All things fertility

If you feel like all you learnt at school was how not to get pregnant then let us give you a quick refresher on human reproduction and how everything works down there. It’s actually quite cool how clever our bodies are, plus we believe knowledge is power. Understanding what’s going on will help you plan your path to parenthood.

Just so you know, in a healthy heterosexual couple with no fertility issues here’s how it works:

The woman ovulates which means an egg is released from the ovaries. The egg travels down the fallopian tubes towards the uterus.
On its way the egg hopefully meets some sperm, in fact it sends out a special enzyme which acts like a beacon to guide their way.
Now when they ejaculate men usually release millions of sperm but by the time the sperm crew has made it through the woman’s cervix and uterus and into the fallopian tube where the egg is cruising there’ll only be a few hundred left.
And of that reduced number of sperm, only one will be able to break through the eggs tough outer coating and start the fertilisation process.
If all of that goes to plan, then the fertilised egg continues heading down the fallopian tube to the uterus. Once it reaches the uterus it implants in the lining and continues developing to become an embryo and then a baby (a foetus for the scientists among us).

There are quite a few ways for that process to go wrong and some people have more than one hiccup. That’s when we start to think about infertility. And that’s when an early diagnosis can empower you and give you the best chance of having a baby.

How to get pregnant

Female fertility 101

Male fertility 101

Check out our award winning Modern Babies podcast.

All things fertility

A little helping hand

How to get pregnant

Female fertility 101

Male fertility 101