Fertility - infertility

Have you been struggling with fertility, can’t fall pregnant? feeling stressed, tired and over it?

Infertility is a major problem in modern society and recurs in as much as 20–30% of the fertile female population. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) delineates infertility as the failure to conceive after one or more years of attempts of natural fertilization.

What can boost your fertility naturally?

Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School have just published a review of past studies that examined the impact of diet on fertility. Here’s what they found.

For women trying to become pregnant naturally (without "assistive reproductive technologies" such as in vitro fertilization), vitamins and nutrients were linked to positive effects on fertility:

Studies of men have found that semen quality improves with healthy diets (as described above), while the opposite has been linked with diets high in saturated or trans fat.

The key thing to improve your fertility outcome is ensure that you are ovulating. If you don’t have periods you are not ovulating.

There are a number of reproductive conditions that can explain the lack of menstruation and ovulation which includes PCOS and hypothalamic amenorrhea.

So where does a nutritionist come into this,

Nutrition plays a major role in enhancing the reproductive efficiency both in women and men, the effect of the diet in female fertility is not well-defined. However, the interaction between nutrition and fertility appears critical for the reproductive performance.

The main way diet affects fertility is through ovulation. Problems with ovulation – the process by which a woman’s egg becomes available for fertilisation each month – represent around a quarter of all infertility cases.

Adequate hormonal function is essential for successful ovulation. Unfortunately, a poor diet can play havoc with our hormones, which in turn, can lead to ovulatory issues. This means that eating certain foods and avoiding others can actually improve our fertility.

A correct balance of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, antioxidant and folate in the daily diet provides essential benefit for an optimal female reproductive health and reduces the risk of infertility.

Do you need help with your diet to support your fertility? Contact Vanessa for a consultation.