3 things to avoid if you’re trying to conceive a healthy, happy baby

Last week, had the privilege of celebrating naturopathic medicine week and over 90 years of being licensed in British Columbia (to be clear… not me personally.)

We organized two evenings of public lectures on women’s health. Local Nanaimo naturopathic doctors gathered and shared their wisdom to the eager crowd.

I spoke on fertility.

I wanted to write the information down because I know what a growing concern this topic is and how devastating it can be for couples who are having troubles conceiving.

A couple is diagnosed with infertility after they have been trying for a year with out success. That number changes to 6 months when the woman is over 35.

These days women are often delaying pregnancy to pursue careers, which I can understand. However, advancing age is one of the common challenges these days of women trying to get pregnant. If a woman is over 35 she is twice as likely to be diagnosed with unexplained fertility issues.

A study done in 2005 showed that in North America, 6.1 million women aged 15-44 were diagnosed with an impaired ability to conceive for various causes. The number of females who used fertility services to conceive was 9.3 million, and there were 2.1 million married couples who were unable to conceive at all.

These is a modern epidemic. And truly couples do not need to go through the emotional roller coaster involved with struggling to get pregnant.

I often work with women AND men to help them give birth to a healthy, happy baby. That is, after all the end goal. Not just a pregnancy.

Some couples are able to conceive naturally after working with me. Some work with fertility specialists and undergo various forms of assisted reproductive technology (ART). My records show that the couples that do work with me in conjunction with ART have double the chance of carrying a pregnancy to term.

This is powerful stuff.

This article will not talk about hormone imbalances. You may think that is silly. I’m not denying that hormone imbalances play a role in fertility concerns, because they certainly do. However my question as a naturopathic doctor is always, “Why?” I am always looking for the root cause. When I can stop asking, “Why?” I have found the root cause. And the hormone infertility-causing hormone imbalance is often a result of several underlying causes.

I will be sharing 3 of these with you. To be clear I will be sharing 1 in depth today, and 2 more in the future.

They are each big topics.

So in no particular order here are three common reasons why couples don’t conceive.

1. Toxicity
2. Poor Nutrition
3. Stress

Lets start with toxicity.

Often environmental factors that are known to lead to infertility and sub-fertility but are sadly rarely examined. There is a convincing number of both animal and human studies validating the detrimental effects of common household environmental gonadotoxins and endocrine disruptors. What did I just say? Sex organ toxins and sex hormone disruptors. Both not good.

These toxins build up in the body over time (remember the bucket analogy?) and cumulatively cause serious reproductive problems. Several of them are called xenoestrogens because they mimic estrogen in the body, bind to estrogen receptors often more strongly than our natural forms and send unintended, often damaging, signals.

Yikes.

They include heavy metals, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), agricultural chemicals / pesticides, drugs (both recreational and pharmaceutical) and even radiation from various sources.

These molecules cause inflammation, oxidative stress, damage our reproductive organs, and alter our hormone production.

Yikes.

In fact this is intergenerational. Exposure to endocrine disruptors when a woman is pregnant affects the reproductive system of the growing fetus in both male and female fetuses – so the next generation is born impaired!

(Scary side note – new babies have 280 different chemicals in their blood stream.)

Something needs to be done.

3 changes you can make to decrease your toxic exposure and increase your chances of having a healthy, happy baby:

This takes a lot of time and energy and attention. I’m touching on 4 of hundreds of tips to decrease toxicity, focusing on AVOIDING toxins.

You have to start by getting educated (thank you for being here) and looking in your environment and seeing what may be causing problems. And trust me they are EVERYWHERE. I talked a little about this in this article: 3 Rooms in Your Home That May Be Preventing Weight Loss. The list is extensive and frightening, to be frank.

The best approach is to work with a qualified ND who can help you identify the specific triggers in your environment and work with you to safely detox both the home and the body, accounting for your specific individualized needs.

1. Avoid Plastics.

Plastics are everywhere. We store and heat up our food in them, and they are even in feminine sanitary products, which you’re purposing putting close to your gonads.

Store food in glass, metal and ceramic. Avoid plastic containers at all costs. The toxins in the plastics are fat soluble, and not bound to the plastic, so they leach out in the food or beverage, which we then ingest.

These are known to impair ovulation, and hormone production (they also are obesogens – they make you fat.)

2. Avoid Mercury.

Mercury is a heavy metal commonly linked to stillbirth, miscarriage, pregnancy complications, and infertility. (Tweet it!)

Fish is a common source. Run off from industry pollutes the water and the organisms in it. The mercury levels build up the food chain. So the bigger the fish, the more likely to cause it is to contain higher levels of problematic mercury. Common sources would be tuna, swordfish, and halibut.

It takes the body a YEAR to get rid of the mercury in ONE can of tuna. Why? because the gall bladder does its best to eliminate the mercury in the bile so it can be eliminated safely. Unfortunately for some reason the intestines didn’t’ get the memo and reabsorb 99% of the stuff. Oy.

The other common place for mercury exposure is dental work – amalgam fillings, braces, crowns, etc. I work with my patients to safely detoxify them before and after having these removed and replaced with safer options by a a biological dentist.

3. Eat organic as much as possible.

I know it is more expensive to eat organically, but the pesticides used in conventional agriculture are known to cause miscarriage, infertility, decreased ovulation, and decreased semen quality. And ART costs a boatload more.

There is a non-governmental agency in the States (The Environmental Working Group) that measures the pesticide burden on 50-60 fruits and veggies every year. They produce two main lists:

The Dirty Dozen: the most heavily pesticided produce which are more critical to buy and eat organic. (Tweet it!)

The 2014 Dirty Dozen are: apples, strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches, spinach, sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas, and potatoes.

The Clean Fifteen: the least heavily pesticided produce which are less critical to buy and eat organic. You can Google that up, and then gobble them up!

These three tips are part of several I use as part of my preconception protocol, which takes at least 4 months. I know couples who are desperate to get pregnant want to have conceived yesterday, but preparing the way for a healthy, happy baby takes time.

And to be honest, the goal isn’t pregnancy – the goal is a healthy, happy baby (and mom) carried to term. Four months is drop in the bucket time wise when it come to the life goal of conceiving a child and starting a family.

Here are the other two articles in this series:

Part 2: 3 things to make sure you consume if you want to conceive a healthy, happy baby
Part 3: Preparing the body and mind for a healthy, happy baby

I hope you found this helpful. Please pass it along to anyone you may know that might be looking for answers.

Here’s to your healthy, delightful, thriving life,
Dr. Tonia