If you’re ever thinking of having kids, here are some things you should know.
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Heads up: This story addresses fertility issues that specifically apply to cisgender men and women. Cisgender means that you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. We'll be posting a story about everything that trans individuals should know about fertility in the near future, and will update this story with that link as soon as it's live.
If you think you might ever want kids, you should start thinking about it and planning for it in your twenties.
Yes, seriously! "Just like we plan for retirement, we should plan for reproduction," Dr. Lubna Pal, reproductive science specialist, OB-GYN, and director of the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Program at the Yale University School of Medicine tells BuzzFeed Life. That's because there are a lot of things that might make it harder for you to get pregnant in the future, and it's important for you to know about them now so that you can better understand your own risks and make informed choices about your potential timeline. Start talking to your doctor about it, if you haven't already.
Fertility issues can affect both men and women. It's a couple's issue, not just a woman's problem.
When a couple seeks help for fertility issues, about a third of the time it's due to male-factor infertility, a third of the time it's female-factor infertility, and the other third is a combination problem — where both partners are contributing, Dr. Landon Trost, assistant professor of urology and head of Male Infertility and Andrology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, tells BuzzFeed Life.
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