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Diet and nutrition can play a strong role in the way our genes are expressed and influence our fertility, just as it plays a role in other challenges to health and well-being. Whether you’re currently trying to conceive or struggling with unexplained infertility, paying a little extra attention to your diet won’t hurt. Below are my top 10 tips for boosting your fertility.
1. Provide your body, ahead of time, with the extra nutritional requirements it needs to produce and sustain a healthy pregnancy: folic acid, B vitamins, zinc and essential fatty acids (omega 3s). Did you know that the neural tube starts to develop shortly after conception and is closed at 28 days? The recommendation for folate prior to conception is 0.4 milligrams, or 400 micrograms everyday. Some women are known to experience less morning sickness if they begin a prenatal supplement before conception. Once you begin taking the prenatal supplement, you should STOP taking all other supplements. Excessive amounts of certain nutrients can be toxic and hazardous to your health and the baby’s development.
2. Work towards reaching a healthy weight. Overweight women produce too much progesterone and underweight women produce too little estrogen. Your body needs both of these hormones at balanced levels to conceive optimally.
3. Change your diet: trans/saturated fats, junk foods, preservatives, flavorings, pesticides and alcohol are unfriendly to fertility. Focus on fresh, organic, seasonal produce and get back to basics by making healthy, homemade foods as much as possible.
4. Gluten intolerance is linked to unexplained infertility and recurrent miscarriages. Intolerance to gluten, often undiagnosed, contributes to nutrient malabsorption (meaning the body does not readily absorb nutrients like iron, zinc and folic acid, which are critical to reproduction). If you’re experiencing trouble getting pregnant, consider asking your physician to screen you for celiac disease or gluten intolerance. Alternatively, try a gluten-free diet for a few months.
5. Processed sugars and artificial sweeteners are unequivocally bad for your health- get rid of them ASAP. Cutting out sugars and artificial sweeteners from your diet is a huge fertility booster- excess sugar causes inflammation in the body, which takes the focus away from conceiving.
6. Eliminate tobacco, alcohol and caffeine consumption. Components of tobacco smoke are known to damage ovarian follicles and cause premature aging of the ovaries. High caffeine intake has been shown to cause spontaneous abortion. Caffeine readily crosses the placenta, it causes increased fetal heart rate, increased breathing and effects the placental blood flow. Limit to under 200 mg per day (approximately two espresso shots).
7. Most women I know consume skim or low fat dairy products in an effort to maintain their weight. Healthy fats, including those from dairy products, are vital to the reproductive process. Ditch the low fat and skim products in favor of the organic, non sweetened, full fat products to ensure you are absorbing enough calcium, vitamin A & vitamin D.
8. Stress management: take your mind off your daily stressors and make sure to find the time to exercise, book a massage, meet a friend, write a journal, take a nap or even better, go a holiday. This cannot be over-emphasized enough. Stress and anxiety are the banes of fertility.
9. Jump on the eco-bandwagon. Minimize your harmful chemical exposure. Eliminate BPAs from plastics, toxins from your diet (pesticides, fungicides, herbicides), keep away from pollution, radiation and electromagnetic waves (mobile phones, wireless internet). These emit free radicals that can cause DNA damage- overexposure to free radicals are strongly linked to cancer.
10. Always think positive! Believe in your body’s ability to conceive. Most people forget about this one 🙂
Take care of your body so that it might become ready to nourish and nurture the growth of your future children. Looking to your diet by eliminating potentially problematic foods and enhancing your lifestyle might very well be an affordable and effective route to take to prepare your body to conceive.
Photo credit: Sean Molin Photography via photopin cc.
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