Optimizing your health and your environment is your first opportunity as potential parents to make a firm commitment to the health of your unborn child.

I appreciate the opportunity to support you in your desire for a healthy fertility. I approach fertility as a natural process the body wants to perform. I encourage you to be confident in this and to be hopeful that small, simple choices can move you towards your goal of a healthy pregnancy and child.

If a natural conception is not possible, and you are seeking the help of assisted reproductive technologies, your nutrition will have an impact on your response to treatment and recovery, and will provide the foundation for the life-long health of your child.

A healthy, natural conception needs:

1. Plenty of normal sperm that are good forward-moving swimmers.

The sperm created today will be ejaculated in 3 months. Lifestyle and nutrition changes may take 3 months to be reflected in the sperm you create. Therefore, a man may want to begin optimizing his health 6 months before he hopes to father a child. I will help your partner:

• Evaluate his medical history for factors that may impact the health of his sperm.
• Identify and minimize his exposure to workplace toxins that may pose a threat to his fertility. Workplace exposure to lead, cadmium, mercury, chlorides, as well as many prescription drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and inhalant drugs are toxic to sperm.
• Include in his diet the foods and supplements that are shown to improve the quality and quantity of his sperm.

2. Hormone balance for the ovulation of a mature and healthy egg.

About 3 months before an egg is recruited for ovulation its nourishing follicle is exposed to your internal environment, which will help determine its viability as a healthy egg. So just as with sperm, you will ideally want 3 months for nutrition and lifestyle changes to achieve optimal health and an additional 3 months for the follicles to bathe the recruited eggs in nutrients, increased blood flow and balanced hormones. It is your best chance for conception. I will help you to:

• Attend to all body systems responsible for a healthy hormone balance, including the thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, immune system and intestinal health.
• Understand how the timing of your meals and the food choices you make can contribute to a healthy ovulatory cycle.
• Maintain appropriate weight and activity levels for improved fertility.
• Perform a gentle detoxification to help your body clear environmental and dietary toxins that may be disrupting your hormone balance.
• Learn simple ways to stimulate the relaxation response to reduce the negative effects of stress.
• Increase blood flow to the reproductive organs to assure the recruited eggs are receiving the nourishment and hormones they need for maturity.
• Find ways for emotional and spiritual expression.
• Nurture yourself – it can be your first expression of love to your child.

3. A welcoming cervix, uterus, and a clear and open fallopian tube, which the sperm will travel through to meet and fertilize the egg.

The cervix is the gateway to the uterus and produces slippery, eggwhite fluid in direct response to the rising estrogen produced by the maturing ovarian follicles. This fertile cervical fluid changes an otherwise acidic vagina to alkaline in order to protect the sperm. It supplies nourishment for the sperm and a fernlike pattern in which to swim up through to the uterus. The uterus must be free of fibroid tumors, scar tissue, and structural abnormalities for the sperm to travel to the tubes in search of the egg and to later return for implantation. The fallopian tubes must capture, nourish, and move the egg (or embryo) down the tube and to the uterus. I will advise you to:

• Monitor cervical fluid patterns.
• Evaluate your medical and surgical history for factors that may interfere with the production of fertile cervical fluid or a clear and open uterus and fallopian tubes.
• Include in your diet the foods and supplements that will improve the quality and quantity of fertile cervical fluid to increase your number of fertile days.

4. A thick and mature uterine lining for the fertilized egg (embryo) to implant, receive nourishment and grow into your healthy baby.

The uterine lining (endometrium) should be thick, spongy, and filled with new blood vessels for implantation of the embryo to occur. Constriction of blood flow to and from the uterus can result from a displaced uterus, poor posture, long periods of sitting, pelvic injury, digestive problems, tension in the upper abdomen and frequent or difficult pregnancies. Proper blood flow will assure your reproductive organs are getting vital oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and water, and that the deoxygenated blood and waste products are carried away. I will help you to:

• Determine that you have an adequate luteal phase to maintain a pregnancy.
• Stimulate blood flow to the reproductive organs through very simple self-care techniques and exercises.
• Supply the nutrients needed for adequate progesterone levels, which will help thicken and maintain the uterine lining. For example, a sluggish thyroid disrupts progesterone release from the luteal cells, so if applicable, foods and nutrients that stimulate the thyroid would be advised.
• Recognize and avoid chemicals in your environment that may be blocking progesterone function.

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