When the topic of poor egg quality arises, we mostly think of women who are above 35 years. Anyone who is above this age and is yet to have children has their natural biological clock ticking. Sometimes it’s nagging to have that reminder in your head telling you that your time is running out. For us women, we are reminded how much time is remaining before our egg quality takes a dive and the ovaries shrivel whenever we visit the fertility clinic or even the GPs especially if you are nearing the age of 35 or past. However, did you know that egg quality today has become a more common issue for women in their early thirties and 20’s? These women are now more worried than before regarding their egg count, egg quality, and conceive ability. This article will take a closer look at how you can optimize your egg health, why your egg health is so important, and the factors that affect your egg health.

The Health of Your Eggs is So important, But Why?

Let’s be straight forward with this. If you don’t have healthy eggs, getting pregnant is tough. Ever heard of oogenesis? This is the process of egg or ovum maturation and it determines how healthy the mature eggs in your body will be during ovulation. There might be a chance that your egg health is compromised during ovulation, which makes a viable pregnancy challenging. An egg or ovum matures over several months before it is released, ready for fertilization during ovulation.

Oogenesis starts with the maturation and pre-loading of eggs from the primordial follicle stage right into the antral follicle stage. The first stage begins five months before the ovum is mature to be selected for an ovulation process and the stage is a 30-day process. This is why pre-conception egg health is so important. Ever had an AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) test? The antral stage is what the doctors detect during this test and it is mostly the reason doctors tell a patient that they have a low ovarian reserve. However, the AMH test might not accurately represent the number of follicles a woman has left in her ovaries. It only shows a single stage of follicle development.

It is a common belief that a woman is born with all the eggs she will have in a lifetime and that the number decreases as she ages through menstruation all through her reproductive years. As a woman ages, the number of her eggs reduces, and she also experiences a reduction in the ovaries’ efficiency to mature an ovum. This results in a low number of primordial follicles developing to antral follicles. The ovum’s process develops to a more mature antral follicle, mature, and become ready for ovulation is the most important and influential time for egg health. This is 20 to 90 days before ovulation, where you can significantly impact your eggs’ overall quality and health. During this time, factors such as poor lifestyle choices, stress, and others can negatively affect your egg development and egg health. So, how do you optimize your egg health in these 20-90 days?

• Give your body time to make the necessary changes required

Like we mentioned above, it will take 90 days for the follicle to mature into an oocyte ready to be fertilized. This is where good egg quality and ability to conceive match. This means any of the changes you make today won’t have an immediate effect. It is going to take full effect after around three months or 90 days. This means you have to be patient and understand that although it might seem like a really long time at first, it isn’t that long considering the process and if you choose to look at the bigger picture. This is your egg nourishing time. It is the time you nourish your body to optimize your ability to conceive. Remember, the healthier your body is, the healthier your eggs are and the healthier your baby will be. Some women take a baby-making break around this time. They take the pressure off a little and understand that each time a month passes, you spend one more month improving your egg health.

• Meditation

This is another way to help optimize your egg health in the 90 days. We all face stress and struggle in our daily lives. While this isn’t enough, the added pressure to make a baby wreaks havoc on your body and mind. This pushes you into a state of chronic stress. In this state, the brain is forced to produce a lot of cortisol, prolactin, and other stress hormones. These interfere with the follicle’s healthy maturation, causing hormonal imbalance, which is really bad news for a woman trying to get pregnant. The entire fertility system is put in a state of shock, resulting in low quality of eggs and compromised egg health. The simple act of meditation can help you cut off a lot of this stress response allowing your body to focus on producing the right amount and type of hormones for healthy egg production which increases your ability to conceive. You can download a meditation app to help you out on your fertility journey.

• Improved Sleeping Pattern

Your sleep hygiene means the habits that help you get a good night’s sleep. Having good sleeping hygiene means having a good night’s sleep, which means giving your body adequate rest. Did you know that sleep disturbances are a known determinant in women’s health and well-being? Sleep disturbances have also been proven to affect a woman’s menstrual cycle, healthy menopause, and pregnancy. You can improve your sleeping hygiene by establishing regular bedtime. Avoid using electronic devices with a lit-up screen one hour before you sleep, and remove all gadgets from your bedroom. During your late afternoon and evening, avoid stimulants like coffee and avoid alcohol altogether. Before you go to sleep, establish a relaxation technique such as a short 5-minute meditation. Exercise regularly but don’t exercise right before bed. Create a dark, quiet, and cool environment to induce sleep. Did you know sleeping in complete darkness can improve your fertility?

• Improve your diet

One nutritionist once said that if you don’t eat your food as medicine, a time will come when you might be forced to eat your medicine as food. While this pertains more to your overall health, the power of food can’t be underestimated. Food is the first line of medical treatment and should be included in your 90 days’ journey to egg health. Today, most people seem to be more concerned with weight when it comes to food. All that is in mind is what we can eat and lose some weight. While this is very good, did you know that you can eat foods to improve your fertility? Below are some of the foods to include in your diet and increase your ability to conceive and improve your egg health.

• Cruciferous Broccoli
• Turmeric
• oily fish
• Ginger
• nuts and seeds
• Eggs
• Berries
• Dark leafy greens
• Complex carbohydrates
• wholegrain
• healthy fats
• seafood

Amazingly, these foods are very healthy and are included in your diet to help you lose weight and balance your calorie intake.

As important as it is to include these foods to improve your egg health, there are foods that you have to remove from your diet as well. These are foods that damage your egg quality compromising your egg health and ability to conceive.

• Sugar
• Trans Fats
• Processed foods. Packed foods are dead foods and you only want to eat live foods in your fertility journey.
• Low-Fat Foods
• GMO’s. Go the natural way all the way.
• Alcohol
• Soft drinks
• Non-organic dairy and meat
• Caffeine
• Smoking

These are some of the foods considered to be so dangerous for your overall health as well.

• Don’t over or under exercise

As a fertility coach, one of the most rampant questions I get is what type of exercise is right for your fertility? There is no perfect exercise to increase your fertility or egg health. The type of activity depends on the person first and pertains to doing what is right for them. I recommend gentle exercises such as brisk walking, yoga, and qigong to get your blood flowing well throughout the body and to your ovaries as well. This helps in the body’s detoxification process. It is also important not to under exercise, it is also important not to over-exercise in your 90-day journey to optimize your egg health. When you over-exercise, you put too much pressure and stress on the body. The more you push yourself with heavy and more masculine exercises, the more you use up too much of your precious energy, which can be nourishing for the follicles. With exercise, keep it regular and gentle for good egg fertility.

• Hydrate

Drink a lot of pure water every day. Aim to drink at least 8 8 Oz glasses of clean water daily. When you are dehydrated, your blood becomes thick, decreasing circulation in the body and causes other issues. Drink pure water that is not plastic bottled. If you can, drink pure tap water. To get a head start with drinking water, start by putting a quart of water next to your bed when you sleep. When you wake up, stand up and stretch your body and then drink the quart of water before leaving the bedroom. This is very important to help you maintain good egg quality and optimize your ability to conceive. The quart of water you drink in the morning gets you halfway through your water intake goals. If you can carry your own water to work, the better. Suppose you are doing more exercise than you are used to, drink more than the eight glasses of pure water.

• Get a Fertility or Abdominal Massage

Therapy in your fertility journey is vital. One of the treatments I recommend to optimize your egg health is an abdominal or fertility massage. It helps increase blood flow throughout your reproductive system. During the massage, your ovaries and uterus are massaged, bringing fresh and oxygenated blood in your uterus and ovaries and removing stagnant blood. Some therapists specialize in fertility or Maya abdominal massage or have a massage therapist perform the massage. There is a Self-Fertility massage as well that you can learn how to apply and perform in your home’s comfort. The massage is best done starting the day after your monthly period ends and continuing it all month long. Practice the massage at least four times a week. If you are trying to conceive, your ability to conceive is improved when you perform the massage techniques from the day after your period until ovulation.

• Fertility Cleansing

One of the most critical times to develop healthy habits is when you are trying to conceive. This is the time your body should be in optimal health status. Preparation for pregnancy in the 90 days requires patience, hard work,  with proper stress management tools to help you minimise its impact on your health.

Doing Fertility Is always one of the foundational clearing out processes when you are preparing to conceive. This will help support your liver to clear out toxins and excess hormones stored in your body for a long time. This together with a clean diet, enough rest, herbal remedies, supplements, regular exercises together with mindset work will start to address any hormonal imbalances and boost your egg health. During fertility cleanse, the liver is supported using some specific herbs, Daily Fertileme Liver Elixir, and eliminating some foods will start to speed up your liver function to rid of toxins and excess hormones. This will also encourage proper fresh blood flow to circulate to your womb which will start to clear out old stagnated blood from your uterine environment.

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Note: After conception, do not perform fertility cleanse either during pregnancy or breastfeeding. At this time, your body is getting rid of toxins through your blood, and you don’t want to expose your baby to these toxins.

• Acupuncture

Acupuncture is another therapy that you should incorporate into your 90-day fertility journey. Acupuncture has been described as a therapy that can bring positive epigenetic changes. Simply stated, it can improve the quality and the genetic expression of the female ovum. It is one of the most used tools to help improve your eggs’ quality and the ability to conceive. It also improves the quality of the male sperm for improved fertility outcomes. This is amazing news for couples supporting each other in the fertility journey. The effects of acupuncture on improving egg quality has been demonstrated in numerous studies and it has been shown that it is most effective when dosed the right way.

As a fertility coach, I would love to tell you that acupuncture is the magic that will fix your egg health in one treatment, but I would be lying. The reality is that having one treatment every now and then won’t do much to improve the quality of your eggs. The best results with acupuncture are seen with weekly treatments, starting during the first three months before trying to conceive. If you are already in your three months’ period, better later than never. The sooner you start the treatments, the sooner you get the results.

The above tips will help you optimize your egg health in 90 days. However, what should you know about your egg health and egg supply? What are some of the factors that affect your egg health? I think these are essential topics because you get to understand your egg supply system and what you are doing to your system in a bid to optimize your egg health.

Factors That Affect Your Egg Health

The ability to conceive depends on your egg health, egg supply, and sperm health. If you are concerned that your eggs’ health and quality is not as it should be, you are then due to optimize your egg health. There are possible contributing factors to your egg health and knowing them helps you understand the 90 days’ fertility journey in a much better way. Knowing these factors might also help you know the best ways on how to optimize your egg health in 90 days and increase your chances to conceive.

• Irregular menstrual cycle. Most women who struggle with fertility issues often have a poor menstrual cycle. The signs and symptoms of this include excruciating periods, irregular cycles, PMS, excessively heavy or light menstrual flow. If you have any of these, visit a fertility coach or a gynecologist to know the underlying cause.
• Hormonal imbalances. Hormonal balance is an essential factor in good quality eggs. Today, the modern diet, stress, and environmental factors are some of the causes of hormonal imbalance in the body. If you have hormonal imbalance, your egg health is compromised, and your fertility cycle is thrown out of balance. Your ovulation may not even occur.
• Nutritional deficiency. The food you eat highly determines the quality and health of your eggs. What you eat can either affect your egg health positively or negatively. Eat the foods mentioned above to increase your ability to conceive and optimize your egg health.
• Stress or overworking. This brings hormonal imbalance in your body. When your body is under too much pressure, then you add on top the pressure to conceive, your brain produces a lot of hormones that negatively affect your egg health.
• Poor blood circulation in your uterus and ovaries. Stagnant blood in the ovaries and the presence of thick blood significantly lower your ability to conceive. Good egg quality results from proper hydration and proper blood circulation in your ovaries and uterus. This can be achieved by an abdominal massage and drinking lots of water.

What Should You Know About Your Egg Supply?

Most women assume that their fertility is dependent on the number of eggs present in their ovaries. However, if you want to get pregnant, your egg count plays a minimal role. The ability to conceive is much more complicated than that. Remember we said that women are born with all their eggs. These are about 1 to 2 million eggs. This number sounds like a lot but before puberty, a woman loses thousands of eggs and each month, a woman will shed approximately a thousand of these eggs with the menstrual cycle.

Your egg health is at its peak when you are in your 20s according to studies. Only about 20 per cent of the egg supply is atypical at this time. However, as you age, these figures change significantly. The numbers will flip with age and a woman in her 40’s will have around 20% of healthy eggs, while 80% are unhealthy. This is one reason why it is easier for a younger woman to conceive as compared to an older woman. However, an older woman can conceive. A fertility coach will guide you on the steps to follow to optimize your egg health and get pregnant even in your 40s.

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Read the Healing Power of Journally through infertility blog 

Conclusion

If you visit a doctor and are told you have poor egg quality, or due to age, your egg quality is low, there is still hope. Don’t despair as there are several things you can do to improve the situation. Your egg health is the indication of overall health and if you practice the above tips and give your body time to nourish your follicles, the results will be amazing. Find a natural fertility practitioner or a fertility coach with who you can click and start the fertility journey. Get a fertility coach who understands you and your needs to assist you the best way possible on your way to motherhood. With the right advice and guidance, your body can surprise you. Please don’t say your body has failed you but instead, get a fertility practitioner who will teach you how to be kind and gentle on your body and nourish it the right way for optimal egg health.