Why am I not getting pregnant? Are you also one of the women who have been asking this question for a long time?
First of all, please do not lose sight of the fact that a man’s health also contributes 50% to a successful pregnancy. In my experience, this is often neglected. Many of the tips I give you in this article are therefore just as relevant to your partner.
Nevertheless, we can assume that the female hormone balance is more susceptible to disruption than that of men. Environmental influences, stress, nutrient supply, medication intake or other factors can reduce fertility or the chances of conceiving.
Ideally, you actively support your hormone balance for 6 to 12 months in order to increase the chances of conceiving and a healthy pregnancy. This is also a good time to get to know your menstrual cycle and determine your individual fertile days.
6 Tips on How to Optimally Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy
1. Stop Hormonal Birth Control
Okay, that’s logical if you want to get pregnant. But my main concern here is that you should ideally stop taking hormonal contraception 12 months BEFORE you want to become pregnant.
Hormonal contraceptive methods such as the pill, hormone patch, hormone spiral or vaginal ring have different mechanisms of action – but they all disrupt the natural hormonal balance and make pregnancy more difficult after stopping.
It is not uncommon for the body to take a few months to naturally restore healthy hormone levels and get back to a healthy cycle. And that, after all, is the basic requirement for getting pregnant.
Women who have been on the pill for years often suffer from hormone imbalances such as: estrogen dominance, low progesterone, hypothyroidism, androgen excess, weakened detoxification and digestive organs, reduced insulin sensitivity, cortisol imbalance and the associated symptoms.
A first very efficient step to detoxify the body from excess pill hormones is my Ayurveda Hormone Detox program.
It will help you strengthen your liver and intestines, break down and drain synthetic hormones, support the thyroid gland and thus optimally prepare your body for pregnancy.
>> Learn more about the Ayurveda Hormone Detox.
>> Listen to my podcast episode: How to Stop Taking Hormonal Contraceptives Safely with Ayurveda
2. Know Your Cycle
Familiarise yourself with your cycle. Begin recording daily basal body temperature and/or cervical mucus. With this you can find out if and when you ovulate or when your fertile days are in the respective cycle. A significant increase in basal body temperature for at least 3 consecutive days means you have ovulated. Fertile cervical mucus is stretchy and resembles egg whites. The chance of getting pregnant is greatest two days before ovulation until one day after.
More on this: >>> Ovulation: Signs how to recognize it for sure
3. Optimize Your Nutrient Supply
The ovaries need a constant supply of certain nutrients to do their job. Some of the key nutrients we need to support ovulation, regular cycles, balanced hormones and fertility include:
✔️ Zinc: made from organic red meat, oysters and pumpkin seeds.
✔️ B6 and B12: mainly in organic meat, organic liver, fish, walnuts, legumes, avocado.
✔️ Folate: from green leafy vegetables, nuts, oranges, eggs.
✔️ Vitamin D: 20 minutes of sun exposure daily at lunchtime.
✔️ Antioxidants: especially in colorful fruit and vegetables – organic berries or citrus fruits are great.
✔️ Iodine: fish, shellfish, seaweed, eggs, spinach, broccoli.
✔️ Minerals e.g. from mineral-rich foods and drinks such as bone broth, coconut water, liver, spinach.
4. Get Your Thyroid Checked
Optimal thyroid values are a prerequisite for optimal sex hormone levels. If you’ve been trying to get pregnant for a long time without success, get your thyroid checked. Please note: Even levels that are “normal” by conventional medicine (but not “optimal” by functional medicine standards) can cause problems conceiving or contribute to miscarriage. Often only the TSH value is routinely determined, which alone has no meaningfulness about the functionality of the thyroid gland. In addition to TSH, fT3, fT4 and thyroid antibodies are also important.
Listen to my podcast episode: 5 Tips to Strengthen Your Thyroid
5. Eliminate Stress from Your Life
Persistent stress is one of the most common factors in fertility problems in both men and women. But what many people don’t realize is that stress has many faces. Whether it’s work or relationship stress, sleep deprivation, a restrictive one-sided diet, intestinal dysbiosis, high-intensity training, lack of exercise or too much coffee and alcohol – all of this can put the body in a state of stress, lower sex hormone levels and minimize fertility.
Eliminate or reduce your individual stressors and bring your nervous system into a relaxed state several times a day: breathing exercises, meditation, spending time in nature, lots of sleep, yoga, painting and much more.
And quite clearly: even an unfulfilled desire to have children is a major emotional stress factor for the body. I would like to give you the recommendation not to focus so much on the end result “finally being pregnant”. Instead, when you are trying to have children, you should above all work on balancing your hormone system naturally – through hormone-friendly nutrition, self-care, relaxation, supporting medicinal plants or dietary supplements and support for your detoxification and digestive organs.
We should rely less on artificial reproductive medicine and draining hormone treatments, which unfortunately often come with side effects. However, in some circumstances they are inevitable. We should ask ourselves how we can use our diet and lifestyle to bring the hormonal balance back into balance in a natural way – completely free of side effects.
6. Reduce Your Toxin Exposure
Every day we are exposed to hundreds of so-called endocrine disruptors – hormone-like substances that negatively influence the hormone balance. They are found, for example, in food (via herbicides, fungicides), cosmetics, care and cleaning products (shampoo, lipstick, perfume detergents) or household items (plastic cans, cling film). They influence the balance of our sex hormones, thyroid hormones and have a negative effect on insulin and cortisol levels.
Start minimizing pollutants in your household and bathroom step by step in order to stabilize your hormonal balance and support the health of your egg cells.
More on this in my podcast episode: >> Endocrine Disruptors: How Environmental Toxins Throw Off Your Hormone Balance
You might feel a little overwhelmed after reading the article:
>>>That’s so much!
>>>Where should I start?
>>>What exactly is meant by hormone-friendly nutrition?
>>>How do I know which hormones are out of balance and above all: how can I fix it?
>>>Which medicinal plants help me to regulate my menstrual cycle, menopausal issues and other hormone imbalances?
And and and … .
If you want precise guideline on how to naturally bring your hormones into balance and thus give your body the best conditions for pregnancy – I heartily recommend my 20-Week Hormone Thrive Program.