Could Sunbathing Help You Get Pregnant?

From drinking cough syrup to sitting with your legs in the air after sex, there are lots of weird and wacky methods that women use to help them get pregnant.

But there could be a simple solution to boosting fertility – sunbathing.

Apparently basking in the sun could help raise a woman’s odds of conceiving by over a third, a study reveals. If only we had a little more sunshine in this country, eh?

Researcher Dr Frank Vandekerckhove compared the IVF results of around 6,000 women with the date of each woman’s treatment and the weather conditions at the time.

Interestingly, there wasn’t a link between the date a woman underwent IVF and the weather but when Dr Vandekerckhove looked at the weather a month earlier, he noticed a pattern. 

A lack of rain, high temperatures and sunshine improved the results all the way through fertility treatment, with sunny weather was shown to increase the odds of IVF success by 35 per cent.

Dr Vandekerckhove, of Belgium’s University Hospital Ghent, said sunny weather may help a woman’s eggs mature, by raising vitamin D levels or by changing the levels of melatonin – the hormone involved in regulating a woman’s reproductive cycle.

Of course, Dr Vandekerckhove did solely study IVF patients but said there’s no reason that sunny weather doesn’t have the same effect for women getting pregnant naturally.

Dr Niels Lauersen, author of ‘Getting Pregnant: What You Need To Know Right Now’ supported the research and says that the sunshine vitamin could have a “direct impact on ovarian function, as well as hormone production.”

It’s produced in our skin through direct exposure to sunlight and is thought to boost sperm count and quality, too. So it’s a fertility boosting method that’s worth men trying as well.

Time to book a holiday then!

[10 Notorious Fertility Myths To Help You Get Pregnant – Busted]

[Caffeine Could Seriously Harm Men’s Fertility: Should We All Just Quit?]