Pregnancy chances increase among women who soak up sun one month before IVF treatment

I was researching my next blog post and accidentally came across this recent headline.  Basically, some Belgian researchers discovered that an increased exposure to sunshine one month before conception can increase chances of getting pregnant by IVF by more than a third.  WOAH.  An increase in chances of a positive outcome by a third?  Chris…quick book us a holiday to the Caribbean and let’s hit that beach! Stat!

Well, we do know that melatonin is important in cell development, as well as the importance of Vitamin D, so it does make some sense.  So I tried to hunt down the source of this claim.  It took me aaaages because the researcher they referenced was not the prime author.  Anyway.  It seems the researchers from Ghent University have not yet published their findings in a paper, but I did find their poster from the conference, so you can take a look at the results for yourself.  Now there are definitely some significant findings there, but as we all know, correlation doesn’t equal causation….but I’m happy to give the sun a go!  It’s pretty low risk, doesn’t require giving up anything and who doesn’t love a bit of sun?! Now, I wonder whether the factor of suncream makes a difference…hmmm….

So ladies – we all know about honey moons and baby moons…now we need to make pre-conception moons a thing #preconceptionmoon (I’m sure it will catch on).