Nutrition Fertility and Miscarriage
🍎My approach
🔶I have designed the Fertility Plan which is an integrated approach and has been enormously successful to work by combining nutritional advice, based on the philosophy of maintaining a deep respect for nature, a thorough understanding of science and body chemistry, and traditional acupuncture, based on ancient principles. Infertility is multi-factorial, with many possible factors at the root of it, and my plan aims to overcome these.
🔶With the help of the Fertility Plan I have been able to help numerous couples to get pregnant naturally, including many who have been trying for months, or years without success. The Fertility Plan is to help support people with unexplained fertility problems, stress-related fertility problems, recurrent miscarriages, and immune system issues. The Fertility Plan also supports people undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF).
🔶The fertility plan looks in a detailed way at your and your partner's health to identify aspects that that could be working against you. A step-by-step nutritional plan, along with acupuncture, can help with a number of factors such as poor digestion/absorption, hormonal imbalances, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, weight issues, candida overgrowth, as well as with stress levels, and emotional or psychological issues.
🔶A pregnancy which is healthy depends on good quality sperm and eggs to make an embryo which can then effectively implant in the womb. There is a lot of research to show that good nutrition can have a dramatic effect on conception as well as the foetal growth. A greater understanding of what both the female and male bodies need for fertility can boost egg and sperm health significantly, reducing the risk of miscarriage, as well the time it takes to conceive.
🔶In my experience, most women have a good general understanding of diet, but not a great deal of knowledge about nutrition. In fact, the body has quite varied nutritional requirements for conception and pregnancy. I do numerous nutrition consultations and acupuncture treatments a year which are mainly fertility-focused, to help clients to prepare in the best way possible for conception. Many of the couples find that just some fine-tuning to their normal eating and lifestyle habits, along with some effort to reduce stress and correct nutritional deficiencies, are all that is needed to make that difference.
🔶It has been found that addressing the following areas with nutritional strategies can go a long way to help to achieve conception.
🍎Addressing hormones and weight
🔶The proper interactions between hormones are very important for general health and fertility, and in fact ensuring these is the first step in promoting fertility. Factors such as diet and lifestyle are common causes of hormonal imbalance, and given that we are increasingly exposed to pollutants, a poor diet may bring about deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals that we depend on. A healthy diet and a healthy weight will support all your body's functions, including hormone production and interaction. Being over- or underweight can interrupt a woman's normal menstrual cycle and disrupt ovulation or even stop it altogether. Excessive weight in men can lead to reduced sperm counts.
🍎Addressing the digestive system: correcting candida, thrush, cystitis, leaky gut syndrome
🔶Candida, a yeast fungal overgrowth, is also linked to infertility. When women are under a lot of stress the body releases adrenaline, eventually exhausting the endocrine system and affecting the hormone levels, which can prevent conception.
🔶Normally, low levels of candida are present in the gut as they are balanced by large amounts of healthy bacteria, which help to keep the yeast in check. Problems arise when yeast begins to overgrow in the gut, which triggers various symptoms such as bloating, wind, constipation/diarrhoea, cravings for sugar- and wheat-based foods, headaches, mental confusion, mood swings, skin rashes, regular bouts of thrush, joint-aches and fatigue etc. This overgrowth can also lead to food sensitivities and allergies. I do see lots of clients with candida overgrowth and usually correct it with a gentle detox plan as a part of a preconceptual strategy.
🍎Addressing endometriosis, fibroids, pcos, hypothyroidism, or hyperthyroidism, or anaemia,
🔶Although polycystic ovary syndrome, fibroids and endometriosis are different conditions, they can often be triggered by the same mechanisms, which include hormonal imbalance − oestrogen dominance − stress, and nutritional deficiencies. For all these conditions, it is important that your liver is functioning well, as the liver is the body's waste disposal unit, for toxins and excess hormones which are left over from each menstrual cycle. My approach is to promote helpful dietary and lifestyle factors, and combine these with acupuncture to minimize the symptoms and affect the underlying causes in order to create advantageous conditions for fertility.
🍎Addressing stress
🔶Several studies have found that long-term stress, which is becoming increasingly part of our lifestyle, can have an adverse effect on health and therefore fertility. Excessively stressful lifestyles can affect the reproductive system, and an increase in stress hormones can interfere both with ovulation in women and sperm production in men. Often, making just a few small changes to diet and lifestyle can make a real difference in the way the body responds to stress, by replenishing the nutrients that have been depleted as a result of it.
🍎Nutritional consultation and lifestyle assessment
🔶I usually recommend a good three months for a pre-conceptual nutritional plan, for both partners, to help prepare for a successful conception and pregnancy.
🔶It takes at least three months for immature eggs to develop to maturity. As a result, there is a four-month period in which a woman can take steps to ensure that all of the factors necessary for a healthy conception and pregnancy are present. This is called the pre-conceptual period, and it is essential that you look upon this period as one that is as important as the pregnancy itself in terms of the influence of your lifestyle and diet. It also takes at least three months for sperm cells to mature, so this period is equally important for the man.
🔶Before your assessment, you will be asked to complete a clinical questionnaire, especially designed to provide me with important information on all the aspects of your health that I believe can influence your fertility. You will also be advised to keep a 3-day food diary. During consultation, I focus on your general health, medical history, deficiencies, digestion, blood sugar imbalance, hormone levels (or any blood test results you have from your IVF clinic or hospital), weight, stress levels, exercise, diet and your lifestyle (including foods you like, drinking/smoking etc). This assessment allows me to give you advice.
🔶I believe that advising you on achievable changes that you and your partner can make is the only way to help you reach an optimal state of nutritional health at the time of conception and subsequent pregnancy. I will always give you the rationale behind my advice based on the latest research, making it more comprehensible and therefore easier to follow. After your assessment, you will be provided with the following:
🔶A nutritional report with dietary and nutritional supplement advice − if any deficiencies need addressing
🔶Meals and snack ideas for a week, 10 days or 2 weeks
🔶Advice on when to have follow-up consultations
🔶Advice on blood tests in case they need be to be done by your GP or hospital
🍎Supplementation advice
🔶The body's nutritional needs for fertility and pregnancy are very different to its everyday needs. Sometimes it can be difficult to ensure that the body is getting the right amounts of all the necessary vitamins and minerals from your diet, which is why I recommend a structured supplement programme to address any deficiency in vitamins and minerals.
🍎Nutritional support and prevention of miscarriage
🔶Experiencing a miscarriage can be heartbreaking, and for those who go through multiple miscarriages, the emotional toll can be overwhelming. When a woman has three or more consecutive miscarriages, it is called recurrent miscarriage.
🔶Researchers and medical professionals believe that in most cases, miscarriages in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy are caused by random chromosomal abnormalities. These are genetic instructions that guide the baby’s development, and if something goes wrong, the pregnancy may not continue.
🔶But another reason for miscarriage can be low levels of progesterone, which sustains pregnancy and the thickness of womb lining. Higher levels of Luteinising hormone (LH) in the first half of the menstrual cycle, have also been linked to greater risk of miscarriage.
🔶Miscarriages that aren’t the result of chromosomal defects, hormonal imbalance, or abnormalities of the uterus have been also linked to immunological dysfunction or over reactive immune system. If your immune system is weak, or even if it is too efficient in fighting off the everyday threat of infection and disease, it may affect your fertility. There is more and more evidence now that an abnormal immune response can affect implantation and increase the risk of multiple miscarriages.
🔶With so much information available online, it’s natural to search for answers after a miscarriage. While learning more may not take away the pain, it can help us feel more in control.
🔶No matter the reason for a miscarriage, many women feel anxious about future pregnancies. The desire to be as healthy as possible becomes very strong. That’s why it’s useful to look at ways to support fertility and pregnancy.
🔶Several studies have found that long-term stress, which is becoming increasingly part of our lifestyle, can have an adverse effect on health and therefore fertility. Excessively stressful lifestyles can affect the reproductive system, and an increase in stress hormones can interfere both with ovulation in women and sperm production in men. Often, making just a few small changes to diet and lifestyle can make a real difference in the way the body responds to stress, by replenishing the nutrients that have been depleted as a result of it.
🔶It takes at least three months for immature eggs to develop to maturity. As a result, there is a four-month period in which a woman can take steps to ensure that all of the factors necessary for a healthy conception and pregnancy are present. This is called the pre-conceptual period, and it is essential that you look upon this period as one that is as important as the pregnancy itself in terms of the influence of your lifestyle and diet. It also takes at least three months for sperm cells to mature, so this period is equally important for the man.
