Preparing for Conception
“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” - Willa Cather
When it comes to preparing your body for conception, it’s an important time to really tune in, connect, and prepare your body. Although many resources say it’s best to start three months before trying to conceive, it’s never too early! Parental health (both mom AND dad) prior to conception is one of the many factors to influence conception. Here are five important things that I communicate with women who are wanting to get pregnant:
1. Track your menstrual cycle and learn when your fertile window is
Did you know you can only get pregnant 5 days of your cycle? When a woman ovulates, she releases an egg. The egg will last for about 24 hours, if not less. The days leading up to when you release your egg is known as your fertile window, as sperm can last up to 5 days after being released.
There are multiple ways to track your cycle. Many women already use some sort of tracking app, which is great! With this being said, many of these apps only track menstruation and average ovulation on day 14. It is so important to know that not every woman ovulates the same day. It may be as early as day 8 or as late as day 21. To better understand your individual ovulation day, it’s important to understand your body’s signs. Here are four indicators that your body will show around ovulation:
Basal Body Temperature - This is your lowest temperature at rest, best to take right when waking up. BBT will have a spike right AFTER you have ovulated, and then come back down when it is the beginning of your cycle again. If your temperature has already risen, the egg is more than likely unable to be fertilized as you are likely outside your fertile window.
Cervical Mucus - Believe it or not, our cervical mucus is an incredible indicator when you are in your fertile window. It changes during each phase of our cycle in relation to estrogen and progesterone! During your fertile window, cervical mucus will become more watery and lubricative (similar to an egg white texture).
Tune into your energy and libido levels. Right before and during ovulation, your energy and libido levels should be the highest. You may feel more motivated to workout, socialize, and be intimate!
LH or Ovulation Strips - These are strips that you can buy to help detect a spike in Luteinizing Hormone. LH will spike right before ovulation. Although these are great to understand when your fertile window may be, these do not indicate that you have or will ovulate.
2. Work on balancing your hormones before conceiving
Many women today normalize having irregular or painful cycles, are on birth control, or struggle with other hormonal conditions such as PCOS or endometriosis. These are all things that may indicate your hormones need some love and regulation! There are many ways to help support your hormones, but let's specifically talk about food.
In today’s world, diet culture has created a lot of guilt and shame around certain foods, and each diet has its own set of rules. This isn’t how we were created to live! The goal when it comes to nourishing yourself in the preconception stage is to focus on nutrient-dense, easy to digest, energy-rich foods. There are more supportive foods to the body and less supportive foods. I encourage women to check out the pro-metabolic lifestyle, but more than that, I encourage women to learn how your body feels and responds to different foods.
As a general guideline, here are the pro-metabolic top tips:
Lean into easy to digest, warming foods. This includes quality protein, cooked vegetables, and seasonal fruits.
Eat more, not less. Your body needs nutrients and it needs a lot of them to prepare for and grow a baby! Rather than looking at calorie count, look at the nutrient density of the food.
Never skip breakfast. The body’s metabolism is highest in the morning, as is insulin sensitivity and energy. It’s prime time to consume food!
Balance fats. Unsaturated and saturated fats are both important, and they need to be balanced! Its important that they are high quality fats - such as avocados, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, etc.
Eat seasonally. Our bodies are incredible and actually change throughout the seasons of the year. A great way to support your changing body is to know when foods are in season and focus on consuming those!
3. If possible, try to avoid alcohol. Alcohol may have a role in acting like estrogen in the body! Estrogen, although important, is not meant to be the dominating hormone when the body is trying to support a pregnancy. Many hormones play a role in conception, it’s important that they are all balanced as they are meant to be.
4. Find ways to help eliminate stress and get in a good mindset. Movement, journaling, prayer, sunshine, and breathing exercises are great ways to stimulate “feel good” hormones. This helps the body feel more at ease and helps relieve everyday stress. If your body is constantly stuck in “fight or flight”, it may not prioritize making a baby!
5. Lastly, but most importantly, is to get under chiropractic care with a prenatal, nervous system focused chiropractor. It’s important to have someone who not only understands preconception, pregnancy, and birth but also the nervous system. The nervous system controls every other system in the body, including the endocrine and reproductive systems. The brain is the “air traffic control” of the body, and sends and receives messages via a two way highway, the spinal cord and nerves. Through emotional, chemical, and physical stressors - the nervous system gets “roadblocks” impacting communication between brain and body. Through specific adjustments, the body is able to restore normal communication. As chiropractors, we take no credit for the magnificent design or intelligence of the human body!
All of this may seem overwhelming, but be encouraged that any small change adds up to make a big difference! As a prenatal chiropractor, passionate about this topic, it’s important to me that above all - women feel empowered and educated. That is my goal with this post! As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. In the meantime - enjoy time with your spouse, lean into what your mind & body needs, and be excited for what’s to come!
With love,
Dr. Ryanne
