Fertility answers, with the evidence

Real questions women ask, answered directly, with every source shown. Each page states plainly what has been checked and what review is still pending — how we check a claim before we publish it.

Which supplements should I take before pregnancy?

Folate is the one health authorities agree on: they recommend women who could become pregnant take it before conceiving, and it is the best-supported item on this list. Choline has published intake figures too, though from fewer authorities. Neither is established to make you conceive faster, and this page does not cover every supplement you may have read about.
Read the evidence
Does stress affect fertility, and what can I do?

At the extreme, yes: severe stress or under-eating can suppress ovulation and stop periods — that much is established. Below the extreme the evidence is mixed: women with the highest levels of one stress marker took somewhat longer to conceive in observational studies, but those studies cannot tell whether stress slowed conception or trying to conceive was itself the stress, and no study here shows that reducing stress makes pregnancy more likely.
Read the evidence
Can lifestyle changes reduce miscarriage risk?

No lifestyle change is established to prevent miscarriage — the evidence for that question is insufficient, not negative — and most miscarriages are nobody's fault. Miscarriage is common (about one pregnancy in four ends in one), and roughly half of tested first-trimester losses are caused by chromosomal errors that no food, habit or supplement can prevent. Health authorities do advise a few things — not smoking, avoiding alcohol, folic acid — but those recommendations rest on broader pregnancy health, not on preventing miscarriage.
Read the evidence
How should a fertility diet plan be personalized for me?

Personalize on the few things the evidence actually turns on: whether you ovulate regularly and whether you have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS, a common cause of irregular ovulation), whether your weight is at either extreme, and how much time you have before you would seek treatment, because age costs more than weight and delaying care to diet is the one change the weight-loss trials run before fertility treatment argue against. For a woman of normal weight with regular periods, no diet pattern is proven to improve natural fertility: general healthy eating and a daily folic acid supplement of at least 400 micrograms still stand, but the fertility benefit of any particular pattern is an association from observational studies, not a tested effect, and no trial has compared a personalized plan with general advice.
Read the evidence