Preconception Wellness
Fertility and preconception wellness support is geared to women who are planning a pregnancy and want to optimize their health to increase their chances of successfully conceiving and also to help prepare for a healthy pregnancy. Often, if you are planning a pregnancy, we recommend beginning to optimize your health to support pregnancy 3-6 months before you intend to start trying.
If you are currently on hormonal birth control, we can help support your body and natural hormone production while coming off it because many birth control methods will suppress ovulation and diminish your own body’s of estrogen and progesterone - all of what is needed to conceive.
Addressing any inflammation, stress, autoimmunity, and gut health is important too as these can have an impact on fertility, egg quality, and disrupt your hormones.
Functional testing to assess heavy metal burden, comprehensive hormone health, and digestive health can be relevant based on your initial health assessment to help further enhance preconception health. Digestive disruption can trigger inflammation which can affect all your other hormones.
If you want to read more before jumping straight to the individual assessment, here are some blog posts written by Dr. Suhani, ND:
Infertility
The World Health Organization (WHO) defined infertility as failing to achieve a successful pregnancy after at least 12 months of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse.
These days, women are having a harder time to conceive and are spending more and more $$$ on fertility treatments such as IVF and IUI procedures. Some are successful and some are not. There are many reasons that can make it hard to conceive and increasing age is just one of them. Inflammation, hormone imbalances, immune dysregulation, and stress are other factors impacting fertility. Sometimes women may not even get a hormone work-up until they are actually seen at a fertility clinic because many MD’s don’t feel comfortable ordering and analyzing hormone blood tests. Another reason commonly overlooked when women are trying to conceive and unable to get pregnant is their male partners - are their partners healthy? Is the semen and sperm healthy? As women, it is so easy to take the blame and accept that you are the problem but addressing infertility really involves assessing both partner’s health status.
Supporting fertility from a naturopathic angle can look like:
Running appropriate hormone and other testing to ensure numbers are in the optimum range NOT just the normal reference range
Nutritional and dietary counselling
Acupuncture using Traditional Chinese Medicine analysis to help move Qi and blood throughout the body as well as supporting IVF and IUI cycles.
Herbal and other nutritional supplements to reduce inflammation, balance hormones, enhance egg quality, etc.
IV treatments with glutathione to enhance nutrient and antioxidant status to reduce oxidative stress
The process begins with scheduling an initial assessment for one or both partners so we can review your health history and determine which area(s) appears to be out of balance. Your ND will then recommend any testing along with initial treatment recommendations. When you return for the follow-up, your ND will review any test findings and how you have been doing with any initial treatment recommendations and lay out the short-and long-term treatment focus.
To read more on fertility, click here.
Pregnancy Care Across All Trimesters
Your naturopathic pregnancy journey doesn’t stop once you successfully conceive. This is what pregnancy care can look like at each of the three trimesters:
First Trimester
Review your supplement list to see what is safe to take in pregnancy and what you should stop if you haven’t already.
A nutrition and dietary strategy to help with your energy levels, constipation, insomnia, and/or whatever else you are feeling
Helping you minimize any nausea and/or vomiting as much as possible. IV treatments can be helpful or IM injections as well.
Acupuncture can be done for morning sickness, anxiety around pregnancy and the birthing process, supporting implantation and more.
Second Trimester
Review your first trimester blood work that is usually completed on week 12 to ensure all your levels are within optimal ranges, specifically iron, vitamin B12, and thyroid hormones.
Work on optimizing nutrition as nutrient requirements like protein and iron increase to meet the demands the baby while ensuring you don’t become deficient.
Strategies to address constipation which may become more prominent.
IV treatments and/or B12 injections can support energy levels.
Help address any health conditions that arise in pregnancy such as gestational diabetes, and pre-eclampsia.
Strategies to help minimize a positive Group B Strep test (done in your third trimester)
Third Trimester
Continuing optimizing nutrition to ensure you are meeting the demands for both you and the growing baby.
Addressing constipation which can become a real issue in the last trimester as progesterone levels rise.
Pregnancy insomnia in the third trimester is a real thing! Helping you find strategies to try and get a good night’s sleep because you will need all the sleep you can get before baby comes!
Continue to support your energy. Nutritional IV treatments are great until early 3rd trimester (week 33-34 max).
Labour prep support including acupuncture to prepare the body and uterus for labour.
Induction acupuncture if you are post-due date and want to try and avoid medical induction.
Baby is Here! It’s A Whole New World - Postpartum Support
The baby is here and you have been super excited to have a new family member and grow your family but reality just kicked in. Lack of sleep, your stress level is high, you feel alone and on top of that, your hormones are all over the place. We got you. There are a lot of options for naturopathic postpartum support so you don’t fall into postpartum depression and can enjoy this rewarding time after letting your baby grow in you for 9 months.
The first 12-weeks postpartum is known as the fourth trimester. These three (3) months are designed for you to spend time with your baby, develop that mother-infant bond that creates security and trust in your child. Unfortunately, it can also be a period of stress and adjusting to the new life, even if you’ve gone through postpartum before because now there is another member in the household. Postpartum depletion and fatigue is real because of all the stressors, fluctuating hormones, plus breastfeeding is demanding and requires optimal nutrition from momma. You will be amazed to see how much your estrogen and progesterone drops from the third trimester of pregnancy to postpartum if you decide to get them measured.
Don’t worry, naturopathic postpartum care can help you with:
Increasing your energy through nutritional and herbal supplementation, IM injections, or IV treatments
Alleviating low mood, anxiety, and / or postpartum depression
Breastfeeding and lactation support & strategies
Relaxation acupuncture - an hour of self-care for yourself
Discussing nutritional support and tips for mom if baby is presenting with gassiness, skin rashes, or is colicky.
*** Please note IV treatments can only be done after the first 5-6 weeks postpartum however, B12 injections within the first month are great for helping with energy!