First of all, congratulations on such a beautiful decision as wanting to get pregnant. It’s a big step. Becoming pregnant is one of the most joyous experiences a woman can have.
Now, we need to talk about preparing yourself and finding out everything you can do and things to avoid when trying to conceive, so it can be a successful and joyful experience.
Let’s help you get pregnant with a lot of love, joy, mindfulness, sexy stuff and just a small number of things like saturated fats, fried foods, trans fats, high-sugar foods, and energy drinks. We’ll find out how to win the battle against processed foods or other contaminants that might affect fertility.
What to avoid when trying to get pregnant
Most people expect to see a long list of foods that need to be avoided as they are linked with decreased fertility.
Although we’re going to provide you with a list of things to avoid when trying to conceive, bear in mind that, as a fertility expert, I’ve created this list in order of importance. Sort out the ones at the top of the list and you won’t have to worry about a special fertility diet or avoiding certain foods that you really appreciate while trying to get pregnant.
The most important things to avoid when trying to get pregnant are:
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #1. Stress
Research has shown that stress is the highest factor to avoid when trying to conceive, stress compounds the problem when reduced fertility is suspected. It affects male fertility as well as female fertility as it has a deep impact on the reproductive health of men and women.
Stress is linked with fear. It’s a temporary status when your body prioritizes its survival.
Oxytocin, the love hormone, is what we normally secrete when we’re stress-free. Its release depends on the absence of fear hormones (adrenaline and cortisol).
In order to conceive, the body needs an oxytocin release. If we’re going through stressful situations or even if we stress because the pregnancy doesn’t arrive, the body can stop the oxytocin release. When a high-stress hormone release happens, the body understands there’s danger and conception is highly unlikely in these circumstances.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #2. Expectations
‘You and your partner love each other so very much and you are going to have a child’. That should be as far as expectations go about conception and timing.
If you think you’re going to be pregnant by a certain time and you only have so many months left until you’re allowed to turn to reproductive medicine, you’re stressing yourself unnecessarily. This will make your body run on stress hormones, which are very unwelcoming to creating a new life.
Babies come when it’s the right time. It’s hard to hear when you’re starting to worry about whether it will ever happen to you, but it’s true.
Enjoy the journey, becoming a mother starts the moment you decide you want to become one. A healthy pregnancy is achieved from a healthy approach to conception.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #3. Negativity
Negativity takes you nowhere. It won’t change anything, and it will make you and those around you miserable.
The power of manifesting is real. If you keep being negative, negativity will continue to happen to you. Say what you want. Put voice and intention into what to want to achieve.
If you keep repeating ‘Nothing is going to happen’, most likely it won’t, negativity is something to avoid when trying to conceive.
Thoughts like ‘My baby is coming’ and ‘My baby will be here in the right moment’ will bring you much closer to achieving a pregnancy.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #4. Running to a reproductive health facility
Reproductive medicine shouldn’t be your first choice when you think you might have fertility problems. Fertility treatments are expensive and complicated, and have a high chance of failure.
Imagine there’s a land where nothing has grown for a long time. It’s dry and lacking the right nutrients for life to grow there. If you throw a few seeds (sperm) the likelihood of them germinating is very small.
If you transplant a small plant (reproductive techniques), your chances of success are a bit higher; however, if you don’t correct the conditions of the soil, the plant is unlikely to last very long.
Your body is the soil in this analogy.
Let’s try to nurture the soil and bring it back to optimal conditions. That way, once the soil is ready it just needs to wait for the seeds to arrive.
Look for a holistic professional who will be able to focus on your specific situation.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #5. Anything that doesn’t bring you joy
This is really a synthesis of the previous points. Try to cut loose all the things or relationships that don’t bring you joy. If there are things you can’t avoid, then try to deal with them as soon as possible. That way you’re freed from them. When you don’t deal with them, they weigh on you ALL the time until you finally do.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #6. Processed foods
A healthy diet is always important, whether you’re trying to get pregnant or not. Processed meats and processed foods in general should be the first things to avoid in a fertility diet.
Processed foods are those that are quite far away from the original foods they claim to be: nuggets, sausages and similar processed meats are full of trans fats and non-healthy fats that will ultimately affect your health and could stop you from becoming pregnant.
As a rule of thumb, buy products that have been modified as little as possible, so that someone who cannot read the package can actually recognize the food source.
You should also avoid low-fat dairy products. Research shows that full-fat dairy products are key to a balanced and healthy diet. What we said about processed foods also applies to milk and dairy products. We spend far too much time-consuming products that have had their fat artificially removed.
The number of chemicals and processes necessary to remove fat from high-fat dairy products can never make the food any healthier. On the contrary, low-fat dairy products can be considered highly processed foods and it’s better to stay away from them. Health and fertility specialists recommend full-fat dairy as part of a healthy diet.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #7. High mercury fish
Heavy metals are difficult to remove from our system. High levels of mercury can have an impact on your reproductive system. The bigger the fish, the higher the level of mercury in its flesh. At the same time, fish is an undeniable part of a healthy and balanced diet, especially when you’re pregnant. Fish fatty acids are a rich source of folic acid and omega-3 healthy fats.
Small fish (not bigger than a plate) are part of a healthy pregnancy diet.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #8. Sugar
Refined sugar should really be kept out of our diets for good, whether we are pregnant or not. Refined sugar makes a loop in your metabolism, where all the right processes in which food is digested and carbs are extracted from food are tampered with. Refined sugar doesn’t maintain your blood sugar stability, as the cells are not working as they should to get the energy.
Carbs are high in energy and several digestive processes are necessary to digest carbs properly. Refined sugar doesn’t need much converting; the body doesn’t need to do its job for the sugar rush to reach the brain. Once the sugar hits the brain its metabolism stops, as the brain gets the message that the processes needed to convert food into glucose have already been completed. Sugar will then be used as a poor substitute for healthy body fuel. Insulin resistance will shortly follow.
Sugar is everywhere. Refined sugar is probably the substance that most people are addicted to, worldwide.
Start small. Remove sugary drinks from your diet and move on from there. Do not substitute ‘low calories/diet drinks’ for sugary drinks, though. Artificial sweeteners add the sugary flavor but none of the calories. If sugar is bad for you, imagine what the chemicals these sweeteners are made of will do to you.
What To Avoid When Trying To Conceive Tip #9. Alcohol
Drinking alcohol has never been a good idea. The body doesn’t like it and struggles to function under its influence.
Alcohol is full of highly refined sugar, just like sugar sweetened beverages, plus alcohol. Alcohol has been found to tamper with male fertility (lower sperm quality) as much as female fertility (egg release/ovulation).
If you’re struggling to get pregnant, reducing your alcohol intake, and your partner’s, will help your bodies regain a healthy physical balance.
Excess alcohol will lead to lower fertility, poor sperm production and lower semen quality in men and can lead to ovulatory infertility in women, which means an egg is released but fertilization of the egg doesn’t occur due to suboptimal fertility conditions.
What is the easiest way for me to get pregnant?
Believe that you are healthy, your body is fertile and you are going to get pregnant in no time.
Easy, right?
Believe me when I tell you that your predisposition and your high oxytocin levels are the keys to good fertility outcomes.
Fertility is not just about a certain healthy weight or whether you consume a high or low fiber diet, fast food, processed foods, vegetable oils, chemical preservatives or caffeine.
Supporting fertility is about maintaining good hormone balance. It’s about bringing your bodies back in tune to play the most beautiful of all songs.
Find a good fertility coach who can treat you and your partner as an item. It’s much easier to support fertility by looking at the couple as a whole.
The course Natural Fertility will help you find the right tune to bring up your oxytocin levels and boost fertility and happiness.
How do I know if I’m fertile enough to get pregnant?
Even if you might not like the answer much, I’m going to insist a bit more: trust that you will get pregnant shortly and you most likely will.
Fear that’s turned into chronic stress is what stops most couples from getting pregnant.
For many, it’s the stress of not achieving pregnancy that stops them from doing so.
As a fertility expert, over the years I’ve seen a repeated pattern. Couples who believed they were infertile went down the in vitro fertilization route and, once they had their baby, all the accumulated stress was released and they became naturally pregnant shortly after having that first IVF baby.
Your nervous system is extremely clever and will always act to reach the safest outcome, even if that means stopping you from getting pregnant until your body is back to its healthy hormonal balance.
Read more about this in BellyBelly’s articles:
Natural Oxytocin | Benefits Of The Hormone
