Fertility Foods for Men and Women

Ready to throw the baby-making dice? Eating these foods gives eggs and sperm even better odds of pairing up.

Ever heard that slurping oysters whets your carnal appetite? Turns out it's no fish story: Oysters are one of the best natural sources of zinc, nature's answer to Viagra. In fact, chowing down on the right foods is one of the most effective and easy ways to optimize your fertility and your body for the big task of growing a baby...and plenty of edibles can help boost your chances of conception.

While fresh fruit, veggies, whole grains, and lean meats have important whole-body benefits (like keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels low), some foods work extra-special magic on those ovaries and testes. Yams, for example, may stimulate ovulation in women (countries where they're a dietary staple have higher rates of multiple births!), while a daily serving of whole-fat milk may help lower ovulatory infertility. Meanwhile, antioxidant-rich, plant-based foods keep men's little swimmers healthy: vitamin A (in orange foods like apricots, carrots, and peppers) and vitamin E (in veggie oils) both keep sperm moving along swimmingly, while vitamin C (in citrus, berries, tomatoes) improves sperm quality.

A few other foods have baby-making benefits for both men and women, such as omega 3s (salmon, eggs, walnuts), which regulate hormones and improve blood flow to your baby-making organs, and antioxidant-rich berries, which protect eggs and sperm from damage caused by aging. In addition, both you and your partner should cut back on a few fertility-impairing edibles, including hormone-zapping refined carbs (white bread and pasta, sugar) and artery-clogging, saturated fat-filled packaged foods. It's also smart to get used to limiting your coffee and liquor intake now, since they can both harm fertility in men and women.

While eating well is definitely an essential way to help ensure egg meets sperm, be patient! It often takes a fully-fertile couple six to 12 months to make a baby. Only about 10 percent of all U.S. women between the ages of 15 to 44 have difficulty getting or staying pregnant -- and while that rate increases with age, if you're under 40 you still have a 70 percent chance of getting pregnant without help. You should consider seeing your doctor, however, if you haven't conceived after trying for one year if you're under 35, three to six months if you're 35 to 38, three months if you're over 38, and from the start if you're over 40.