7 Reasons You May Have Trouble Conceiving
There are many factors which contribute to people having difficulty falling pregnant. As naturopaths, we believe it is important to have holistic, natural fertility care and for clients to receive an individualized and personalized treatment approach. The most common causes we see in our clinical practice for why people struggle to fall pregnant are:
- Not trying at the right time: this sounds very basic, but it is important to know when you are ovulating. Many clients are dependent on the prediction by an app on their phone, but this may not be accurate. Ovulation occurs when the female egg is released and can be fertilized by the sperm, thus it is important to know when this is occurring during your cycle in order to conceive.
- Stress: a hormone called ‘cortisol’ is produced when you are under stress. We see many clients who are under low grade ‘chronic’ stress and unable to ‘switch off’. Stress affects your fertility in many ways but especially impacts progesterone production. Stress management (in the way of exercise such as yoga and walking, mindfulness, connecting with nature, etc) is therefore very important when you are trying for a baby.
- Insufficient progesterone levels: low progesterone levels may be caused by many reasons, but stress is the main contributing factor. The signs and symptoms of insufficient progesterone levels you may experience include:
▪️ Enlarged breasts, cramping pain
▪️ Breakthrough bleeding, spotting
▪️ Low libido
▪️ Short menstrual cycle
▪️ PMS, headaches, anxiety
Progesterone is the hormone responsible for keeping the lining of the uterus thick (so that the fertilized egg can implant and grow) thus progesterone levels need to be optimised for conception to occur.
- Insufficient functioning of the thyroid: the thyroid plays an important role in conception. Poor thyroid functioning may occur due to stress, exposure to environmental toxins, low levels of zinc, iodine, selenium or iron (to name a few). Having awareness and education around potential environmental toxins and how to avoid them, and supplementing with certain nutrients during the pre-conception period can improve your thyroid health and thus increase your chances of conceiving.
- Gastrointestinal dysfunction: potential inflammation, bacterial overgrowth, fungal/parasite infection, disturbed microbial balances, and food sensitivities can all contribute to your ability to breakdown and absorb nutrients from the foods you eat. Improving gut health is important, therefore, to ensure your body is prepared and ready to support a growing baby.
- Sperm quality: for around a third of infertility cases, the cause comes down to ‘male-related factors’. Therefore it is important for both female and male’s health to be addressed in order for a healthy and successful pregnancy to occur.
- Maternal diet: Recent evidence shows that the nutritional status of the mother at the time of conception and during the first weeks of pregnancy, before the woman may even know she is pregnant, plays a significant role in the health of the pregnancy and of the child carried. Therefore, it is important to look after you and your partner’s health before you actively start trying to conceive.
If you’d like to discover more about how our Melbourne Naturopaths and Fertility Specialists can help you conceive naturally, call us on 98940014 to book a free 15-minute complimentary consultation now!