Preparing For Conception Deep Dive

Your "Guide" to Getting Ready to Make That Baby 😘

🚨 Instead of cutting this newsletter short so that it would all fit into the email, I’m just adding everything I want to and you’ll have to read it on the app or on a desktop. That felt like the best move so I could include every bit of information that I wanted to. <3

I feel that it’s really important that I start this deep dive off by saying I am not an expert. I am not a doctor or healer in any regard. I will always advocate that you do your own research and talk to your healthcare team. This isn’t a “get pregnant quick” formula or guarantee. These are simply the actions and protocols I took and am taking in order to prepare my body for conception based on my own research, working with doctors, and learning from natural healers.

Ok you’re still reading? Cool. Let’s get into it.

For back story, I have had two pregnancies and have one daughter. After my first pregnancy I went deeeeep into the rabbit hole of fertility, conception, and trying to learn how to have the best chance at a healthy conception and pregnancy I possibly could. Not to be all doom and gloom, but the more I learned the more I questioned how anyone could successfully conceive. But here I am, on the other side of pregnancy, almost 12 months postpartum, and preparing my body for baby number two.

Of course no matter how much we prepare our bodies there is always a chance that we won’t conceive, we’ll have a miscarriage, or the baby could have medical anomalies. It is what it is and while I will continue to try my hardest to prepare [and that’s what this entire guide is about…] I trust that whatever happens is in God’s hands.

It Takes Two

By the way, every single thing that I did here my husband did as well. Sperm health is just as important as egg health.

When talking about conception it takes about 3 months for the egg to go through its entire cycle through the body’s system before it is ultimately released during ovulation. So that means that the three months leading up to conception are the most important. Though that doesn’t mean that you should start preparing three months ahead (though that is an incredible start!!!). Women are recommended to start preparing for conception 6, 12, or even 24 months ahead of conception.

Men however are constantly generating new sperm, but the prep doesn’t start over every day. Men also are on a 60-90 day sperm generating schedule. So meaning, if the mom to be needs at least 3 months of prep before conception so does the dad to be.

Side note, females develop in utero with every single egg they will ever have. Meaning if you are pregnant with a girl, you also have the eggs that would lead to your future grandchildren inside of you - no pressure or anything, right?

How I Prepared for Pregnancy

1. Education:
   I cannot stress this enough, the moment you consider that you might want to get pregnant you need to listen to these podcasts and read this book.
   1. How to Optimize Fertility in Both Males and Females
   2. Dr. Natalie Crawford: Female Hormone Health, Fertility & Vitality
   3. Real Food for Fertility by Lily Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

   They contain more information than I could ever possibly put on this newsletter and will leave you feeling totally prepared to, well, prepare your body.

2. Prepare Your Partner:
   As I discussed in the section above “It Takes Two”, it is just as important that your partner is prepared - hence why I’m including this at #2. However, all of the gender neutral things (eating well, exercising, eliminating substances… you get the idea) are things both mom and dad should be doing. Some dad to be specific call outs include:

   1. Keep phones out of pockets: I feel like at this point it’s pretty wide knowledge that keeping cellphones in pockets impacts sperm quality. Though, in case you aren’t aware, “A correlation exists between mobile phone radiation exposure, DNA–fragmentation level and decreased sperm motility.” I can’t remember the exact figure, but I believe Huberman also calls out the vast decrease in sperm count once cell phones were released and widely used.

   2. Avoid hot balls: We’ve all heard that boxers and better than briefs when it comes to sperm health, but there are heat impacts that are much more impactful than that. First and foremost, saunas. While saunas can be great for cardiovascular health, detoxification, and overall wellbeing, they’re horrible for sperm. Sperm start to die in temperatures higher than 98.6F, hence why they exist descended from the body. When exposed to heat in the sauna sperm are shown to not only decrease in count, but also decrease in motility. I also saw somewhere that the heat impacts the DNA structure of the sperm - all things we do not want when trying to have a successful and healthy conception. *I will note that I’ve heard that men can sauna as long as they keep their testicles cold with an icepack or something… but I’m not diving into all that.

   3. Avoid other hot things: heated car seats, laptops on crotch, prolonged sitting with thick ol’ thighs!

   Sources: The influence of direct mobile phone radiation on sperm quality, Seminal and molecular evidence that sauna exposure effect human spermatogenisis , Sperm: Cells, How Long it Lives, Anatomy & Function