A lot of what we talk about and teach our clients is to meet their foundational needs through nourishment, rest, and play. These are areas that are easy to overlook and dismiss as unimportant when it comes to wanting to have a healthy pregnancy. Following a protocol is often the easy part. Learning how to slow down and prioritize your health is usually the hard part. It forces us to look at how we are living and that can take time to change, but it’s an essential part of the journey to thriving in motherhood.
Eating enough food is a critical part of supporting your fertility. It helps your body feel safe, regulates a hormone called leptin, which can make conception difficult if high or low, and lowers stress. When we are chronically undereating, it is a major stressor on the body and can negatively impact ovulation and our sex hormones. Sometimes it delays ovulation all together and other times it leads to a weaker ovulation that doesn’t produce enough progesterone. Chronic stress can also lead to poor production of thyroid hormone, which plays another big role in progesterone production, ovulation and our ability to have a healthy pregnancy.
Signs You Are NOT Eating Enough
Signs You ARE Eating Enough
While this can seem like a very simple thing to do, most of the women that come to see us are not eating enough. Before they even start their personalized protocol, we have them work on increasing their food and often protein intake.
According to several studies (and my own experience), the “secret” to healing is a strong community. Yep, you read that right; studies show that having a social network or a group of people to which you feel connected significantly strengthens your immune system, lowers stress, boosts mood, decreases mortality, and supports overall wellbeing in humans. There’s even more substantial evidence of this for women in particular. This was a fascinating snippet from the article on how women react differently to stress:
“Researchers now suspect that women have a more extensive behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight. Dr. Klein says it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released, as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend to children and gather with other women instead. Studies suggest that more oxytocin is released when she engages in this tending or befriending, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone—which men have in high levels when they’re under stress—seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.”
Most of the women we work with inside our Nurture Your Fertility program have been trying to have a healthy pregnancy for years. Their health and fertility becomes all encompassing and other aspects of their life like fun and community can go by the wayside. Prioritizing these areas is something we regularly remind our clients is part of their recommendations. Sometimes we don’t know what fun looks like anymore, especially if you’ve been dealing with grief over pregnancy losses or the loss of what you thought your life would look like. That’s okay, we don’t have to force it, but getting curious of what sounds fun to you and exploring is helpful and a great way to support your fertility beyond testing and protocols.
Listen to my nourishing nutrition foundation podcast episode on the are you menstrual? podcast to learn more about how to nourish yourself and also check out my free nourishing meal guide.
reminder: i’m currently accepting people into my Nurture Your Fertility program. you can learn more here about the program and fill out an application!
