How to Double Your Odds of Getting Pregnant

It almost sounds like a late-night infomercial, but it's true: you can meaningfully increase your chances of getting pregnant with a few specific habits. The #1 way is tracking your fertile window — the few days each cycle you can actually conceive — in a way that goes beyond just looking at a calendar.

What are fertility indicators?

The best way to track your fertile window is with what researchers call fertility awareness indicators — the different methods of tracking your cycle:

• Basal body temperature
• Cervical fluid
• Cervix position
• LH test strips (Ovulation Predictor Kits, or OPKs)

A 2019 study of 5,688 women trying to conceive had them track cycles using the Fertility Friend app, with or without fertility indicators, then looked at which methods helped most. The answer may surprise you: they're all great at predicting the fertile window.¹ Let's go through each one.

Basal Body Temperature (BBT)

Your basal body temperature fluctuates through your cycle — low before ovulation, higher after. Women who track BBT were found to have 20-40% higher odds of conceiving in a given cycle compared to non-trackers. That's a bit surprising, since a BBT rise can only be measured after ovulation has already happened, by which point it's usually too late to conceive that cycle. In other words, BBT confirms ovulation rather than predicting it. But it's still a powerful sign of just how in tune with their body a woman becomes once she starts tracking.

Cervical mucus

Checking cervical fluid is a genuinely great way to predict ovulation. Before your fertile window, cervical mucus is dry. As you approach ovulation, it becomes wetter, stickier, and milkier — a clear sign ovulation is coming soon. The science backs this up too: a 30-50% boost in the odds of conceiving in a given cycle compared to not checking. The catch is that it's more hands-on than other methods, and not every woman notices dramatic changes, so it helps to know exactly what you're looking for.

Cervical position

Another hands-on method: feeling your cervix with your fingertips. The cervix changes as you approach the fertile window — it moves higher and becomes harder to reach, and it softens from a nose-like firmness to something closer to your lips. Tracking cervical position is linked to that same 30-50% bump in conception odds.

LH test strips (OPKs)

OPKs are perhaps the easiest and most reliable way to test whether you're in your fertile window, and they're inexpensive too. They work like a pregnancy test: dip in urine, wait a few minutes, check the line. The darker the line, the more LH hormone present, meaning ovulation is near. Researchers again found a solid boost in conception odds — 30-40% — with OPK use.

Putting it into practice

Having sex on a random day is a real strategy, technically — it's just a very ineffective one. What actually matters is knowing exactly when you're in your fertile window, the 2-3 days each cycle that count. Checking cervical mucus or using OPKs are great ways to find that window; pairing a predictive method with BBT to confirm ovulation afterward gives you the most complete picture of your cycle.

References

1. Stanford et al. (2019). Fecundability in relation to use of fertility awareness indicators in a North American preconception cohort study. Fertility & Sterility, 112(5), 892–899.