Visualization & Meditation For Fertility

I'm very proud and excited to announce my new CD on Visualization and Meditation for Fertility. It's a project I've been working on for the last year and I developed it after hearing from a number of women who wanted to know how to visualize and meditate - especially with the goal of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term. I'm a firm believer that everything we manifest in our life starts with our thoughts. Here is more information about the CD. The link below has an area where you can listen to a preview.

Listen to a preview here:

You Can Get Pregnant Over 40, Naturally
Visualization & Meditation

Fertility: What The Numbers Won't Tell You

Here is a great article about how women who are trying to conceive may get totally wrapped up and obsessed with every little blip in their "numbers". If you've pursued fertility treatments, you tend to "live and die" by the results of every lab test. What a source of stress. Here's an article that gives some good advice about how to deal with all of it:

What the Numbers Won’t Tell You
The 1-2-3s of Numbers, Fertility and Health
by Nicole Lange Lic.Ac. MA.OM. Dipl.Om. (lifehealinglife.com)

Sperm Enhancing Foods For Fertility

Well, I guess I'm on a roll with doing posts about foods for fertility. This article from mothernature.com gives a number of natural food and supplement choices men (and women) can make to enhance their fertility. As the article says, it's worth giving the natural route a try and it's safer and healthier too. Read more:

www.mothernature.com

Here are just a few things from the article:

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea) and other foods containing vitamin B6. People who advocate micronutrient supplementation often recommend vitamin B6 for infertility. The best sources of this nutrient, in descending order of potency, are cauliflower, watercress, spinach, garden cress, bananas, okra, onions, broccoli, squash, kale, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, peas and radishes.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale). According to reports of research with animals in Saudi Arabia, ginger significantly increased sperm count and motility. I hesitate to extrapolate one animal study to humans, but ginger is so safe and tasty that if I were troubled by a low sperm count or poor sperm motility, I wouldn't hesitate to reach for ginger tea, ginger ale, gingerbread and dishes spiced with this tangy herb.

Ginseng (Panax ginseng). California herbalist Kathi Keville, author of The Illustrated Herb Encyclopedia and Herbs for Health and Healing, tells two stories of infertile men who started taking ginseng, schisandra and saw palmetto to build up their physical stamina. Some time later, both of their wives became pregnant.

Cook Your Way Fertile

My previous post talked about eating the right kinds of fats and whole grains. In addition, I just came across this blog called "The Fertile Kitchen" which has a great recipe for carrots with cilantro and garlic. The author also has a cookbook with recipes that enhance fertility. Read more:

www.fertilekitchen.blogspot.com

Improve Fertility With Healthy Fats and Slow Carbs

No surprise here, healthy fats and the right kind of carbs will help you get pregnant. This article suggests nuts and avacados, whole grains and more:

www.kindsnacks.com

From the article:

Pregnancy Tip – “Healthy Fats” and “Slow Carbs” Improve Ovulation and Fertility Odds
New Research from Harvard Study Supports a Diet High in Monosaturated Fats from Natural Food Sources Like Nuts and Avocados
March 25, 2008 (New York, NY) – In groundbreaking news previously unknown to generations of women struggling with infertility, researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health have confirmed a diet high in “healthy fats” from foods like nuts and avocados improves odds of fertility.

The study, printed in the November 1, 2007 edition of Obstetrics & Gynecology, showed that eating foods with a high ratio of mono-saturated fats to trans-fats and a low glycemic index (GI) can improve ovulation and fertility. With only a few simple switches in diet, couples that struggle with infertility – one in six, according to researchers in the U.S. and Europe – can improve their odds of conceiving.

Easy changes to your diet to lower GI and raise your ratio of monosaturated to transfats include:

Snacking on nuts and fruits instead of potato chips and pretzels,
Using olive oil instead of butter or processed oils,
Eating whole-grain bread instead of white bread, and
Consuming foods with natural sugars instead of processed sugars like high-fructose corn syrup.

Bacterial Infections and Male/Female Infertility

I think most of us associate infections with pelvic inflammatory disease and female infertility due to tubal scarring, etc. However, according to the article below, infections may also be a cause of male infertility. Read more:

Fighting Male Infertility (www.nytimes.com)

From the article:

Dr. Attila Toth is a gynecologist and pathologist at New York Hospital's MacLeod Laboratory for Infertility, named after John Mac-Leod, one of the first and most influential researchers in the field. ''I believe that the sharp rise in infertility cases in the last two decades is the end result of the promiscuity of those years,'' Dr. Toth said in a recent interview. ''I know of 32 bacteria that are transmitted sexually. I'll show you only one photograph and this will explain to you what's happening here.'' He held up a glossy black and white picture of a single sperm with clumps of bacteria clinging to it. ''This sperm has one, two, three, ... 13 bacteria on it,'' he explained. ''But it's still moving. Visualize that this sperm dies in the woman's tube. Do you think the bacteria would die? Why would they? Now, consider how often we attribute infertility to tubal factors, to chronic pelvic infection and so on. But here you see that it is the male who is the carrier of this bacteria."

Adrenals, Gluten and the Infertility Connection

I've written before about how gluten intolerance can be a risk factor for infertility. This article give an in-depth explanation of the chain reaction which may occur which involves the adrenal glands and how their hormone production is affected by gluten. Read more:

www.glutenfreefox.com

From the article:

You see, the adrenal glands make many hormones. The make adrenaline to give you energy and they make the precursors to all the sex hormones. When they’re tired and they can’t do everything, which do you think they’ll do – make adrenaline to get you through your day or make sex hormones? You guessed it, they make adrenaline.

The result? Inefficient hormonal production resulting in infertility, miscarriages, premature menopause. The very hormone needed to keep a fetus in the womb for the first trimester is the hormone that is “stolen” to make more adrenaline in a fatigued adrenal gland state.

The exciting thing is that something can be done about it. You don’t have to continue to suffer with weak adrenal glands. Actually they’re not that hard to fix and the program to normalize their function is a natural one, meaning no drugs or surgery.