the Author
As the old saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Thankfully, the teacher, Heather Grzych, has appeared with her book, The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility. The students are ready, and the need is urgent.
I’ve had many patients come to me for fertility, but one immediately comes to mind: an extremely stressed, high-strung, type A thirty-nine-year-old medical doctor, who demanded she get pregnant within the next three months because after that she had some prescheduled events that she could not miss. She calculated that she had about a four-week window she could take off work in the next year to deliver the baby and then get back to her eighty-hour workweeks. For her plan to work, she had to get pregnant soon. I told her babies have their own schedule and it is impossible and unwise to try to control their arrival. When I proposed revising her plan to include pregnancy preparation, nesting, and dialing down her workload, it only irritated her.
I have been practicing Ayurveda full-time since 1986, and while I do not consider myself a fertility expert, my Ayurvedic practice has attracted what has seemed like an inordinate number of fertility patients, most in their late thirties or early forties. Clearly, in some cases infertility requires Western medical intervention. Ayurveda, however, addresses this issue from a truly holistic mind-body-spirit perspective.
The number of childless women has doubled since the 1970s. Between 1960 and 2015, the number of women giving birth has decreased by half. In a study of more than 8,800 women and 6,200 men between 2010 and 2012, 57 percent of women and 53 percent of men had a history of seeking help for infertility.
In the West, the first visit to a midwife or obstetrician takes place weeks after the pregnancy has been discovered, while in the East, the first visit to an Ayurvedic doctor typically takes place six months to a year before conception. It is understood that the health of mom and baby during and after pregnancy depends on the practice of time-tested Ayurvedic wisdom of pregnancy preparation and planning.
The first step of pregnancy planning and prep is the nesting process, where the mother and father prepare a safe environment in which to bring the new baby into the world. Studies support the ancient wisdom of pregnancy preparation, linking prenatal stress to issues related to maternal health, fetal health, and human development across the life span.
Unfortunately, as Heather so eloquently points out, we live in an extremely fast-paced, stressful time, and women in particular have been forced to live up to superwoman standards. While being a mom was once a full-time job, many women today must be not only the mom but also the chauffeur, soccer fan, cook, school liaison, social coordinator, travel planner, and often caregiver, all while holding down a pressure-ridden job. Now, they start out by trying to get pregnant, deliver, and care for an infant while already having a full plate of other responsibilities outside the home.
Trying to conceive in these conditions is about as impossible as a doe getting pregnant while being chased by a mountain lion. Getting pregnant requires a parasympathetic dominance in the nervous system that delivers a feeling of safety and security, according to Ayurveda. Stress has been argued to be a cause of infertility since ancient times, and today’s studies back this up. In one study, 40 percent of women with infertility were shown to experience chronic high stress, anxiety, or depression prior to their first infertility clinic visit, suggesting that preconception stress may be an underlying factor of infertility.
Interestingly, in a study of six hundred female physicians, 24 percent of those who had attempted conception were diagnosed with infertility — nearly double the national average — another example linking prenatal stress with infertility.
Of course, this does not suggest that all infertility is due to chronic stress, depression, or anxiety. In fact, not all studies conclusively link prenatal stress to infertility, although there is overwhelming evidence that once a woman is diagnosed with infertility, her levels of stress, anxiety, and depression all go up, further complicating fertility. Counseling to reduce infertility-related stress and anxiety has been shown in a handful of studies to successfully boost pregnancy rates.
Pregnancy preparation is not a simple matter of changing a work or travel schedule; it is a process of slowing down in all areas of mom’s and dad’s life. According to Ayurveda, the dad’s job is to fulfill the desires of the mom, including those wild cravings at 2 AM. The dad is also in charge of ensuring the mother’s comfort, happiness, and joy by creating a calm, safe, peaceful environment, called sattva in Ayurveda. Peaceful, sattvic, supportive actions, such as touch, kindness, and caregiving between adults, have been shown to boost oxytocin, a birthing, bonding, and longevity hormone.
According to Ayurveda, pregnancy and delivery can be the most rejuvenating experiences of a woman’s life, during which every cell of her body can be transformed. Traditionally, new mothers did not leave their bed for a week after delivery and did not leave the bedroom for two weeks, as the extended family provided meals, baths, and massages for mom and baby. Unfortunately, in the West, we did not get that memo, and mothers often pay dearly after pregnancy with further exhaustion, added stress, and other health concerns.
During pregnancy, downward-moving energy called apana vata supports development of the fetus, and upward-moving energy called prana vata supports mom’s sattva, energy, and mood stability. In cases of chronic stress, both prana and apana can become depleted, leaving mom less able to cope with stress. In the battle for energy during pregnancy, the baby always wins, drawing both prana and apana to the fetus and leaving mom even more vulnerable to stress.
During the preconception period, these two energies must be restored in both mom and dad in the process of creating sattva in both parents. Depleted prana (mental energy) and apana (adrenal energy) not only impact the mom’s chances to conceive, but can also deplete the quality and quantity of dad’s sperm. Many studies link lack of sattva (aka a stressful lifestyle) to decreased fertility in men.
Rasayana for Pregnancy
To properly prepare for pregnancy and build sattva, future moms and dads have for thousands of years turned toward a branch of Ayurveda called rasayana, the study of rejuvenation, aging, and longevity. There are four main types of rasayana used traditionally to boost sattva and prepregnancy rejuvenation:
1.Ahara rasayana pertains to food and digestion
2.Vihara rasayana pertains to lifestyle
3.Acharya rasayana pertains to behavior
4.Aushadha rasayana pertains to herbs
These four types of rasayana focus on bringing sattva into the food, lifestyle, behavior, and herbs you consume. Sattva for pregnancy suggests that mom and dad be content, loving, kind, generous, grateful, compassionate, and joyful prior to conception.
Ahara Rasayana
Prior to conception, Ayurveda suggests bringing the body into balance. This starts with a thorough evaluation of the digestive system, followed by appropriate therapies to restore ideal digestive function. According to Ayurveda, the ability to digest well is linked to the ability to detoxify well and support a healthy immune response. During pregnancy, mom is doing all this for two — so baby’s health starts with the digestive health of mom.
Vihara Rasayana
At least three months prior to conception is the best period for both mom and dad to cleanse physically, to rid the body of environmental pollutants and toxins as well as to emotionally shed ama (old, unwanted molecules of emotion) from mind and body.
Regular practice of gentle yoga, breathing exercises, meditation, walks in nature (thirty minutes each day), and breathing clean air are classic prepregnancy tools.
Daily full-body or foot massage with Ayurvedic oils will calm the nervous system and support a sattvic physiology.
Acharya Rasayana
Prior to conception, women are encouraged to read uplifting