3 Ways to Improve Egg Quality
Egg quality is a prettyyyyy big topic these days. As a fertility sister, one of the things that I have found to be the most frustrating is all of the “dos” and “donts” that surround egg quality. Like you are supposed to just stop living your life to avoid every chemical and supposedly “bad” food for the foreseeable future until you are pregnant. 🙄
I don’t think so. That doesn’t sound like any FUNNN.
The good news is, you can improve egg quality without guilt or missing out on all of the fun with your friends like heading out to your favorite winery for girls night.
Friend, there is no need to be perfect. One thing isn’t going to make it or break it when it comes to your egg quality.
Why do diets not work for egg quality?
The trouble with egg quality “diets”, fertility “diets” or fertility “rules” is that they just aren’t sustainable or realistic. Like most other diets you have heard of they tend to have a list of do’s and don’ts. These types of rules cause guilt when you do eat these so-called “bad fertility” foods. This restriction can lead to binge eating and overeating. These types of behaviors can make you feel out of control and increase stress on your body. Adding more stress to your body during an already stressful time is the last thing you need. Especially when excess stress isn’t great for egg quality.
Why is egg quality important?
Egg quality is important regardless of how you are trying to conceive. The higher quality the egg, the easier it is to be fertilized and grow into a healthy embryo that can successfully implant and create pregnancy. In some cases this could make conception on your own easier and decrease the risk of miscarriage. In other cases, it can mean better outcomes for fertility treatments such as IUI or IVF.
How can you know the quality of your eggs?
Well that’s the tricky part, the only sure fire way to know the quality of your eggs is through IVF and that is pretty invasive just to figure out the quality of your eggs. While you may decide that IVF is the path to your baby, its important to know that you can do things to promote the quality of your eggs regardless of how you are trying to conceive, while living your life of course. 😉
But wait there isn’t a blood test that can tell you the quality of your eggs?! There are a few hormonal tests that can tell you your egg RESERVES. This is why you often seen fertility clinics measure things like Day 3 FSH and Estradiol and AMH. However, these tests cannot tell you the quality of your eggs. They merely give you insight into the amount of eggs you have left within your ovaries.
So what can you really do to improve your egg quality?
Here are 3 simple steps that you can start implementing today that will improve your egg quality while allowing you to live your life.
Get 7-9 hours of good quality sleep. When you sleep your body releases a hormone called melatonin, this actually protects your egg quality.
In order to produce adequate amounts of melatonin, you need to get enough sleep and make sure the room is completely dark. You can try getting room darkening shades or wearing a sleeping mask (my personal favorite) to block out lights from cell phones, alarm clocks and street lights.
It is also helpful to have a solid bedtime routine that involves putting away devices at least one hour before bed. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep there may be supplements that could support your sleep which is something we will review inside of my new program Egg Quality Academy that is coming soooooon!
Add more fat. Fat serves three important functions when it comes to egg quality and fertility.
First, fat is the building block of cholesterol and cholesterol is the building blocks of hormones. You need to eat enough fat in order to keep your hormones functioning at the right levels to produce high quality eggs.
How much is enough? Probably more than you think. Think a significant source of fat with each meal and snack such as cooking things in grass-fed butter or olive oil, toping foods with avocado or adding full fat dairy to snacks.
The second function of fat is to keep you full and satisfied. Because fat is more dense it will fill you up and leave you more satisfied with your meals. This keeps your blood sugar more stable which promotes healthy hormone levels and what this means to you is better egg quality. If you struggle staying full for 3-4 hours after meals, try adding more fat into your meal!
The third function of fat is to aid in the absorption of vitamins and minerals. Taking your prenatal multivitamin is one thing— but making sure the nutrients inside of it are actually absorbed and usable by your body is another. Fat can aid in the absorption of these vitamins and minerals that are essential for egg quality.
Include a variety of fruits and veggies. One of the biggest things research shows when it comes to food and egg quality is how beneficial antioxidants can be.
Antioxidants are molecules that fight free radicles inside of your body. Free radicles are substances that are unstable in the body. They are missing components to make them full molecules and try to steel these components from fully functioning cells. This causes them to damage things like your DNA, cell membranes and other parts of the cells. Your eggs are one large cell, if you have a lot of free radicals roaming around in your body, they can damage your eggs by harming the DNA and other parts of the cell. Antioxidants prevent this damage from happening.
Antioxidants are primarily found in plants, specifically fruits and vegetables. Different colors of fruits and vegetables contain different antioxidants therefore getting a variety of colors increases the variety of antioxidants within the body. A larger variety of antioxidants put up a stronger fight against the damaging free radicals within the body. Essentially, what this means do you is eating a variety of fruits and vegetables increases the variety of antioxidants in your body that can protect your eggs from damage and stress.
A few examples of fruits and veggies with strong antioxidant power to improve egg quality:
Berries (like strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries)
Oranges
Apples
Broccoli
Cabbage
Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower
Kale
Leafy Greens
All in all, egg quality is QUEEN regardless of how you are trying to conceive. 👑 While so much of this journey is out of your control, there are things you can do to easily improve your egg quality. It may take some time (60-90 days) to see the results of these changes so pay attention to other ways your body benefits from these changes. Do you have more energy? Are your bowel movements more regular? Are you waking up feeling more rested? Is your libido better?
Friends, these are all BIG WINS!
If this feels overwhelming for you and you just aren’t sure where to start — I want you to take a deep breath. 😤 I have a brand NEW program coming soon, Egg Quality Academy, that is going to teach you the facts about improving egg quality AND provide you with a strategy of how you can implement this into your life so you can improve egg quality while still enjoying your fav starbs latte.
Of course this is just the start of things you can do to improve your egg quality. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more simple ways you can improve your egg quality.
