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5 Ways to Naturally Boost Fertility

5 Ways to Naturally Boost Fertility

I’m going to cover the 5 things every woman can do to boost her own fertility.

Although we know the science behind fertility, A woman’s fertility occurs in this magical inner world. Just ask any woman who finds out that she is pregnant for the first time. It literally takes her breath away.

Statistically fertility rates have been dropping over time.

Fertility changes by age bracket. Medically speaking women under 35 are more fertile and have less difficulty becoming pregnant. Women over 35 are considered to have more complicated pregnancies and be less fertile.

The definition of infertility in women under 35 is having unprotected sex for 1 year without becoming pregnant.

The definition of infertility in women over 35 is having unprotected sex for 6 months without becoming pregnant.

Many women are postponing pregnancy until later in life. In fact, 20% of all live US births are in women over 35 years old.

No matter how old you are if you plan on becoming pregnant at some point in your life it’s important to take charge of your own fertility and keep these 5 tips that I’m going to share with you in mind.

It takes 120 days for a healthy egg to form. That’s 4 months. If you plan on trying to conceive then start implementing these tips ahead of time to help your body have the best chance at fertilization and implementation.

 

Tip 1: Birth Control

If you are on birth control you should be using it for one purpose only. Birth control.

If you are on birth control to “take care of” or “help” with an underlying hormonal problem this may be the time to deal with the real issue at hand. Why did you initially go on birth control? Cramps? To help regulate your periods?  Control acne?

Cramps, irregular periods, and acne are all symptoms of a hormonal imbalance. You see where I’m going with this?

If the underlying hormonal issue is not fixed and you plan on getting pregnant then it’s time to jump start your hormonal rhythms. Birth control does the complete opposite. It shuts them down. The conventional medical system chooses to ignore the long-term detrimental effects birth control can have on reproductive health. We seem to think we can just turn it on and off like a light-switch

Birth control shuts down your ovaries, it puts them on vacation. In order to ovulate you need those ovaries working. Depending on the type of birth control you are taking it may take anywhere from 1-12 months for your hormonal system to re-boot itself once you stop taking birth-control.

Many women are surprised by this. But it makes perfect sense, if you have been on birth control for 20 years your ovaries have been told to turn off. Your body has re-directed essential energy AWAY from your reproductive system. You can’t expect your ovaries to immediately wake up when at 37 you meet your soul mate and want to start a family. If an underlying hormonal problem is at hand, it can be helpful to work with an alternative practitioner or naturopathic doctor to help you with this. Each time I work with a woman on her hormones I let her know that it will make her more fertile. Some woman come in because they want to boost their fertility others come because they want to alleviate their hormonal symptoms.

 

Tip 2: Stop Eating Junk

Your reproductive system thrives on real, whole foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and plant based fats like olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, and nut butters. The best thing you can do is eat real food. Food that you have seen in a garden, field or farmers market somewhere.

*Sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup sabotages healthy ovulation. I will discuss how this happens in Tip 3.

*Trans fats, and genetically modified foods are hormone disruptors and interfere with cellular communication. These are found in highly processed and fast foods.

*Gluten found in wheat, barley and rye can affect some women and interfere with fertility. Many women can enhance fertility by abstaining from gluten.

**MANTRA: EAT FRUIT TO PRODUCE FRUIT

Foods that are especially helpful at enhancing fertility are Berries and Cherries. Raspberries, Blackberries, Wild Blueberries (not the cultivated blueberries), Strawberries. Eat a 6oz container per day. Other helpful fruits and foods include: Citrus fruits, bananas, melons, mango, avocados, raw honey and coconut water.

 

Tip 3: Balance Your Blood Sugar

Processed sugars such as high fructose corn syrup, white sugar and corn sugar create a spike in blood sugar. To balance the sugar in your blood your body releases insulin.

Insulin opens the doors to your cells and stores that sugar as fat. When you eat brown rice a small amount of insulin is released. When you eat donuts or white-flour pancakes with syrup a lot of insulin is released. More than you need. This de-sensitizes your cells to insulin over time.

Some signs that your blood sugar may not be balanced is feeling Hangry, tired, headachy, irritable, or dizzy.

Ovaries do not like excess insulin and ovarian function diminishes and cysts can form from the excess. If you are consuming these sugars day in and day out, your body will cease to respond to insulin, in turn leading to infertility.

The goal is to diminish your insulin release and then stabilize it to support your ovaries.

You can do this by eating 3 balanced meals each day. Meals with protein, vegetables, fruit and a resistant starch.

(Resistant starches are: potatoes, brown, black, wild rice, quinoa, squash, or beans)

Foods especially good at helping with this are: Cucumbers, asparagus, spinach, artichokes, kale, potatoes, garlic, and butter leaf lettuce and raw honey.

Exercise is extremely valuable in helping to reduce insulin resistance and help your cells become more responsive to insulin.

 

Tip 4: Detoxify

I have a three-week detoxification program that I use with women who want to conceive. I literally have a list of over 100 women whom have gotten pregnant after doing the detox. This speaks to the value of scrubbing out the system to help your body function optimally. Think of it this way. Your body is a filter, each day it filters items from the air, water, and foods that you eat and extracts the essential vitamins and nutrients from them. And it discards the rest.

When we are not eating cleanly we tend to consume more xenoestrogens. These are chemicals in our food, household and body products that bind to our hormonal receptors and cause problems. When you detoxify your liver is able to metabolize the xenoestrogens and send them to your colon for excretion.

The three main organs in charge of detoxification are your kidneys, liver and colon. A detox cleans out your liver and kidney filters and gets the waste moving through your colon. By reducing your toxin load it strengthens your reproductive system.

A side benefit of detoxification is that it decreases your toxic burden which in turn decreases the toxin burden passed on to your developing fetus. In the latest reports around 80,000 chemical compounds were measured in fetal cord blood. Many of these chemical compounds are linked to impaired developmental and learning processes. By detoxifying your body first you reduce the toxic load passed on to your developing baby. It’s a win-win.

 

TIP 5: Destressify – I got this word from David Ji, He has a book on meditation called Destressifying.

But if you want to conceive it’s time to destressify. Your body has 2 nervous systems the sympathetic and parasympathetic. You know them by the fight or flight and the rest and digest. The parasympathetic sometimes called the rest and digest or feed and breed system. Rest, digest, breed (reproduce), the parasympathetic is the yin the sympathetic is the yang. They balance each other out.

If you are tracking your ovulation and chase your spouse around the house and demand sex your probably not in parasympathetic mode.

Parasympathetic mode is in the flow, life is good, everything is coming, it’s dancing in the moonlight, it’s a massage, it’s chill.

The fastest way to get there is by taking a deep breath in through your nose and releasing it out through your nose. While you are filling your body with breath imagine white light filling up your pelvic area and abdomen. The simple breathing practice instantly metabolizes any excess stress hormone in your bloodstream. The white light visualization brings energy and purification to your pelvic organs.

In the divine design of our bodies this makes perfect sense. If your running away from a tiger, then it’s not necessary to use energy for ovulation. Get away from the tiger swing back into relax mode, time to eat, rest, get snuggly. The problem arises if you live your life in stressed out survival mode, it will become more difficult to conceive.

Bottom line: Depletion on many levels is the main contributing factor towards infertility. When you are depleted in mind, body, and spirit it becomes more difficult to conceive. In these 5 tips, I show you how to fill up your body bank account and start re-directing energy back towards your reproductive system.

Need Help?

Check out my cookbook – Feed your cells – Available on Amazon

My upcoming book will be released this spring – Over 35 and Pregnant, for when in fact you do become pregnant.

(This post was originally a Facebook Live video. You can watch that HERE)

Or on Youtube:

Dr. Andrea Purcell

A trusted and well-respected Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Purcell has been in private practice for over twenty years. Dr. Purcell is a published author and has a women’s specialty practice for hormone balancing, weight loss, mystery illness, and gastro-intestinal concerns. Dr. Purcell assists her patients by identifying the underlying cause of disease and removing obstacles that impede the body's natural ability to heal. Drugs and surgery are used as a last resort. She believes that increasing health on the inside shines through to the outside.

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