Nutritional Counseling for Fertility

Fertility nutritional counseling is among the most easily-adoptable aids that can help men and women struggling with infertility. Nutrition counseling is conducted by certified doctors, dietitians and nurses. This form of nutritional counseling should not be confused with nutrition-based counseling or dietary consultations commonly available for improving one’s overall health or for fighting a certain medical condition. Fertility nutritional counseling is specifically designed for women or for couples who are either struggling to conceive or are trying to conceive and aren’t sure about whether their bodies are nutritionally capable of sustaining the reproductive process.

Philosophy of Nutritional Counseling

Diet plays an integral role in the entire reproductive process, starting from maintaining the fertility levels in men and women to the extent of affecting prenatal health, childbirth and post-partum health of the mother and child. Similarly, fertility-based nutritional requirements involve many factors that are beyond the understanding of most people. This involves:

  • Decoding the relationship between history of family/personal diseases and dietary choices
  • Choosing foods that can aid conception
  • Linking history of birth-related or pregnancy-related problems with dietary patterns
  • Choosing foods to limit the affect of long-term medications/chronic diseases on fertility
  • Identifying food combinations that are not conducive to reproductive health
  • Identifying nutrients to negate harmful effects of lifestyle choices on fertility

Considering the plethora of information available for the above-listed issues, identifying the appropriate dietary combination is difficult for most people. This is where the utility of nutritional counseling comes to the fore—the basic aim of such counseling is to develop personalized, nutritional programs wherein any possible deterrents to fertility can be prevented. This strategy involves using various aids like developing:

  • Customized food recipes
  • Sustainable fitness routines
  • Detailed nutritional analysis
  • Personal guidance towards adopting recommended foods

Nutritional Counseling Basics

Some forms of nutritional guidance are common across most of the counseling sessions. For instance, among men, the lack of antioxidants and critical vitamins is a deterrent for the sperm’s health. Similarly, trans-fats (unsaturated fats) are known to decrease libido apart from raising the risk of diseases like diabetes and heart diseases in both men and women. However, women are more prone to infertility if they cannot control their unsaturated fat intake since it deeply impacts their ovulation cycle.

Some other, critical forms of nutrition important for maintaining fertility levels have been listed below:

Folic Acid

Folic acid is among the most commonly-recommended supplement to prevent birth defects. Folic acid is also important to improve the chances of conceiving. This is equally applicable for both, men and women. In women, it helps to regulate the ovulation process and among men, it helps to raise the sperm count.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is commonly found in many fertility medications for women. This vitamin acts as an antioxidant, useful for sustaining ovulation in women and sperm-count in men. This is a classic example of nutritional counseling based upon lifestyle attributes since vitamin C is an excellent supplement for men suffering from low sperm count due to smoking.

Micronutrients: Zinc

Micronutrient supplementation is one of the biggest challenges in nutritional counseling since the seriousness of this concept is commonly ignored. Zinc is a classical example of a trace mineral that can severely improve the testosterone levels in men suffering from infertility due to hormonal deficiency. Low levels of zinc are also known to dampen the sperm count and sperm motility. Among women, zinc helps to restore hormonal balance by boosting the secretion of hormones like progesterone.

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