Here's How to Protect Your Fertility So You Can Get Pregnant over 40

You’ve yet to hear a single tick-tock, but lurking beneath your killer abs is a biological clock that will start buzzing eventually–and you can only hit the snooze button so many times. So what do you do if you’re not ready to push out a baby rightthissecond but think you’ll want to become a mom someday, maybe even get pregnant over 40? Luckily, fertility for women isn’t a total crapshoot. And though you can’t put off pregnancy indefinitely (despite exceptions like Marcia Cross, your odds of conceiving drop substantially after age 35), there’s plenty you can do to help keep your body in peak baby-making form.

Watch your diet
What’s good for your arteries is also good for your eggs. Jorge Chavarro, M.D., a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of The Fertility Diet, tracked the fat intake of nearly 18,000 women as they tried to get pregnant. Women who gobbled more healthy unsaturated fats (think olive oil and avocados) were less likely to experience infertility due to ovulation problems than those whose diets contained more trans fats.

Don’t worry, be happy
Stress interferes with the brain’s bulletins that tell your ovaries to do their monthly job of rolling out an egg, says Sarah L. Berga, M.D., chair of the ob-gyn department at Emory University in Atlanta. If you’re a type A (for anxiety and angst), figure out a calm-down solution that works for you, whether it’s practicing tai chi or thrashing around to the Foo Fighters, before you get ready to pee on the stick.

Get tested regularly
You were probably worried about getting pregnant that night the condom broke, but if he slipped you an infection that went untreated, you might have the -opposite worry later on. “STDs can cause scarring in your reproductive organs, blocking your fallopian tubes,” says Sherman Silber, M.D., medical director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis and the author of How to Get Pregnant. The tubes can also end up filled with fluid (a -residual effect of the infection) that can prevent implantation of an embryo.

Clear the air
Sucking on Marlboro Lights can make your eggs go up in smoke. “Smoking constricts blood vessels, including those that feed the ovaries, which accelerates the loss of eggs,” Silber says. You say you know lots of Puff Mommies who got knocked up, no prob? “Sure, women who smoke can get pregnant–when they’re young,” Berga says. “But smoking can cause you to become infertile earlier than you would as a nonsmoker.”

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