrual cycle
The third interesting but optional step to getting pregnant is tracking your menstrual cycle. This tracking can be done manually or with apps. We recommend using an app for ease of use. Based on your period, apps calculate the likely date of your next ovulation, indicating your fertile window. This is the best time to have sex and increase your chances of getting pregnant.
Involve your spouse
The fourth step to getting pregnant is to involve your partner beyond sexual intercourse. Unfortunately, we still tend to only consider pregnancy as a responsibility of the menstruating person (in a heterosexual couple). However, both partners have their share of responsibility in a pregnancy. It is therefore important to involve your partner from the beginning, for example by sharing information. This will be even more essential if you are having difficulty getting pregnant, as you will both need to consider consulting professionals to understand the reasons for this failure.
Bonus: Make an appointment with your gynecologist
Finally, the fifth bonus step: make an appointment with your primary care physician and/or gynecologist. This appointment is a great way to ask all your questions and understand how to get pregnant. You can invite your partner to accompany you so they're involved in the project.
✋ Although this step is not necessarily necessary, it may be essential if you are taking contraception requiring the intervention of a healthcare professional (IUD) or if you suffer from an illness that could cause difficulties in procreating (endometriosis, PCOS, etc.).
Increase your chances of getting pregnant quickly
The preceding steps are essential for getting pregnant. For some couples, they will be sufficient, and pregnancy will occur immediately, within a few cycles. For other couples, however, pregnancy may take a while. It may be worth considering several things to increase your chances of getting pregnant quickly.
Boost the effectiveness of your reports
To increase your chances of getting pregnant, our first suggestion is to boost the effectiveness of the sex you share with your partner during your fertile window.
What sexual positions should I do to get pregnant?
Studies seem to show that there is no single best position for getting pregnant. However, studies agree that pleasure is the key to getting pregnant: while male orgasm leads to ejaculation, female orgasm causes uterine contractions that allow sperm to be sucked in.
How to save sperm to get pregnant quickly?
Furthermore, as you may have experienced, semen can tend to leak from the vagina after intercourse. To retain as much semen as possible and therefore increase the number of sperm reaching your vagina following intercourse, inserting a fertility cup into your vagina is a good solution. Similar to a menstrual cup, this device is inserted into the vagina after intravaginal ejaculation. It helps push sperm closer to the cervix and keep them there. The cup can be worn for between 20 minutes and 1 hour.
🌈 At Gapianne, we've selected the Ferti.lily conception cup for you. We love that it's completely safe, made of medical-grade silicone, and can be removed very easily thanks to its small plastic tail. It's small and very comfortable to wear. Better still, clinically tested, it increases the chances of conceiving quickly by 48%!
Increase sperm motility in your vagina
Finally, to further boost your partner's sperm, we encourage you to use a fertility lubricant. While "conventional" lubricants tend to have a spermicidal effect, fertility lubricants are specifically developed to increase sperm motility and lifespan.
🌈 At Gapianne, our favorite fertility lubricant is Ferti.lily Fertility Lubricant (see our fertility lubricant comparison for more details). Made in France and loaded with fructose to nourish sperm, this clinically tested gel has proven its effectiveness. In fact, after 24 hours of exposure to the lubricant, 95% of sperm are still motile.
Use symptothermal method
Boosting your sex life is great, but if it doesn't happen around the time of ovulation, it's not. Our second suggestion for increasing your chances of getting pregnant quickly is to accurately identify your fertile window.
Sometimes, tracking your cycle with a simplified app isn't enough. This is especially true if you have a very irregular cycle—ovulation never occurs on the same dates, and you might miss the boat. In this case, it may be worth using symptothermal method. This method involves tracking your body's symptoms as well as your basal body temperature (BBT) to accurately identify your ovulation period. Yes, temperature and ovulation are linked!
🌈 In Gapianne, we've selected the Lady basal thermometer for you to help you track your ovulation. We love that this medical device comes with a cyclogram and sheets of paper to help you track your temperature daily.
Adopt a healthy lifestyle
Last but not least, to increase your chances of getting pregnant, adopt a healthy lifestyle. Note that this advice applies to you, the reader of this article, but also to your partner. Indeed, it takes two people to make a child, and a healthy lifestyle for both partners is a factor that shouldn't be overlooked!
Drink plenty of water and stop drinking alcohol
Proper hydration is essential for the proper functioning of your body. It contributes in particular to the balance of your vaginal flora, which is essential for fertility.
Because alcohol dehydrates, but also because its effects can be detrimental to a pregnancy plan, we recommend that you cut out alcohol. This will be especially beneficial if you do get pregnant, as you don't want to expose your embryo to alcohol. And that goes for men too: alcohol contributes to making sperm lazy!
Have a top-notch diet
💡 Did you know? Fertility and nutrition go hand in hand! This makes no sense, as it's long been known that a good, healthy, and balanced diet has a positive impact on health! A rich diet provides you with all the nutrients you need during pregnancy. To supplement your diet and ensure you're getting all these nutrients, taking a course of fertility supplements may be necessary.
🌈 At Gapianne, we're always on the lookout for the best fertility supplements. Our best-seller, and therefore your favorite, is the Boome fertility supplement treatment . Made in France, vegan, and 100% natural, you'll love its composition, especially the presence of Myo-inositol. This molecule, suitable for women suffering from PCOS, improves egg quality and follicular growth, regulates menstrual cycles, and promotes ovulation.
Quit smoking
Smoking isn't good for your fertility, whether you're a man or a woman. In men, smoking is associated with decreased sperm motility. In women, fertility declines proportionally to the number of cigarettes smoked per day (or secondhand smoke). And just like alcohol, you don't want to expose the very young embryo to tobacco, which can lead to numerous complications during pregnancy.
When planning a baby, then during pregnancy, slowing down or even stopping smoking is therefore very beneficial.
Sleep well
Rest is one of the essential pillars of our health. Getting enough sleep helps reduce stress, regulate hormones, and feel good about your body. Everything you need to increase your chances of getting pregnant!
Don't hesitate to make an appointment with your gynecologist.
If pregnancy is delayed and/or you are increasingly worried, we strongly recommend that you make an appointment with your primary care provider, your GP, your gynecologist, or your midwife. These professionals will be able to reassure you, recommend the best solutions for getting pregnant, and offer additional tests if they deem it necessary.
Bienvenue chez Gapianne ! 👋
Ici, nous guidons les femmes vers des solutions adaptées sur toutes les questions liées à leur santé gynéco et leur bien-être intime, grâce à un parcours d’accompagnement personnalisé.