50 Foods Every Pregnant Woman Should Eat

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Most people are already very familiar with the foods that pregnant women must avoid – alcohol, excess caffeine, raw seafood, and the like – but few take pause to think about what they should consume. Experts generally recommend that pregnant women stick with the portions recommended by the USDA’s Food Pyramid guidelines, with specific boosts to certain nutrients such as iron, folic acid, fiber, Vitamin C, protein, calcium, Vitamin A, magnesium, and a few others.

These extremely valuable substances help both mother and child healthy and safe by promoting blood flow, building tissues in the brain and other organs, fortifying the immune system, strengthening bones and teeth, allowing for better vitamin absorption, and numerous other benefits. The following foods ought to find their way into a pregnancy diet, even if some of them must be ingested in moderation or within certain parameters.

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Older Women may soon be able to conceive

Scientists have said that women might now be able to conceive at an age past child-bearing, all thanks to a new treatment that is expected to come up in the next ten years. Scientists have discovered a protein that they believe can be developed into a pill or even an injection to extend the life of the eggs in the ovary.

This could lead to a fertility revolution, as women would be able to wait longer to have a child.

Read more: http://www.healthjockey.com/2007/06/12/older-women-may-soon-be-able-to-conceive/

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Foods for Fertility

Eating the right foods can counter ovulatory infertility.

Approximately 10 million couples have sought help for infertility, and delays in conception are common today. A number of factors ranging from endometriosis and pelvic inflammatory disease in women to medication and drug use in males contribute to infertility. In addition to fertility testing, healthy diet and lifestyle can increase your chances of success.

Read more: http://www.tasteforlife.com/content/default.asp?artid=2163&title=Foods_for_Fertility

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Diet plays role in fertility

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THE LIFESTYLE MATTERS: A recent Harvard study found women who followed a regimen that affected five or more lifestyle factors had a more than 80-percent less relative risk of infertility due to ovulatory disorders compared to women who didn't follow the regimen.

The research team used a scoring system that included dietary and lifestyle factors like protein consumption, carbohydrate consumption, the ratio of monounsaturated fats to trans fats consumed, body mass index (BMI) and physical activity.

Full story: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/health&id=6664647

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Eat Every 13 Minutes Diet

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If you love snacking, then this is the diet for you because you have to eat every 13 minutes. By speeding up your metabolism you can lose 7lbs in two weeks, and may even boost your fertility.

What is it?
The 13-minute diet was created by Norah Lane, founder of Vitaline Slimming Clubs, and is designed to speed up your metabolism. It's a 14-day plan that will suit snackaholics down to the ground as you literally get to eat every 13 minutes!

According to Norah Lane, it might even boost your fertility if you suffer from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). On average, you'll lose around 7lbs in two weeks.

How does it work?
Norah believes some overweight people don't eat enough food to keep their metabolic rate working. She reckons snacking every 13 minutes will keep your metabolism working at a steady pace.

By eating low-calorie tiny snacks very regularly, you curb hunger. Eating raw vegetables bombards your body with essential vitamins while eating regular protein will help you feel full as protein is the most filling nutrient.

According to Norah, women who suffer from PCOS have slow metabolisms. So by snacking so regularly, and speeding up your metabolism, you might even increase your chances of conceiving!

Full story: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/diet/132447/Eat-Every-13-Minutes-Diet

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Consult a doctor, not The Fertility Diet by Harvard researchers

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have created buzz with their new – and controversial – book, The Fertility Diet.

The book doesn't actually come right out and claim that the new Harvard diet is a cure for infertility. But that's the message desperate couples could be forgiven for getting, given its title, some of the authors' public statements, the intense media hype and, of course, the clout of almost anything with the Harvard imprimatur. That's why some critics are upset.

The book, by epidemiologists Drs. Walter Willett and Jorge Chavarro and writer Patrick J. Skerrett, is based on the authors' research, published in the November issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

In that paper, the authors reported on 17,544 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study who recorded their diets and their quests to get pregnant in biennial questionnaires.

The study found that women had a lower risk of infertility because of anovulation – the failure to produce a viable egg every month – if they ate a diet that emphasized monounsaturated fats like olive oil; vegetable proteins such as those found in beans and nuts; whole grains; some whole milk, a little ice cream or other high-fat dairy products daily; multivitamins containing folic acid; and iron from plants and supplements.

The study is groundbreaking because it "is one of the first times that anyone has shown that what you eat and drink can impact the reproductive system," said Alice Domar, a psychologist who heads the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health at Boston IVF, one of the country's largest infertility centers.

Is the leap too large?

But it's a huge leap to go from a statistical correlation to actually giving advice. The authors veer toward prescription when they say, "We have discovered 10 simple changes that offer a powerful boost in fertility for women with ovulation-related infertility." Ditto, in a cover story they wrote for the Dec. 10 issue of Newsweek, when they said their recommendations are aimed at preventing and "reversing" infertility – a conclusion Dr. Willett defended in an interview.

Observational studies like the Nurses' Health Study do not prove that a behavior causes or prevents a health problem, only that it might do so. To prove that diet affects fertility, researchers would have to take a group of women with diagnosed infertility and randomly put half on a special diet and half on a regular diet and compare conception rates.

This would be an interventional study, which would have come closer to the "gold standard" of medical research and would have provided the solid ground to offer advice. Such a study could also show how long a woman would need to eat this way to affect her fertility.

So where's the harm in a little hype? Because the diet is basically a healthy one, except for the controversial suggestion to eat more high-fat dairy, including ice cream, it is unlikely to cause direct harm. But a woman who follows the diet and still doesn't get pregnant may blame herself, even though the diet isn't proven effective.

Worse yet, a woman may follow the diet and postpone seeing a doctor.

"If you're 22 and you follow this diet for six months, that's no big deal. But if you're 42, you can't afford to postpone seeing a doctor and try this diet in the meantime," said Ms. Domar.

Heartache for many

Dr. Gil Wilshire, a reproductive endocrinologist at Boone Hospital Center in Columbia, Mo., put it even more strongly: "This book is blatantly irresponsible. I am going to be cleaning up the damage from this book for years to come. I will be having women who wasted one, two, three years of their lives with imprecise, ineffective treatment. Those are precious years you can't get back."

But the book has obvious market appeal. Infertility is a source of heartache for more than 6 million American couples, although infertility because of problems with ovulation only accounts for about a quarter of these cases. The diet won't help if male biology – such as inadequate production of viable sperm – is the problem, as the authors note.

All this said, the observations make biological sense, particularly the idea that certain foods may influence levels of hormones involved in ovulation and conception.

The ice cream recommendation is surprising, Dr. Willett acknowledged, and a bit tricky to explain. But his research suggested that "higher-fat dairy products were related to better fertility and lower-fat dairy was related to lower fertility. The reason? We're only speculating, but it may well be that the relatively modest amounts of estrogen and progesterone that are present in the fatty part of whole milk can have a positive effect on fertility," he said.

The Harvard team is not recommending a switch to high-fat dairy for a whole lifetime – if consumed long term, high-fat dairy products can increase the buildup of fatty plaques in artery walls, contributing to heart attacks.

The take-home message? If you're having trouble getting pregnant, see your doctor before you hit the bookstore.

Judy Foreman's column appears periodically in Healthy Living.

The Fertility Diet
Drs. Walter Willett and Jorge Chavarro and Patrick J. Skerrett
(McGraw-Hill, $24.95)

Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/columnists/jforeman/stories/DN-nh_judyforeman_0122liv.ART.State.Edition1.3782b01.html

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Healthy lifestyle counters female infertility: study

Women who exercise regularly, take vitamins regularly and eat fewer saturated fats, more full-fat dairy products and less meat have fewer ovulation problems, new research finds.

Failure to ovulate regularly accounts for 18 to 30 per cent of all cases of infertility, according to the study. Infertility affects one in six couples.

The eight-year period of study, conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, tracked 17,544 married women trying to become pregnant who participated in a large-scale study at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The participants were awarded a dietary score based on their diet, gleaned from questionnaires the women filled out, according to the study published in the Nov. 1 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Women were graded on whether they ate more monounsaturated fats or trans fats, vegetable protein or meat protein, high fat dairy products or low fat dairy products, and multivitamins.

Other lifestyle information was also factored in, such as regularity of exercise and Body Mass Index or BMI — a calculation based on a person's weight to height ratio.

Those women who ate the lowest fat diets with more plant than animal protein, consumed full-fat dairy products, took iron supplements and ate low-glycemic carbohydrates had the lowest risk of an ovulatory disorder.

"A combination of five or more low-risk lifestyle factors, including diet, weight control and physical activity, was associated with a 69 per cent lower risk of ovulatory disorder infertility," reads the study.

"What we found was that, as women started following more of these recommendations, their risk of infertility dropped substantially for every one of the dietary and lifestyle strategies undertaken," said Jorge Chavarro, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard, in a release.

"In fact, we found a six-fold difference in ovulatory infertility risk between women following five or more low-risk dietary and lifestyle habits and those following none."

Women who had a BMI of between 25 and 29.9, meaning they were overweight, had a higher rate of infertility that those at a healthy weight, and obese women with a BMI of over 30 had more than a two-fold risk.

The scientists believe that a healthy diet as well as supplementation of vitamins regulates the body's level of micronutrients and maintains its insulin sensitivity — how well the body responds to sugars in the bloodstream.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/31/fertility-diet.html

High Protein Diet May Be Bad For Women Trying To Conceive

Science Daily — A moderately high protein diet could reduce a woman's chances of becoming pregnant, according to new research presented at the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology on Monday 28 June.

Researchers from the USA have found that a diet containing 25% protein disrupted the normal genetic imprinting pattern in mice embryos at a very early stage in their development. The diet also adversely affected subsequent embryo implantation in the womb and foetal development.

Previous research has shown that the amount of protein in the diet affects the levels of ammonium within the female reproductive tract in cows and mice. It is known that ammonium adversely affects mouse embryos developed in culture in the laboratory, inducing altered imprinting of the H19 gene and retarding foetal development. The H19 gene, found on chromosome 7, is an important gene involved in growth.

Normally, genes act in the same way, whether they are transmitted by the mother or the father. But, a few genes break this genetic rule. Whether they are switched on (expressed) or off depends on whether they are inherited from the mother or the father. The process of inheriting specifically from the mother or the father is called imprinting.

Source: European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
Full article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040629020730.htm