Natural Preparation For Conception.
Your Fertility is yours. It is personal. It is sacred.
Preconception care isn’t just about falling pregnant, or taking a prenatal vitamin. Preconception care is the opportunity to improve your health and your partner's health, for healthy eggs & sperm, healthy pregnancy, for birth and beyond.
A woman who is healthy at the time of conception is more likely to have a successful pregnancy and healthy child. 1
“Modern preconception care should become a key component of reproductive medicine not only to improve implantation and pregnancy rates, but also to reduce perinatal morbidity and mortality, further optimising the health for mothers and children and setting the stage for the child’s adult life”2
How can Naturopathic Care Help?
Naturopathic Preconception Care looks at your individual health picture, and works to educate you on your fertility and provides treatment guidelines to improve underlying health conditions including specific fertility and reproductive health conditions.
Did you know that Australia has no national guidelines for Preconception care, though many countries do (USA, Italy, Netherlands). Preconception care is largely left to GPs who usually have limited time in a standard medical appointment to address fertility concerns, and women or couples are often advised to come back if they haven’t conceived after a 12 month, when a referral to assisted reproductive clinic may be provided.
The probability of conception per cycle declines with age - from 25% at 25 yrs | 12% at 35 yrs | 5-6% at 42 yrs. 10% of the general population are post menopausal by 45 yrs.
Fertility Facts
Age - The reality is that fertility and chances of conception decline with age, primarily due to egg & sperm quality. Quality is influenced by cellular mitochondrial health which affects cellular DNA. Fertilisation, early embryonic development, implantation and sperm quality are all reliant on cellular DNA health. For this reason age is the most influencing factor in the ability to conceive. However, your chronological age is not always aligned with your biological age. And this is how you can support your fertility - focus on your health with preconception care by supporting cellular mitochondrial health.
IVF is not a great back up plan. IVF and assisted reproduction techniques (ART) are amazing, miraculous and wonderful for situations when there have been physical reproductive challenges - fallopian tube blockages, scarring, sperm issues - but ART is not a solid back-up for having babies later in life as ART does not address egg and sperm quality.
Time - Egg and sperm take approximately 3 months to mature. The egg (oocyte) enters a huge growth phase during this time, and is therefore a window of opportunity for cellular support with nutrients. You may even need 6 months to address health issues. It is truly never too late to start and the best investment you can make for your health, fertility and conception.
Support your fertility by focusing on preconception care.
Factors Influencing Your Fertility
TOXINS and CHEMICALS - Toxins and chemicals in our everyday environment have shown to be endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), meaning they impact and influence our hormones, affecting fertility and reproductive health. Minimising exposure and supporting the body's natural detoxification processes is essential during preconception care to reduce the impact of EDC’s on hormones and on oocyte cellular DNA.
What you can do - keep it simple and minimise your exposure, support natural detoxification.
STRESS & FERTILITY - The body’s response to stress helps us thrive and survive, a little bit of stress gets us going and can keep us on our toes. Stress is unavoidable in our modern world. Work, family, children, partners, rent/mortgages, fulfilling our dreams, unexpected traumatic events, physical activity and environmental impacts are all stressors that we may experience everyday.
Stress causes a physical response in our hormones and can impact infertility. More recent studies have also acknowledged the stress that is created internally by our thoughts and emotions. Our thoughts and mindset (our self-talk) can cause stress, and the external stressor is the trigger….what is important is how we respond to that stress.
The challenge with working in fertility is (on top of the life-stress) the stress that comes through on the ‘trying to conceive journey’. The expectations. The disappointments. The constant overthinking and intensity of desire to fall pregnant. There is no short, quick magic pill for this, but we need to learn to release the tension around your fertility.
It is so valuable to learn to manage your stress before pregnancy. What does this mean for you?
At Nourish and Breathe, in our preconception/fertility appointments we assess stress and its impact for you and how to balance your nervous system and stress response.
SLEEP - Sleep and stress are closely linked - your stress can cause sleep disturbance….inadequate sleep can cause stress on the body and impact hormonal levels and fertility. Sleep disturbances may also occur independent of the stress response and be a part of circadian dysrhythmia…but will still affect hormone secretions and balance and influence fertility.
EATING FOR FERTILITY - What you are eating can be as equally important as where you are sourcing your foods. Foods can be inflammatory and increase the load on your system due to the chemicals they may be carrying due to farming techniques and processing practices - essentially carrying the endocrine disrupting chemicals that we have already discussed.
Your digestive health can be considered the foundation of your overall health. Naturopathic care is well suited to ensuring you have optimum digestion - the breakdown and absorption of nutrients, and elimination of waste.
“Diets high in unsaturated fats, whole grains, vegetables, & fish have been associated with improved fertility in men and women…saturated fats & sugar have been associated with poorer fertility.4 “
METABOLIC INFLUENCES - Your Weight, Your insulin & Glucose Control, Your Liver
Addressing your weight can be an integral component for supporting your fertility, for both male and female factor fertility. Small shifts in lifestyle and diet can make an exponential impact on hormonal health which will assist with weight loss and follow on through to your fertility.
It is important that it is included as part of your preconception care if it is needed.
Metabolic health and weight management also involves reduced risk of gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, and positive influence on health of a child through to adulthood.
Would you like more information about naturally preparing for conception?
Our Fertility Consultations with Renae at Nourish and Breathe covers all of this information and beyond. It can be overwhelming with the level of information freely available in the marketplace, and even cause further stress. Remember that this information is not tailored for your personal fertility journey. Let Renae guide you through so that this is the exciting journey that it should be.
References
Dorney, E, Black, K. Australian Journal of General Practice, July 2018.
Simon C. 2019 Preconception Care; Do we have to care? Fertility and Sterility.
Bijlsma N, Chen MM. Environmental chemical assessment in clinical practice: Unveiling the elephant in the room. Int J Environmental Res Public Health. 2016;13(2).
Gaskins AJ, Nassan FL, Chiu YH, Arvizu M, WIlliams PL, Keller MG, Scuter , Hauser R, Chhavarno JE; EARTH Study Team. Dietary patterns an doutcomes of assisted reproduction. AM J Obstet Gynaecol. 2019 Jun;220(6):587.e18. Doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2019.02.004