Eating a Healthy Diet
This is the most important step because good nutrition is the foundation on which your health is built and the key to increasing your chances of conceiving. Look at what you are eating and drinking, buy organic food where possible, eat a good variety of food (including fish, nuts, seeds, fresh fruit and vegetables), and read labels to reduce or eliminate the amount of chemicals, additives and preservatives going into your body. It’s also important to get your weight back into the normal range, if you are underweight or overweight.
Carry on eating well over the four months and until you become pregnant, and through the pregnancy itself.
Checking and Correcting Your Nutritional Status
Where possible, at the very beginning of the Four-Month Plan, you should go to a nutritional therapist. Preferably choose one with experience in fertility and have a full assessment of your vitamin and mineral deficiencies. You will also be checked to see whether you have high levels of heavy toxic metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium. You will then be given a programme of food supplements for four months to correct any deficiencies and to lower any toxic metals. At the end of the four months the assessment should be repeated, to make sure that the nutrients have been absorbed and the levels are back to normal. Once back to normal, you will be given a maintenance programme to stay on until you conceive.
If you are worried about the cost, bear in mind that IVF treatment is expensive. The investment in seeing a nutritional therapist, together with taking a programme of food supplements, therefore is minimal in comparison and may mean you avoid the IVF altogether. If you still need IVF treatment, the investment is still worthwhile because it increases the chance of it working.
For those who can’t get to see a nutritional therapist, I have devised a proposed supplement programme. Normally the programme would be personalized for you and your partner and would depend on what deficiencies you each had, but here you are both taking almost the same supplements.
Supplement Programme
Take:
• a multivitamin and mineral designed for pregnancy
• zinc citrate or amino acid chelate (total of 30mg of zinc a day, including what is in the multivitamin and mineral)
• l000 mg linseed (or flax oil) a day
• l000 mg vitamin Ñ a day
If your partner has a low sperm count or motility he needs to add 1,000mg of L-arginine a day to this programme for sperm health and 300-400ius a day of vitamin E to help fertilisation.
There are two supplements called Fertility Plus for Women and Fertility Plus for Men.
Fertility Plus for Women contains those nutrients known to help with fertility and you would only need to add the linseed oil and vitamin C. It is designed to provide the nutrients needed leading up to and during pregnancy. It contains the required amount of folic acid (400mcg a day) so you don’t need to take a separate folic acid supplement. It also includes a safe amount of vitamin A that you can take during pregnancy.
Fertility Plus for Men contains those nutrients which are helpful for men trying to conceive, including L-arginine, L-carnitine and also vitamin E.
If you are following this Four-Month Plan without being nutritionally tested then stay on the above supplement programme not just for the four months but until you conceive.
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