Gut Health & Fertility
If you’ve already seen my video “10 steps to increase your chance of a healthy conception” then you’ll know I talk about the importance of getting on top of your gut health if you want to improve your fertility. But why is it so important?
Expensive Poo
Well, if you think about it logically, if there’s an issue with your gut health, then it’s very likely that you’re not digesting your food properly and that means you might not be absorbing all those lovely nutrients from your food AND your supplements. So, even if you’re on a perfect fertility diet and taking great, high quality prenatal supplements - but it might literally be going down the toilet. That can be one expensive poo!
And when there is impaired gut health - there is also likely impaired detoxification and elimination. The word detox is thrown around a lot in the world of juicing, but what does it actually mean? Well, it’s simply (not simple really) a job that the liver does to convert compounds that we would not be able to eliminate without detoxifying first. It basically converts compounds into other compounds so that we can get rid of them. These are things that come from our food, our environment, air pollution, smoking, drugs, medications etc and they can also be natural compounds in our body like oestrogen. If we can’t detoxify and eliminate oestrogen then we can end up with oestrogen dominance which can wreak havoc with our periods, hormones and fertility. More on that in another blog though.
We are talking about creating and sustaining a healthy baby and this means we need nourishment to make that baby, to make the placenta and to nourish the baby in our womb for 9-10 months. We don’t want it swimming around in a toxic soup.
Personal Experience
I’m coming at this from personal experience too. I was diagnosed about 10 years ago with IBS. Had all the investigations done - told it was nothing sinister, just good old IBS and off I went with no advice to follow. Fast forward a bit and I run into trouble conceiving. When I look back now with my nutrition training, I can see that the IBS was most likely a factor in my struggle to conceive. I have no doubt that if I had got on top of it all those years ago with a nutrition professional, I would have experienced a shorter time to conceive, potentially avoided miscarriages and also been in greater health myself these past years not to mention improved the health of my children. I already see signs of gut issues with my youngest and I have no doubt it’s down to my own gut health whilst I was pregnant with her and breastfeeding her.
Symptoms
So what sort of symptoms might you experience if you have underlying gut issues? Strangely enough, it’s not always the overt digestive symptoms you might expect. Yes there’s the constipation, diarrhoea, bloating, flatulence, bad breath, pain, cramps, smelly/funny coloured/floating/lumpy poo…. but there can be other, seemingly non related symptoms, such as brain fog, anxiety, depression, irritability, reduced memory and concentration, weight gain or loss, irregular periods, PMS, endometriosis, fibroids, heavy menstrual bleeding, infertility…..
These are all signs there may be something wrong in there.
SIBO
I am only just getting on top of my own IBS after all these years. You may wonder why, given the knowledge I’m sharing. That’s because I was pregnant and breastfeeding for the last 4 years whilst I was studying nutrition. During those cases, you’re very limited as to what you can do food and supplement wise to help. There was no point in me doing gut tests because I wasn’t going to be able to do much about it. But I’ve stopped breastfeeding now and able to take action on it.
I’ve conducted some comprehensive gut testing - stool and breath. This has indicated I have significant dysbiosis (imbalance in the bugs that live in my gut) and something called SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) and this is most likely what has been underpinning my IBS all this time. I’m one week into my own personalised nutrition plan and am already feeling amazing - I don’t remember when I last felt like this in terms of my gut.
Don’t ignore it
If this has illuminated some symptoms for you, you’re struggling to conceive and think your gut health might be at play or you’re thinking about trying to conceive soon and want to be in optimal health for it, then do book your free fertility call here so we can discuss your unique situation further. Speaking from experience, it’s really not worth delaying.
Take care,
Katie x