Real Food for Fertility

Posted on | December 9, 2009 | 21 Comments

It’s rather obvious to most that pregnant and nursing women have significantly higher nutritional needs than the rest of us. What we don’t often acknowledge, at least in this culture, are the important nutritional needs of women long before they become pregnant.  Traditional cultures understood this; a typical preconception diet was practiced by both husband and wife for six months prior to conception.  When Dr. Weston A. Price travelled the world in the early 1900’s, he noted in several instances when the nutrient-dense foods were reserved especially for the newly married couples to eat.

Beyond the basic general “eat healthy” guidelines for fertility, there are actually many things you can do to ensure optimal nutrient stores and minimal toxin levels to create an ideal environment for a growing baby.  Unfortunately, many people (both men and women) spend years abusing their bodies with poor food, alcohol, caffiene, drugs–both illegal and OTC–synthetic hormones (birth control pills), and just generally over-stressed behaviors.  All of these lifestyle choices depleate the body of vitamins and minerals and in their place leave a load of toxins and damage.

The good news is that those toxins don’t have to stay, and you can rebuild your lost vitamin and mineral stores.  Taking six months to a year to wean yourself of the highly addictive bad behaviors is crucial to having a healthy pregnancy.  It’s a good idea to find a naturopathic doctor or wholistic nutrition pracitioner who can assess your nutritonal status and provide foundational support for your body’s systems.  Pregnancy obviously works best when all systems are “go”; especially digestive and endocrine.  Your body has a human to build!! 

Traditionally, cultures that value this preconception period reserved the finest, most nutrient-dense foods for the pregnant, nursing, and preconception  mothers.  These foods included fish roe (eggs), seafood, liver, and certain kinds of fats found in the body of a hunted animal, such as kidney fat.  Butter from cows grazing on spring grass, along with cod liver oil is also an incredible source of fat-soluable vitamins that are so important for functionality.  Lacto-fermented beverages (such as beet kvass) or kombucha are very tonifying to the blood and detoxifying, which is crucial for the prepregnancy period.

The dreaded morning sickness during pregnancy is said to be caused by a number of different factors, but all stem from the same source: nutrient deficiency.  Whether it’s dehydration, vitamin deficiency, or high toxic load in the liver, all of these problems magnify the symptoms of morning sickness.  If nothing else, a proper prepregancy diet can be a proactive approach to preventing possible morning sickness.

Here are some basic tips for optimizing fertility through real food:

1) Get out all the junk!  White sugar, white flour, colas, fruit juices, transfats (read:packaged foods), cigarettes, alcohol (let your liver rest and detox!), and start to wein yourself off of caffiene.

2) Get hydrated! Start drinking water! Plain and simple.  I enjoy my water with a squeeze of lemon juice and  a pinch of sea salt (which is good for someone who suffers from adrenal fatigue).  I’m going to post more about hydration in the coming weeks, and share a secret I’ve found to help keep me hydrated!

3) See a functional nutritional practitioner:This can be a naturopath, oesteopath, MD, chiropractor, or wholistic nutritional therapist who uses functional nutritional testing assess the state of your health and can provide necessary supplementation support.  You will be glad to know of any vitamin deficiencies beforegetting pregnant so that those issues can be resolved.  Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D levels are good ones to know, as these contribute to some important metabolic functions that are crucial for a healthy pregnancy.  Folic acid, of course, is very important as well for the prevention of neural tube defects in babies.  Believe me, I wish I would have known about this option before I was pregnant with my first!

4) Adopt a cleansing/detox protocolwith the help of the above-described health pracitioner.  It’s probably pretty obvious why we’d want to get the toxins out before baby comes. Now granted, the baby is VERY protected by the placenta and the umbilicus during pregnancy, but toxins are toxins, and no matter how good the body is at keeping them away from baby, wouldn’t it be nice to try to get them out of you too?

5) Destress . This is so important for mothers to master this!  Stress affects the adrenals, which impairs our ability to function and meet the demands of pregnancy and motherhood.  A 2001 study linked major stress during pregnancy as a possible contributor to autism. 

6) Rule out possible barriers to fertility.  Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is one of the leading causes of infertility and is associated often with insulin resistance and diabetes (type 2) in women. It is a condition in which the ovaries become infiltrated by many tiny cysts. This condition can go undiagnosed, but symptoms include irregular menstration, acne, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.  Although medication is an option, there are many people who have success in managing their insulin levels through a low carbohydrate diet.  Other than medications, a low carb diet is the only way to get insulin levels back under control, which is so important even if you don’t have PCOS.  If you suspect PCOS, a non-invasive, non-harmful way to see if you have improvement is to begin a starch-free diet that is high in good quality fats (NOT trans fats, but YES saturated fats are okay), and moderate in good quality protein.  Avoiding sugar and starch and limiting fruits is key.  It may sound harsh, but truly you feel so much better once you break the carb addiction cycle and the weight does begin to fall off and the menstration returns to normal.  SO many problems are centered upon insulin.  It’s not saturated fat!  It’s excess glucose and the resulting insulin that is so damaging!  But that’s beyond the point of this article.

Registerd Dietician Martha McKittrick writes:

PCOS is a metabolic disorder that affects  5 – 7.5% of all women. It is the number one cause of infertilityand if left untreated, can increase risk of endometrial cancer. In addition, women with PCOS are at a greater risk for heart disease and diabetes. Until recently, diet was not thought of as an important adjunct in treatment. However, since the fairly recent discovery regarding the role insulin resistance plays many experts now believe that diet should be a part of the treatment plan. Although further research is needed, it is believed that diet can help reduce insulin resistance, which can not only help erratic menses, hirsutism and acne, but may decrease the risk of heart disease and diabetes as well.

Another often undiagnosed problem that contributes to infertility is Celiac Disease. In a 2009 article in Medical News Today, medical experts are finally coming out and saying:

Health studies suggest that celiac disease, a hereditary condition that often goes undiagnosed, can lead to infertility. Experts acknowledge that without treatment, celiac disease can cause repeated miscarriages and early menopause.

It might be encouraging to know that both Celiac and PCOS can be effectively managed through diet, and a diet low in starch, high in good fats, and moderate in protein is not harmful to anyone and at the same time has been shown repeatedly to prevent heart disease, diabetes (type 2), and to control PCOS and Celiac symptoms.

Well, fortunately there are many great resources to assist us in answering this question. One book is Nina Planck’s Real Food for Mother and Baby which talks in depth describing diets for preconception, pregnancy, nursing, and baby’s first foods.  I recently had the opportunity to listen to a podcast interview on Jimmy Moore’s “The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show” with Nina, and I think you will enjoy it as well.  Nina’s books are available on my resource page also. In fact, one very fortunate reader is going to get a FREE COPY of Nina Planck’s Real Food for Mother and Baby coming soon. If you’re not already a twitter follower, become one and you won’t miss the info about this upcoming giveaway!

The most recent Weston A. Price Foundation conference had a few things to say about fertility nutrition as well; in fact, that was the theme of the conference. I was unfortunately unable to attend this year, but many of my fellow Real Food Media bloggers were there and soon the entire collection of MP3s from the conference talks will be available for purchase through my resources page as well.  Stay tuned!

 Finally, you might enjoy a stop over at Naturally Knocked Up and read Donielle’s amazing real-food healing story from PCOS!

This post was submitted in conjunction with Real Food Wednesdays and Works for Me Wednesday.

Housekeeping Note: I have gotten lots of questions about how to subscribe to this blog. For some reason I’m having major challenges in this area with WordPress, so the easiest thing to do is to do it the old fashioned way. So e-mail me: carrie [at] organicthrifty [dot] com and I will manually add you to my e-mail subscription list until I can figure out the more sophisticated way of doing it! Thanks for reading!

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