Fertility Superfoods: What to Eat When You Want to Get Pregnant
Your fertility is tied to much more than the foods that you eat, but diet is always a good place to start when you’re trying to get pregnant. Broadly speaking, a fertility diet includes mostly whole, fresh, organic foods and eliminates caffeine, alcohol, smoking, and anything artificial.
At Magnolia Wellness, we blend Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with groundbreaking Western nutrition so you’ll get the most healing power out of the foods you eat.
Supporting your body with the right nutrients is absolutely essential when you’re trying to conceive, but TCM doesn’t just focus on the vitamin and mineral content of your meals. Traditional Chinese Medicine also factors in the energetic qualities of food to create an internal environment where blood and energy flow smoothly through your reproductive organs.
Healthy qi, blood, and essence are all essential for fertility. These can be nourished by eating foods that build your blood and benefit the Spleen, Kidneys, Heart, and Liver.
Foods that boost fertility:
Eggs (from chickens that graze on organic pastures)
Organic pastured red meat and liver
Bone broth
Wild caught fish that’s low in mercury
Cod liver oil
Whole raw milk from pastured cows
Whole grains, beans, nuts (especially walnuts), and seeds (like raw sunflower seeds and black sesame seeds) that have been soaked before cooking
Organic fresh fruits and vegetables (especially asparagus, avocado, beets, broccoli, goji berries, grapefruits, jujube, and oranges.)
Sauerkraut and pickles that weren't heated in preparation
Cinnamon and ginger
Lots of room temperature, clean drinking water
BUILDING YOUR BLOOD IS THE FOUNDATION FOR CONCEPTION AND PREGNANCY.
Because women lose blood every month when they menstruate, blood deficiency is extremely common and plays a primary factor in nearly all infertility cases.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, blood deficiency means that the blood is not dense enough and that there aren’t enough blood cells to carry the necessary nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. This can prevent your uterine lining from sufficiently forming enough to support embryo implantation.
Symptoms of blood deficiency can include light menstrual blood, amenorrhea, dizziness, hair loss, and dry skin. It sometimes accompanies a Western diagnosis of anemia, but can be present long before a lack of iron is detectable on a blood test.
To increase your blood production and nourish your organs for optimal fertility, always try to eat warm foods since cold foods reduce blood production. Another way to build your blood is by adding organic meat from four legged animals like beef, lamb, and bison.
Chinese Medicine uses red meat as therapy to nourish the blood.
Adding in local, grass-fed, hormone free, organic beef is an excellent way to help your liver store blood and support your fertility.
Foods that nourish the blood include:
Apricots, beef, beets, black beans, blackberries, blueberries, bison, cherries, bone marrow, eggs, dark leafy greens, dates (especially Jujube), figs, grapes, kidney beans, lamb, liver, molasses, oysters, parsley, raisins, raspberries, sardines, sesame seeds and spirulina.
Boosting your fertility includes much more than simply knowing what foods to eat and what foods to avoid.
There are several other steps you can take to optimize your fertility.
Be sure to register for our next Overcoming Infertility Webinar to learn what factors have been preventing you from getting pregnant and how to remove them.
And If you’re ready to begin fine tuning your own custom fertility plan, book a telemed appointment with one of our Master Herbalists.