Natalie Crawford, MD
The Fertility Diet: What Should You Eat if You Want to Get Pregnant?
**Learn more about my new fertility course to enhance your natural fertility and optimize your lifestyle**
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Dr. Natalie Crawford, MD, board certified fertility doctorI, discusses the fertility diet. Learn all about what foods to eat to optimize your fertility and your chance of conceiving each month.
Is fat ok?
Is soy bad for you?
Can you consume dairy?
Is red meat bad?
Does fish help you get pregnant?
Can you be vegan if you are trying to conceive or pregnant?
What diet is best for PCOS?
*disclaimer: I am a doctor – but not your doctor. This information is given to you for educational purposes only.
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10. Braga DP. The impact of food intake and social habits on embryo quality and the likelihood of blastocyst formation. Reprod Biomed Online 2015;31: 30–8.
11. Cole DC. Environ- mental contaminant levels and fecundability among non-smoking couples. Reprod Toxicol 2006;22:13–9.
12. Choy CM. Infertility, blood mercury concentrations and dietary seafood consumption: a case-control study. BJOG 2002;109:1121–5.
13. Buck GM. Parental consumption of contaminated sport fish from Lake Ontario and predicted fecundability. Epidemiology 2000;11:388–93.
14. Chavarro JE. A prospective study of dairy foods intake and anovulatory infertility. Hum Reprod 2007;22: 1340–7.
15. Kim K. Dairy food intake is associated with reproductive hor- mones and sporadic anovulation among healthy premenopausal women. J Nutr 2017;147:218–26.
16. Hwang CS. Isoflavone metabolites and their in vitro dual functions: they can act as an estrogenic agonist or antagonist depending on the estrogen concentration. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol 2006;101:246–53.
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22. Shahin AY. Adding phytoestrogens to clomiphene induction in unexplained infertility patients—a randomized trial. Reprod Biomed Online 2008;16:580–8.
23. Unfer V. High dose of phytoestrogens can reverse the antiestrogenic effects of clomiphene citrate on the endometrium in patients undergoing intrauterine insemination: a randomized trial. J Soc Gynecol Investig 2004;11:323–8.
24. Unfer V. Phytoes- trogens may improve the pregnancy rate in in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer cycles: a prospective, controlled, randomized trial. Fertil Steril 2004;82:1509–13.
25. Vanegas JC. Soy food intake and treatment outcomes of women undergoing assisted reproductive technology. Fertil Steril 2015;103:749– 755 e2.
26. Gaskins AJ. Dietary Patterns and Outcomes of Assisted Reproduction. Am J Obstat Gynecol 2019; epub ahead of print
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what should you eat if you want to get pregnant this is one of the top questions i get asked and as a fertility doctor i'm telling you today hey friends is there such thing as a fertility diet what should you eat if you want to get pregnant and what should you avoid are there things that you should know as you start the stage of your journey today i'm going over all of it but first if you like this channel i just want to say thanks for being here and i'd really love it if you would subscribe that helps the channel grow it's easier to find this information and then we are giving fertility facts and information about your body to more people and that is important so thank you second let's just dive into this so i am a reproductive endocrinologist that's a fertility doctor and that means i did four years of ob gyn residency took two boards did a three-year rei fellowship took two boards and now i'm double board certified but before all of that i was a nutrition major and i've always been fascinated by how diet and our lifestyle impacts our bodies all of my research and fellowship was on natural fertility and i know that both of these things are hard to study so nutrition is really hard to study on population based because how do you look at one variable in context of a whole diet reproduction is hard to study also that's because what is your end goal what is your outcome of interest is it positive pregnancy test live birth clinical pregnancy what does it mean and what's really impacted by your diet at the preconception or early pregnancy stage taking both of that into consideration there's a lot of research out there because people want to control what they can and i'm a huge fan of this and this evidence does suggest that diet is a modifiable factor of fertility meaning there may be foods that you eat or you avoid that improve your odds of getting pregnant most of these studies are looking at fecundability secondability is the probability of getting pregnant per cycle this is one of the most finite metrics that we use because we're able to look at a per month basis and compare it to what we know to be averages some of this data also looks at ivf data so patients undergoing fertility treatments and i'm bringing it all together today to give you the summary of what you need to know the take-home message is there's nothing shocking in here the basic fertility diet is how we know to be healthy what's healthy for your body is healthy for your eggs is healthy for your uterus diet high in fruits and vegetables whole grain carbohydrates limited in processed foods and sugars limiting red meat and increase in your plant-based protein sources so i'm going to break this down into food grouper types so we can hit the high points of what's been studied and then i'm going to answer a few overall questions at the end of this video carbohydrates carbohydrates are a combination of fatty acids are the basic building block of our diet they give us energy and they help us function there's different type of carbohydrates and whole grain or complex carbohydrates are harder for your body to break down these carbohydrates are good for you they are anti-inflammatory they have antioxidant properties and they have been associated with a decrease in insulin resistance and an improved glucose sensitivity and they've also been associated with higher life birth rates and studies i get asked all the time about the keto diet so the keto diet is when you're avoiding carbohydrates altogether therefore your body has to get into your fat and break down your fat yes keto diet can help with quick weight loss if you're wanting to drop pounds quickly that can be beneficial it is not a way to sustain long term most people cannot and it's not really improving your parameters overall so i don't consider it a fertility diet mechanism although if you have a significant amount of weight to lose it may be a strategy to weight loss that can help you get to a healthy weight to conceive omega-3 fatty acids fat in the american diet has been such a faux pas there was such an emphasis on low-fat foods for so long that many of us grew up in an era of being ingrained in our brain that fats are bad for us but that's not really the case it depends on the type of fat and there are good fats that are good for you and there are bad fats that are not omega-3 fatty acids are some of those good fats that are good for you they are very antioxidant and anti-inflammatory they can be found in foods such as fish but also in walnuts chia seeds flax generally studies that look at omega-3 fatty acids look at intake of higher omega-3s versus other types of fats and these studies look like there is improved across the board in reproductive parameters meaning the more omega-3s that you intake the lower the chance of an ovulation or not ovulating the shorter the time to pregnancy improved embryo development in the lab and improvement in endometriosis on pain scores or stage of disease what about fish fish are a source of omega-3 fatty acids so under the premise of omega-3s are good for you fish should be good for you too i will flat-out admit that fish theta is hard because sometimes fish is grouped into meat and sometimes fish is separated out as its own category it appears as compared to other meats that fish alone is probably fine the concern with fish is that it is a risk for an environmental exposure of methyl mercury big fish eat the little fish eat the littler fish and the more fish that you eat the more mercury levels that fish has in it especially the bigger fish like tuna that it is and that can actually lead to deposits of mercury into the brain and brain development of a fetus therefore the current recommendation is less than three servings of fish per week what about plants to truly be plant-based you eat all plants and no animal products at all no meat no dairy no eggs no honey none of it however i think of plant-based as you can eat a lot of plants and that still if it's the basis of the majority of your diet you can still be plant-based plant-based eating is good for reproduction across the board in different studies in different circumstances so by no level is eating plants bad for you no data supports that one of the larger studies of women in general looking at kind of population-based characteristics of reproductive age women was called the nurse's health study in this study specifically looking at women who do not ovulate so you're pcos women the higher level of protein that came from plant sources over animal sources higher rates of ovulation and higher rates of getting pregnant so i tell everyone with pcos you really need to be plant focused in your diet similarly in ivf studies so ivf you're going to spend all the money in the world you're going to go to ivf patients who ate more plants and had a lower intake of red meat had better embryo development so if you're going to invest all the time money emotional and physical energy into ivf i certainly want you to know that study support eating less red meat and more plants is going to be better for your embryos now why red meat like why is that the bad guy that we pick on red meat is very interesting red meat has the highest levels of advanced glycolation and products has endocrine disrupting chemicals it has hormones in it it's very inflammatory to the body so the foods that i said are good so far are all anti-inflammatory red meat is inflammatory and so we see across the board whether it's worsening stage of endometriosis poor embryo development in the lab red meat consistently the more you eat of it the worse your reproductive parameters are going to be so i recommend that my patients trying to get pregnant just avoid it all together if possible or have it very very sparingly what about soy soy gets like so many questions about it like soy's bad for you there's this thought that's in soy's a phytoestrogen that's going to give them in boobs and be really terrible nope not true soy is not bad for you it has not been associated with negative reproductive outcomes and in fact people who ate more soy had both increased fecundity so natural fertility they got pregnant faster and reproductive outcomes under fertility treatments what about dairy dairy's been very inconsistent across the board i think this is because dairy has a lot of vitamin d in it so in some people who are vitamin d deficient we know that can hurt reproductive outcomes on the other hand dairy can be modified so if you take your full fat dairy versus your skin those are really different compositions two large studies have shown us that dairy may be associated with poor reproductive outcomes if you eat more low fat dairy so actually the processing and taking the fat out to make it skim milk may actually cause more harm than good so if you're going to consume dairy consume your full fat your whole milk your real yogurt none of that low fat stuff but two large prospective cohort studies did show a negative association with natural fertility the more dairy that was consumed so i like to say in moderation if you're going to do it and i promise you can live without cheese at every meal speaking of vitamin d reproductive outcomes live birth rate clinical pregnancy rate even improvement in donor egg cycles when you take maternal age out of the picture more vitamin d so having replenished vitamin d levels those people have better reproductive outcomes so we do know that vitamin d is important in the diet most people do not intake enough vitamin d just in their natural foods that they're eating but i recommend most people take a vitamin d supplement with at least a thousand ius or international units of vitamin d3 a day just so that you're making sure that's a very easy thing that you can control folate okay questions about folate and questions about iron you need folate or folic acid in your diet before you get pregnant folate is essential in cell division and development and reproduction if you are folate deficient you have a higher risk of neural tube defects these are really terrible outcomes that could have been prevented by a folate fortified diet some people have a hard time processing folic acid which is in a lot of prenatal supplements and vitamins and they do better with the methylated folate for the vast majority of people it doesn't matter but often for my fertility patients just because i don't want you to be one of those people i recommend a prenatal that just has a methylated folate in it so we don't have to worry about that iron actually has not been shown to change in infertility at all but it's important as you're starting to get pregnant because anemia can be a huge risk factor as your blood volume expands with pregnancy however iron can make you really constipated so i usually say hey you can take it if you want to if you feel fine and you're used to taking iron no big deal a lot of your gummy vitamins don't have iron it's just not compatible with the gummy texture of your vitamin in those type of circumstances just don't take iron until you're in your second trimester and you'll be fine unless you have previously been diagnosed with anemia a few thoughts on pcos i already said complex carbohydrates plant-based eating those things are going to be better for pcos the key here really is insulin resistance we want to improve that glucose sensitivity and drop that resistance to insulin there is some evidence that maybe intermittent fasting can help some people with this that losing weight if you have the obese or the overweight phenotype of pcos i have a whole video on pcos talking about the differences in thin versus overweight pcos but there is a metabolic disturbance in pcos in trying to consistently eat less sugar less refined carbohydrates more plant-based sources more fiber that's going to be better for you some questions about miracle foods like pineapple for implantation pineapple core has been kind of around because it has bromelain in it and bromine does have some antioxidant properties and a thought process is having that plus a little bit of blood thinning properties could be helpful for implantation there's been no proof that this actually helps but certainly it's not going to hurt you to eat pineapple core around implantation is there anything food related backed by studies how do i know that my diet's affecting my fertility i love this question i'm going to end on it i've linked a bajillion resources and references in the comments so feel free to look in the show notes and see all of those and go research for yourself as i started by saying diet's hard to study there's some people who get pregnant and they eat not at all a healthy diet and they do just fine there's other people who have infertility despite being as healthy as possible my general take is that you want to set yourself up for success if there's something you can do that could improve your chance of pregnancy decrease your time to conception or improve your outcomes when you're doing fertility treatments i want you to do that thing so that you can have the family that you dream of can you be vegan throughout your pregnancy you certainly can it's not going to harm you in any way and there was a study done in the british journal of ob gyn looking at vegetarian and vegan eating on maternal health outcomes there were 22 papers that were reviewed in this study vegan vegetarian diets were considered safe there was no birth defects or higher risk of maternal complications or fetal complications so if this is how you want to eat and you feel better and you want to carry it through your fertility and your pregnancy do it anybody who's vegan you need b12 that's fortified in a lot of foods you can also take a supplement with it but if you're truly eating zero animal products you may have a harder time of getting b12 into your diet depending on what you eat if you want more information on fertility you can always follow the as a woman podcast where i go in depth in the fertility topic follow me on instagram nataliecoffeemd or subscribe to this channel thanks friends [Music]
#Fertility #Diet #Eat #Pregnant
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were red meat so were bad you should get your medical license revoked shame on you!
False
Your info sucks. Studies are over rated. Red meat is cholesterol which helped every woman I know GET THEIR PERiOD AND OVULATE.
Your info sucks.
Vegans actually lose their periods.
Meat eaters OVULATED.
ignore what she is saying, plant based meats? are you fucking kidding me?
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I’m 35 and about a year ago I switched my diet to include way more red meat and boom I finally got pregnant, praise God
What about small fish like sardines, herring and mackerel? Those are all low rates for mercury?
6:24 I’m legit worried right now because everyone I’ve been studying who’s been doing research says red meat is the healthiest; it has the most nutrients etc- that plants are endocrine disruptors, have anti nutrients, mess with hormones etc. Red meat does the opposite; plants cause inflammation & allergies etc. not meat.
I’m so confused 😵💫
This really confuses me because I’ve been learning about what people on the carnivore diet say & they all say the opposite to this 😭 I trust both of you guys though- research tests & people’s experiences. I don’t know what to think now
Vege
Whole wheat flour
Omega 3 fish walnuts chia seeds flax seeds
Thanks for your tips 🎉
So if a lot of red meat is inflammatory, are beef organ supplements also inflammatory ?
what about caffeine
Honestly surprised but not surprised that you recommend a vegan diet. The research backs it up! But many fertility doctors still recommending their patients eat a standard “clean diet” with regular meat intake. Happy to see that you’re giving up to date, educated information.
You lost me when you said to avoid red meat. I disagree! benefits typically associated with red meat: (try to get meat from local ranch – I get my locally in Colorado)
1. **Protein**: Red meat is an excellent source of high-quality protein, which is essential for muscle growth, repair, and overall body function.
2. **Iron**: It contains heme iron, which is more readily absorbed by the body compared to non-heme iron found in plant foods. Iron is crucial for the formation of red blood cells and preventing anemia.
3. **Zinc**: Red meat is rich in zinc, an important mineral that supports immune function, wound healing, and DNA synthesis.
4. **B Vitamins**: It is a good source of several B vitamins, particularly vitamin B12, which is vital for nerve function, DNA synthesis, and the production of red blood cells. Other B vitamins found in red meat include niacin, riboflavin, and vitamin B6.
5. **Omega-3 Fatty Acids**: Some grass-fed beef may contain higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids compared to grain-fed beef, which can contribute to cardiovascular health.
6. **Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA)**: Grass-fed beef is also a source of CLA, which has been associated with various health benefits, including improved body composition and reduced inflammation.
What about eating soy if you are taking estro progestinic pill?
Interested to hear your thoughts on beef liver as a supplement? Love your content!
I used the tablets for 10 months but I can't conceive a child.😢Please help 🙏
I want to get pregnant. I have a two-year-old son, but I can't get pregnant. Help me.😢 Please 🙏
Happy to meet a vegan MD
Wuld this diet help me with fertility even though i hardly get my period and I have severe gastroparisis
New subscriber!! Planning on stopping oral birth control in a couple of months and ordered my prenatal and vitamin d3 ❤
This information is sooo incredibly not true and completely not science based
What fish should we eat to improve our egg quality?
Plants are poison. Period. The so called antioxidants are for the plants own benefit and not bioavailable for humans. Do the real research. What you are saying to people is harmful.
You are the BEST. I had a chemical nearly 10 years ago and then I got pregnant and had a mc at 6 weeks to the day. Devastated barely touches how I felt. I was unable to concieve for YEARS. You are such a ray of hope for me. I'm 37 and am seeing a doctor next week to look deeper into my fertility. I am primarily vegetarian, but was vegan for 6 years. I was eating complete crap for the last few years and gained 30 pounds. I am now on a weight loss fertility journey and I am going back to my wfpb self and it feels so good. I'm trying not to lose hope in this journey as I am nearing 38 in March 2025. Thank you for discussing diet. Your videos are so insightful and I am so grateful to have come across your channel.
Can coffee lead to infertility or make it hard to conceive?
@qrpcoaching8198 If you live in Europe you probably have to eat tuna, egg, meat and fish, to get enough Selenium. But you still can't be sure it's enough to get pregnant especially if you work and stress a lot…But one or two Selenium rich brazil-nuts a day can make a lot of difference, and some unorganic Selenium..
This is some of the worst if not most dangerous advice given to women.
Thank you for making all your female followers infertile.
Your ignorance is unbelievable. This is one of the worst diets I’ve ever seen as a recommendation for fertility lol. DO NOT follow this lady
Don’t listen to this charlatan. Humans need animal fat and protein, and all the micronutrients in meat. Absolute garbage advice.
Lady, you're truly delusional or very bad intended. 90% of your recommendations are pure poison or at least garbage that destroys people's health!
Just stop using epidemiology studies as a reference because all of them are garbage based on questionnaires!
Meat, especially red one, animal fat, eggs, and dairy, are essential for a healthy reproductive system.
From personal experience, everything in this video is very bad advice
I have pcos and a couple years ago went plant based. I got pregnant for the first time and have birth to a healthy baby girl. My lifestyle changes really helped me with weight and conceiving
Hi Natalie my name is Jessica I am having trouble getting pregnant I am taking CONCEPTION Capsule FOR HER