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Nutrient Deficiencies and Infertility

Do you know nutrient deficiencies are one of the most unaddressed contributors to infertility?

Yes, that’s right. It takes a hell lot of nutrients to build a baby. And your body is really smart. It won’t drive any of those nutrients into making a baby unless it makes sure that the mom-to-be, is having adequate nutrients, not only to survive but to thrive.

You probably heard me say a thousand times already: REPRODUCTION IS ABOUT SURVIVAL. And your body won’t prioritize making a baby unless it is sure that it’s safe enough to make a baby.

I have addressed stress, blood sugar balance, digestion, and infections. And today, I want to talk about nutrient deficiencies. How they affect fertility, the most common causes of nutrient deficiencies, and which are the critical nutrients needed when trying to conceive #TTC.

There is no doubt that nutrients are essential, and we need nutrients to live. That’s why we can only survive a certain number of days without food. We need nutrients to live, to function, to perform… we need nutrients to function correctly. But especially when we’re trying to conceive, because it is precisely then, that we don’t need to survive, we need to thrive.

Often, nutrient deficiencies are not identified by your doctor. Sometimes because they’re just simply not looked for. Other times, because they’re not that obvious to see on a blood test. Why? The main reason is that conventional doctors look at conventional reference ranges, which are built considering the actual population. These ranges are created by taking a sample that represents the general population and then set an average and create the reference range. But haven’t you noticed that the general population is sicker by the minute? Compare today’s population to our grandparent’s. Chronic conditions are more and more prevalent these days…

If you fall within the range consistently, your doctor won’t red-flag it, unless maybe you’re too close to one of the cuts, or just right out of the range…

In Functional Medicine, we look into reference ranges differently. From that population, functional medicine considers only those that are healthy and establish the ranges in where these people feel their best. At their optimal. So, while you may not be deficient in the eyes of your doctor to make an intervention, you may be dealing with a deficiency that’s preventing you from feeling your best, being at your optimal, and most importantly, that may be preventing you from being able to conceive.

Pregnancy is truly a miracle. There so many things that have to happen at the precise exact moment that trust me; you want to be at your best to have the best chances for that to happen.

Let’s look at the most common causes nutrient deficiencies:

#1 LACK OF NUTRIENTS IN THE DIET 

This is the most obvious one, but also the most common.

You have no idea how many of my clients come to me having what it seems to be a pretty healthy diet already, but when we dig deeper, we identify severe nutrient deficiencies.

I get it. Nutrition is very confusing.

The information out there, on the internet, social media, magazines, newspapers… is very contradictory. Some say you shouldn’t eat fat, while others say the keto diet saved their lives. Some say you need to eat several times a day while others advocate for fasting as a healing tool… some say humans are the only mammals to drink milk as adults while others say milk is a pretty nutrient-dense food… Don’t eat meat. It causes cancer. But wait, meat is a good source of protein. Eat a plant-based diet. But wait, you won’t get your vitamin B12 then….

So, what’s gonna be?

As I said, very confusing…

I don’t believe in the perfect diet. And I certainly do not believe in miracle diets. I think we’re all different, and what’s right for me can be bad for the person next to me. And even I go further: what’s right for me now, might not be right for me in the future or another situation.

So, finding the RIGHT DIET FOR YOU, is where you want to get. And for that, there are two options: either you try and use trial and error, or you work with a nutrition professional that helps you along the way.

I went for the first option and got right where I want to be. It took me no less than six years… I wish I had had someone that helped me through the process, but in my case, I wouldn’t be here if I had, so for that, I’m grateful.

What I can tell you is that there are three basic rules or principles you can follow to make sure you maximize your nutrient intake:

Make sure you eat enough.

Make sure you eat a variety of foods.

Eat seasonally and locally, when you can.

If you follow these rules, you have 80% done. Yes. 80%! The other 20% is a matter of finding your bio-individuality: which foods work best for you, adjusting your quantities, and identifying your timings.

But I often find that people, especially women, tend to under-eat, tend to eat quite regularly the same foods, and also won’t eat with the season.

Ladies, under-eating is HUGE. If you don’t get enough food, enough nutrients, your body will turn your STRESS MODE on. You will enter into a sympathetic dominant state and your body will think there is an immediate threat (famine), and it needs to deal with it. So, you will not get pregnant, just because your body won’t see the timing as safe enough to reproduce.

Eat a variety of foods is also not that easy. We are working women, with a working, social, and family life. We like and enjoy going to the gym, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, going shopping, have a nice dinner at fancy restaurants, or junk food at crappy but cool places… whatever is your choice, what I find is that when it comes to eating patterns, we tend to eat always the same. We are creatures of habit. Raise your hand if you’ve lived in one of those houses where the food for the week was super structured: Chicken on Mondays, Lentils on Tuesdays, Pasta on Wednesdays, Beef on Thursdays, Fish on Fridays… and so on… I know that if I went to my grandmas’ place for lunch on a Thursday, I will get pasta while if I chose Fridays, I will get fish.

This is a great tool for organizing, and especially for those with big families, it is a lifesaver… but, it also has the caveat that you can fall into a routine and miss the chance to widen the array of foods to eat. Different foods have different nutrients… and we get the most of them when we change, vary, and mix different foods into different dishes…

Eat with the season is another one I find missing pretty often. Come on, strawberries in November? I won’t judge, I do it myself sometimes too.

We tend to buy in the bigger supermarkets where we have everything we want, and we tend to buy less at the local, tinny grocery store… But we need to understand something. The fruit and vegetables that we buy that are out of season have not been grown locally. Which entails three issues: First, because there were not grown close to where you live and need to be transported. So, they were not picked up when ripe, which is when they are at its maximum nutrition point. They were picked up before that, so that they can ripe on their way to your store and at your store shelves or fridge.

Second, because they are grown far away from where you live, they have to be transported to your store, which entails environmental pollution and contamination.

Third, by buying seasonal, local fruit, and veggies you are also maximizing your nutrient intake, and at the same time, supporting your local community. A win-win.

#2 NUTRIENT MALABSORPTION

The second most common reason for nutrient deficiencies, is malabsorption. This means that even when you’re getting all the nutrients you need from your diet; those nutrients don’t get to the cell.

This is very common. Things like not chewing your food enough, low stomach acid, lack of pancreatic enzymes, food sensitivities, gut infections, mold toxicity, heavy metals toxicity… among other things, can diminish your nutrient absorption capacity.

I have a 2-part blog post on Digestion and Fertility, where I talk specifically about nutrient absorption and how it can impact your fertility. Check them out to know all the details:

Fertility and Gut Health (part 1)

Fertility and Gut Health (part 2)

#3 BIRTH CONTROL PILL AND OTHER MEDICATIONS

The birth control has done so much good and so much bad at the same time. But one thing is sure, antioxidants, B vitamins, and important minerals such as selenium and zinc are depleted when a woman is taking an oral contraceptive. A woman’s nutritional requirement increases during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and many times these women have taken the birth control pill for years before trying to get pregnant, which contributes to difficulty trying to conceive.

Dr. Jolene Brighten explains it in this article Birth Control – What Doctors Don’t Say About Birth Control Effects in the Body and on her book Beyond the Pill.

There are also some medications that will deplete us from nutrients. Metformin is know to deplete youor Vitamin B12, antacids are know for blocking the HCL production, which leads to malasbsorption and nutrient deficiencies…

Often times, it is not one or the other, but the combination of the two. That’s why I like to run the GI MAP Test on all my patients struggling with fertility.

Once identified what’s causing your nutrient status to be lower than needed for optimal fertility, let’s briefly talk mention which nutrients are especially important when trying to conceive:

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B6

Folate (B9)

Choline

Iron

Zinc

Magnesium

Calcium

Vitamin K2

Vitamin D

Fish Oil

The nutrients above are the key nutrients to include in your diet when trying to conceive. That’s why I recommend taking a prenatal vitamin complex that includes most of these nutrients.

Why? Can’t I rely on the food I eat?

A question I get very often…

Well, you should… but having a good quality prenatal supplement is like having a good insurance policy… something that will cover for the deficiencies you might have…

Originally published here : https://www.beatrizmendezdelrio.com/nutrient-deficiencies-and-infertility/ 

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Not Getting Pregnant? The Most Common Reasons Why

Infertility is one of the toughest struggles out there. If you are on your own infertility journey, you know what I’m talking about. Most of you know, whether because you know me personally or because you have read my story, that my husband and I suffered from infertility. It took us a while to understand why I was not getting pregnant. It is devastating and absolutely soul-crushing trying to conceive and after months and months of trying, nothing actually happens. That is why today I bring you the top 4 reasons why you might not be conceiving. The 4 reasons I was not given, and I wish I had.

When we talk about infertility, the first thing to keep in mind is that it is a complex issue. Some many factors and circumstances must happen for a baby to be conceived. It really is a miracle. When we go deeper into science and we look into everything that has to happen, just at the right moment, you will realize that it is way harder than everything we’ve been told.

To conceive, we primarily need 4 things, and if the 4 are not OK, the baby will not arrive. We need: (i) healthy eggs, (ii) healthy sperm, (iii) healthy cervical mucus, and (iv) a healthy environment (body) where the baby can grow and develop. I know it may seem simplistic, but very often we forget that this is the recipe to not only have a baby but to have a healthy baby. If any of these 4 factors is not in its place, challenges and difficulties may arise that make the conception even more complicated than it already is.

If you have been trying to get pregnant for some time, or if you have just started trying, or if you want to get pregnant in the future, these are the 4 main reasons that can be preventing you from conceiving.

Originally published here.