What is involved in Naturopathic Preconception Care?
Naturopathic preconception care is a in depth analysis of your health history, testing and symptomology to identify areas where Naturopathic support will be beneficial when preparing for baby. This will involve plenty of questions, reading through previous testing and outcome measures.
Ideally, preconception care should start as soon as possible.
However, if you are not in a space to do so, 6 months of preconception care is favourable. At a minimum 3-4 months of preparation is necessary. This is because it takes around 3-4 months for oocyte (egg) maturation and sperm development. Therefore your nutrition and health in those 3-4 months prior to conception will be passed on to your bub!
To start with we need to establish the conditions for health! This looks like making adjustments such as:
Improving diet: It is important that we establish health eating patterns that focus on regulating blood sugar levels, consuming plenty of nutrient dense whole foods to boost fertility. This also helps to have healthy eating habits established for pregnancy!
Filtered water: A foundation for good health. This helps to reduce your toxin load.
Glass tupperware: Plastic tupperware contain compounds which mimic estrogen receptors in the body. This can contribute to hormone imbalances.
Low-tox products (home, beauty, cleaning): Again, regular products can interact with your endocrine system and increase your toxic load. Natural is best! Visit my website for low tox product recommendations
Healthy weight range: Having a healthy body weight for your body will be beneficial for your babies long term health and helps to support healthy hormones for conception.
Mental Health: It is important to address the underlying emotional and spiritual aspects to conceiving baby and why you want a baby. Looking at your thought patterns and working on your own mental health will help you long term and create a better quality of life for you and your baby .
2. Improving gut health- Establishing a healthy microbiome
Having a healthy gut is very important when planning for pregnancy. Your gut health impacts the nutrients you can absorb from food and can also alter levels of inflammation in your body. The quality of your microbiome also gets passed onto your baby.
'Detoxification' is important to help the body remove the build up of toxins, heavy metals ect that will be passed onto bub.
What ever level of toxins your body is carrying as the mother will get directly passed through to your baby. Detoxification may be an important aspect of improving fertility and improving the health of your baby long term also.
Heavy metal exposure can also be detrimental to sperm health and therefore is an important aspect for the guys to work on too!
3. Balance the hormones and optimise reproductive health for both the MALE AND FEMALE ideally, at least 3-4 months prior to conception.
Semen analysis- semen analysis is very important in this phase as we can identify whether there are any abnormalities/ deformaties that will impact your ability to conceive and poor sperm health can increase the risk of miscarriage.
We will need to look into your hormonal health and teach you how to track your cycle and identify ovulation.
We need to know when you ovulate, that you have a healthy regular cycle, that your body is producing sufficient progesterone and that there are no dysbioses in the vaginal flora or physical complications in the uterus.
4. Nutrient repletion and increasing nutrient reserves again, this should ideally be done 3-4 months prior to conception.
It is important to have ample nutrient levels as your nutrient requirements in pregnancy increase dramatically! Unfortunately in pregnancy baby takes the nutrients it needs and will leave you with deficiencies unless you are meeting the requirements. Some nutrients such as choline, folate and DHA are incredible important and are needed in large amounts to help support a healthy bub and pregnancy. The best way to achieve this is by consuming a wholefood, nutrient rich diet with good quality meats, vegetables and some fruit. A good quality prenatal multivitamin can be a great way to get extra nutrients in if you are experiencing pregnancy nausea.
If you are wanting to conceive baby it may be beneficial for you to get in contact with a qualified holistic health practitioner to support and guide you to optimal health and wellbeing!
This information is not designed to diagnose or treat ❤️
For more information or to book in, email me at hello@amy-jade.com.au or alternatively DM me on instagram.