8 Preconception Lifestyle Essentials
Understanding Preconception Health:
If you are planning to start a family within the next year, preconception care for both you and your partner is essential. The preconception period refers to the time before an individual or couple actively try to conceive. This is a key phase for taking intentional steps to optimize your health and lifestyle, which can enhance the well-being of both partners, increase the chances of a full-term pregnancy, and contribute to a healthy baby.
Since eggs and sperm take about 3-4 months to fully mature, it’s ideal to begin preparing at least 3 months in advance. However, preparing 6 to 12 months before desired conception is optimal. Rather than feeling overwhelmed or needing to overhaul your lifestyle entirely, the preconception period can be a sustainable, gradual shift towards healthier living.
Health Optimization Takes Time:
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the proverb “nourish the soil before you plant the seed,” is used to illustrate the essence of preconception care. Health optimization is a gradual process, where each step contributes to your overall health and well-being.
For fertility, our goal is to enhance every facet of your health – from achieving more restorative sleep and soothing your nervous system to improving blood circulation in the reproductive organs, regulating your cycles, and boosting sperm health. These cumulative benefits are key for supporting a healthy pregnancy and baby.
Here Are 8 Steps You Can Consider During Your Preconception Journey:
Schedule Preconception Health Reviews for Both Partners:
Consult with your integrative care team, which may include your general practitioner, OBGYN, fertility naturopathic physician, fertility acupuncturist, and pelvic floor therapist.
During these sessions, you can discuss your medical history, address any pre-existing conditions, review the safety of current medications during active attempts to conceive, receive tailored guidance on embracing a healthier lifestyle, and run wellness labs to assess clues about your bodies that may otherwise go unnoticed.
The earlier integrative health evaluations and labs can be conducted in your preconception and fertility journey, the sooner you can make informed changes to positively impact your fertility outcomes and the health of your future children.
Start a High-Quality Prenatal Vitamin and Transition Off Hormonal Contraception:
Hormonal contraceptives – such as the pill, patch, injectables, and IUDs – have been transformative and revolutionary for women’s reproductive health. However, it’s essential to give your body ample time to restore its natural hormonal balance before attempting to conceive.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, contraceptives signal to the brain and ovaries to “go quiet”, preventing conception. Once discontinued, it’s important to “wake up” the reproductive system and rebalance the HPO (hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian) axis.
While many women regain hormonal balance in about three months, others may take longer depending on their menstrual and ovulation cycles before starting contraception. Allowing your body ample time to adjust can improve your chances of a successful conception. For personalized guidance and wellness labs, consult your health practitioner.
At the same time, start taking a high-quality prenatal vitamin like Needed. It’s highly beneficial to start a prenatal in the preconception period because our eggs develop and mature months before conception and contraceptives deplete our bodies of necessary nutrients. Be sure to keep in mind that these supplements should complement a nutrient-rich diet, rather than replace it.
Support Female Fertility:
This looks like encouraging a regular menstrual cycle, familiarizing yourself with signs of ovulation and understanding your fertile window, enhancing egg quality, regulating hormone levels, increasing blood flow to the uterus, and more.
Each person’s menstrual cycle is complex and different. Understanding your own cycle, ovulation, and fertile window is key to increase chances of conception. Menstrual cycles are a significant indicator of a woman’s hormonal and reproductive health. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, details of menstruation, including timing and quality, provide valuable insights into ovulation, hormonal balance, and overall fertility potential.
Optimize Male Fertility:
Fertility is a shared responsibility that involves both partners. The male role accounts for 50% of the fertility equation, emphasizing the importance of addressing male reproductive health in the preconception period. Optimizing his fertility is crucial because sperm quality and health can significantly impact conception and the overall success of the fertility journey.
Some key factors to focus on for improving male fertility include testing sperm parameters and receiving tailored support from their practitioner, switching to looser boxers, avoiding extended periods of sitting, placing laptops on a desk rather than on the lap, limiting longer bike rides and cycling, and avoiding hot tubs and saunas.
Prioritize Mental and Emotional Health:
Stress can be beneficial in short bursts, but chronic stress—persistent or long-term stress—can disrupt hormonal balance, cause irregular cycles, increase systemic inflammation, impair fertility, weaken the immune system, and contribute to chronic health conditions.
Reducing stress and actively nurturing a positive mindset positively influences fertility. By supporting a calm central nervous system on a day-to-day basis your body and mind will be better prepared for conception.
To manage stress naturally, consider identifying and addressing stressors with the help of a therapist or coach. Engage in stress-relief practices such as journaling, exercising, meditating, talking, or crying—find what works best for you. Explore patterns and subconscious beliefs, seek additional support if needed, and practice calming techniques to support your parasympathetic nervous system each day.
Establish a Healthy Movement and Exercise Routine:
Regular, moderate physical activity improves hormonal balance, boosts circulation to our reproductive organs, reduces stress, improves sleep, and supports our immunity and overall health.
Daily movement also helps regulate blood sugar levels, reduces inflammation, and supports a healthy libido in both men and women. With these benefits in mind, it’s also important to maintain a balanced approach.
The goal is to be active, but not so intense that it leads to other imbalances such as menstrual irregularities, lack of ovulation, or absence of periods. Work alongside your menstrual cycle and hormonal ebbs and flows and listen to your body.
Nourish your Body with a Diverse, Wholesome Diet:
Awakening Fertility by Heng Ou and Real Food for Fertility by Lily Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson-Jack are two of our favorite books with lots of preconception recipes to nourish your body.
Making eggs, sperm, and the hormones involved with reproduction require key nutrients, warm, comforting, and easy to digest meals, and colorful and quality ingredients.
The egg and sperm are literally built from the nutrients available to our bodies in the months prior to conception. This is why eating nutrient-dense meals is important during the preconception period. Prioritize organic foods, focus on balancing blood sugar, and create a healthy relationship with food that works for you.
Cultivate a Sleep Routine that Supports 7-9 Hours of Quality Rest:
Quality sleep is foundational to our health and needs to be a top priority. It’s needed to regulate and enhance nearly every process in the body. For fertility specifically, restorative sleep supports hormones regulation, stress reduction, cellular repair, immune function, weight management, and circadian rhythms.
Some ways to improve sleep include going to bed and waking on a consistent schedule and developing a relaxing bedtime environment and routine. Perhaps you take a warm Epsom salt bath with lavender and vetiver essential oils before bed to soothe your nervous system or you practice some deep belly breaths and gentle stretching.
Try making your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet and use sheets that feel beautiful and comforting to you. All these practices signal to your body that it’s time to wind down and can support a deeper night’s rest.
Resources:
Awakening Fertility by Heng Ou
Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler
Real Food for Fertility by Lily Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson-Jack
O'Brien, A. P., Hurley, J., Linsley, P., McNeil, K. A., Fletcher, R., & Aitken, J. R. (2018). Men's Preconception Health: A Primary Health-Care Viewpoint. American journal of men's health, 12(5), 1575–1581. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557988318776513Vigil, P., Meléndez, J., Soto, H., Petkovic, G., Bernal, Y. A., & Molina, S. (2022). Chronic Stress and Ovulatory Dysfunction: Implications in Times of COVID-19. Frontiers in global women's health, 3, 866104. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgwh.2022.866104