If you’re a member of the trying to conceive (TTC) club, you are aware of how important timing may be. Not just the best time of the month, but also the ideal time of the day, to become pregnant? You are one step behind researchers.
When attempting to conceive, a lot of couples concentrate on the time of the month. The hour of the day, though, can be equally or even more crucial.
The ideal time to try to conceive, according to recent research, is before 7:30 a.m. Male sperm concentrations are higher at that time. (More sperm increases the likelihood of encountering an egg.)
Why does your guy have more sperm in the morning? Men’s bodies replenish lost sperm as they sleep.Sperm concentration, count, size, and form were found to be at their maximum around 7:30 a.m. in the study, which examined 12,245 semen samples from more than 7,000 men. Progressive motility, or when they swim in long circles or straight lines, remained unchanged.
In the spring, concentrations and numbers were higher, but over the summer, they decreased. Depending on a man’s circadian (daily) and circannual (annual) rhythms, the quality of his sperm varies. Semen sampling, according to the study’s authors, may be utilized to boost both natural and artificial fertility.Genetics also have an impact. According to research, semen characteristics and the risk of infertility are related to the genetic make-up of clock genes, says Jane L. Frederick, MD, a fertility specialist with HRC Fertility in California.
Or, to put it another way, “various times of the day might change total sperm count, sperm motility or normal morphology in males, and therefore impair their fertility,” Frederick told Motherly.
To demonstrate how crucial circadian rhythms are to male fertility, along with regular, high-quality sleep, consider the following: When the circadian rhythm gene is knocked off in male mice for research purposes, the mice become infertile. This, according to Dr. Frederick, is most likely brought on by low sperm counts, tiny testicles and seminal vesicles, and aberrant hormone output.Fecundability (get familiar, TTCers, you’re about to hear this one a lot along your journey), the likelihood that you’ll get pregnant in a single month (or menstrual cycle), is different among age groups in men and women. But how long you sleep, the timing of when you sleep, and working night shifts weren’t linked to fecundability or odds of live birth in women who experienced pregnancy loss, according to a recent study.
(That’s not to say that sleep doesn’t affect fertility—there’s a lot of research indicating that poor sleep can impact your ability to conceive.)
Dr. Frederick agrees that semen in the early morning (before 7:30 a.m.) has the highest sperm concentration, total sperm count and normal morphology compared to the other times of the day.
“Fluctuation in testosterone production is affected not only by the rhythmic genes expressed in the testicles, but also by circadian rhythms throughout the body,” she says.
