The Gut-Fertility Connection - Improve Your Gut Health to Increase Your chances of Getting Pregnant When Dealing with Infertility
Sometimes fertility has nothing to do with your lady bits!
👉 In fact, there’s a BIG chance the issue lies with your gut!
But wait…
What does your gut have to do with making a baby?
🤩 Pretty much everything…...
🦄 Limits Inflammation & Oxidative Stress…. a Major Cause of Low Embryo Quality
☘️ Promotes Healthy Hormones…. Essential for Maintaining a Healthy Pregnancy
🦩 Supports the Immune System… Important to Decrease Chances of Miscarriages
🌺 90% of Serotonin [happy hormones] Reside in the Cells of the Gut
🐞 Assist with Weight Management for Pregnancy Success
Since the body works together as one, if the GUT is out of sync, it’s highly likely that there are other issues as well!
Download your FREE PDF guide :: 3 Steps You Need To Get Right to Improve Your Chances of Getting & Staying Pregnant
One of the best ways to take care of your gut and improve fertility is discovering a fertility diet that works best for you & manage your stress levels!!
🙋🏽♀️ My unexplained infertility was explained when I realised my gut health was the root cause. I discovered that my stress played a big part & that I was highly intolerant to “healthy” foods, including tomatoes & paprika 🤪
Once I got on the right diet for me & worked on being less stressed, my body was able to heal & do the ONE thing I wanted it to do for years - GET & STAY PREGNANT 🌺🥳🦩💚🥰
Now as a qualified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, I'm passionate about helping other mamas to be, reach their ultimate goal =🤰🏽
✅ Discover How To Use Food To Improve Egg Quality
✅ Improve Chances Of Getting & Staying Pregnant
✅ Gain Confidence That You Are Doing What's Right For You and Your Baby to Be!
Whether or not medical support is needed to achieve pregnancy, being on the right diet can have a dramatic effect on the ability to ovulate, egg quality, maintaining a healthy pregnancy, and [ultimate goal] having a live birth.
Is blog post is taken from Week 9 of The Fertility Formula - an easy, six-step online program that can help boost your fertility naturally & make your DREAMS of growing your family, come true.
Your gut health can have a major impact on all areas of your body, including your fertility! By committing to a new clean diet & managing your stress levels with a and improved lifestyle [EVERYTHING we have covered in the Finding Fertility Formual] you are well on your way to improving your gut health!
But in case you need a little more information about why your gut health is SO IMPORTANT to increasing your chances of getting and stay pregnant here we go.......
First, what is the Microbiome?
The gut microbiome is essential all the bacteria that live inside your digestive system, specifically the large intestine. In the gut, there are 100 trillion bacteria cells – more cells than our body’s own cells!
While there can certainly be bad bacteria that cause infections and disease, there’s also a whole host of beneficial bacteria that work hard to digest and absorb our food, signal neurotransmitters to our brains, fight inflammation and boost immunity.
THE MICROBIOME IMPACTS:
- Energy levels
- Mood, stress and brain health
- Digestive health
- Immune function
- Skin health
- Inflammation
- Weight
- Hormones
Keeping our microbiome happy is essential for almost everything else happening in the body! The problem is, for many of us our gut balance between good bacteria and bad bacteria is way off.
Whether you’re having obvious digestive symptoms (gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, etc.), or something else is going on in your body – you likely need to take a closer look into the health of your microbiome.
Gut Health and Inflammation
You don’t need to have inflammatory bowel disease to have inflammation in the gut, or your gut causing inflammation in other parts of the body. For example, if you have intestinal permeability (aka “leaky gut”), there could be bacterial products entering the bloodstream, causing your immune system to attack them and cause chronic inflammation. [THIS WAS ME]
Gut Health and Hormone Balance
Estrogen is a hormone that the body makes, uses and then needs to get rid of. It goes through three phases of detoxification to be able to remove it from the body. The last step in the process is controlled by the gut microbiome.
There’s an enzyme in your large intestine called Beta glucuronidase, and it’s responsible for unpacking estrogen and allowing to it be re-circulated and re-absorbed in the body.
When you have high levels of B-glucuronidase, it’s usually a sign that you likely have excess estrogen in your body (estrogen dominance) and may have even experienced some of these symptoms, like menstrual cycle problems, painful periods, heavy bleeding, etc.
SIGNS OF ESTROGEN DOMINANCE:
- Mood swings/mood instability
- Water retention
- Difficulty losing body fat
- Acne and skin issues
- Irregular periods or anovulatory cycles
- Painful cycles
- Low sex drive
- Difficulty building lean muscle mass
- Poor recovery from exercise
- Sleep issues
When our bodies can’t eliminate excess estrogen through the GI tract it actually impairs fertility because it throws off the ratio between estrogen and progesterone, and ultimately causes a higher risk for miscarriage.
Remember, any dysbiosis prior to pregnancy is also going to worsen during pregnancy, so it’s a good idea to work on your gut health prior to conceiving.
Gut Health and Weight
The gut microbiome has been associated with higher pre-pregnancy weight as well as more weight gain during pregnancy. We know that excess weight impacts fertility, and researchers have found that those who are overweight have a different microbiome, with different types of bacterial strains than their normal weight counterparts.
There’s evidence that higher calorie diets rich in sugar and processed foods actually skew the balance of microbes. In fact, a recent study showed that the diversity of these microbes can be influenced by diet within just 24 hours!
Need to dig deeper?
Stool Testing:
We can learn so much from stool testing to address your overall health.
Stool testing is not used only to evaluate GI symptoms, but also to provide insight into sources of ongoing inflammation which affect everything in the body. This means that “silent” gut dysfunction can manifest as anything: depression and anxiety, joint or back pain, autoimmune conditions, eczema, allergies and infertility.
All of the following aspects of gut function can be evaluated with a stool analysis:
- GUT MICROBIOME
- The bacteria that live in our gut (our microbiome) influence our health in so many ways, both good and not so good. Understanding the basic composition of your gut bacteria can help us to know that dysbiosis (or imbalance of gut bacteria) is present, and then allows us to supplement appropriately with probiotics and probiotics, with food and supplementation.
- GUT INFECTION& INFLAMMATION
- Stool testing can indicate markers of inflammation, as well as identify bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections which should be treated to quell ongoing inflammation in the gut. Addressing possible food sensitivities or allergies may be indicated after assessing for inflammation.
- ENZYMES OF DIGESTION & ABSORPTION
- Looking at these markers can help guide when replacement is indicated although when gut function is compromised, temporary supplementation with digestive enzymes can be helpful to improve digestion and nutrient absorption regardless of what testing indicates.
Stool testing is not used only to evaluate GI symptoms, but also to provide insight into sources of ongoing inflammation which affect everything in the body.
This means that “silent” gut dysfunction can manifest as anything: depression and anxiety, joint or back pain, autoimmune conditions, eczema, allergies and infertility.
Recommended Gut Health Tests:
Have a beautiful week & remember to reach out with any questions about your journey - I'm here for you - [email protected] or book in today for your 60 Minute Discovery Consultation
Let's Do This Together 💚
Monica
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🍍
Anything written or said about health and diet are my opinions, that I have formed over the years, through trial and error, study, reading, listening and observing. What worked for me may not work for you. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or dietician and all medical advice should be gotten from a qualified professional. Product recommendations are based on what I used during my infertility journey or wish I had.
