How to Grow a Healthy Baby: Top 5 Fertility Foods

Baby making is serious business. I mean, you’re literally growing a human being. A HUMAN BEING. That s*** is no joke.

When I found out I was pregnant with my #1 in 2008, the first thing I did (besides repeating the test juuust to be sure) was take a long, hard look at my diet. I was eating healthy, all things considered, but there was definitely room for improvement. I transitioned to 100% organic (when available) and more real food.

But was that enough?

The short answer is no. Don’t get me wrong, it was a step in the right direction, but I was missing some key nutrients.

Based on the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a researcher and dentist, traditional cultures began to prepare their couples with a nutrient-dense diet that is ideal for conception and childbearing 6 months to one year before getting pregnant. These cultures consistently turned out healthy, beautiful people with high cheekbones, straight teeth, and perfect vision. Contrast that with cultures that have high incidences of poor health, narrow faces, pinched noses, and poor teeth.

Was it coincidence? 

Hells no. 

It was diet. Plain and simple. The former grew, prepared, and ate nutrient-dense real food. The latter, on the other hand, did not, enjoying white flour, sugar, and other industrialized foods a-plenty.

These traditional diets were so rich in a few key nutrients that radically increased fertility while providing an optimal balance of nutrition for mom, dad, and the babe.

What are these key nutrients, you ask? Time to geek out – apologies in advance.

When Dr. Price took samples of these preconception diets back to his lab for testing, he discovered they were particularly rich in the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. They were also high in folate, B6, and B12. The peeps in these traditional cultures consumed 10-20 times MORE of the vitamins being consumed by their standard American and industrially produced counterparts.

Healthy, good-looking babies aside, the other side of the coin is the drastic increase that this country has seen in infertility rates, with the latest data showing that 11% of U.S. women are considered to have “impaired fecundity”. That’s a fancy word for the impaired inability to get pregnant or carry a baby to term. (source)

What’s a mama-to-be to do?

Well, for starters, starting eating like our ancestors. Here are the top five fertility foods that can help to improve your chances of conceiving and growing the healthiest baby possible AND possibly avoiding morning sickness (yes. really!).

Top 5 Fertility Foods 

1. Bone broth

This miracle tonic is full of minerals including calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur and other trace minerals that are vital for creating a healthy new life. Read more about this amazeballs fertility food and how to make your own here.  Too lazy time-constrained to make your own? Fear not. This company delivers it to your door! BOO-YAH! Order it here. 

2. Liver

Gram for gram, liver contains more nutrients than any other food on the planet, including vitamin A, B12, folate, and iron. It’s powerful stuff. Can’t stomach the flavor? No problem. Try these D-I-Y raw liver pills or hit the easy button with a good quality, dessicated grass-fed liver pill like this brand.

3. Fermented cod liver oil (FCLO)

Naturally rich in the fat soluble vitamins D and A, FLCO is crucial to fertility and pregnancy. Vitamin D promotes proper development of the bones, especially during the 3rd trimester when the fetal skeleton begins to grow rapidly. What’s the deal with fermented? This means the oils are extracted without heat and preserved through slow lacto-fermentation, retaining the naturally occurring vitamins and goodness. It’s money well spent. Trust me. Buy it here. 

4. Pastured eggs

Rich in choline, which helps protect against neural tube defects and plays an important role in brain development. Don’t be fooled by the organic, cage-free nonsense on store shelves (read more about that here). Buy your eggies from a local farm that feeds their hens organic, non-GMO feed. That’s the real deal. 

5. Raw, grass-fed dairy

Dairy is rich in saturated fat, which is especially beneficial for fertility and baby’s brain development. It’s also a good source of the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, K2 & E) and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), the supernutrient that’s been shown to combat cancer, obesity, clogged arteries, and digestive inflammation.

Hungry for more?

If you’re ready to grow a healthy baby, Beautiful Babies is a must read! I actually read this when I was pregnant with my #2, and learned so much more than I thought I already knew. With its emphasis on real nutrition for fertility, pregnancy, breast-feeding and baby’s first foods, Beautiful Babies is the type of book that could have changed my life had it been published 10 years earlier when I was struggling to conceive. 

In Beautiful Babies, Kristen Michaelis reveals the truth about diet and pregnancy. Based on her research of the nutrient-rich diets of healthy and fertile populations around the world, she lays out exactly what you should and shouldn’t eat when trying to conceive, during pregnancy, and while breast-feeding. 

In the first half of the book she explains the ways industrialized foods can prevent pregnancy, how a low-fat diet can increase your likelihood of infertility by 85%, what to do if breast-feeding doesn’t work for you, why babies can’t digest cereal, and gives step-by-step instructions on how and when to introduce your baby’s first foods.

In the second half of the book she equips you with more than 50 recipes for incorporating traditional fertility-boosting foods into your diet. Beautiful Babies provides you with everything you need to know about having a healthy pregnancy and nourishing your growing baby. 

Buy it here.

Trust me when I say you will not want to miss this. Beautiful Babies will pay for itself a million times over, particularly when you don’t have to shell out thousands in co-pays, braces, and glasses for junior. Just sayin…

This is just a short list of foods shown to boost fertility and make healthy babies. What would you add? Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear!

Source:
Weston A. Price Foundation. Diet for Pregnant and Nursing Mothers. January 10, 2004.