What Is a Fertility Dietitian
What is a Registered Dietitian?
A Registered Dietitian, or RD, is a board-certified nutrition expert that helps translate the science of food and nutrition into everyday living. They work to individualize recommendations to support your needs depending on your individual health history and goals.
Requirements to become a RD include a bachelor's degree from an accredited program with coursework in food and nutrition sciences, foodservice systems management, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, anatomy and chemistry among others. Like myself, many dietitians have masters degrees, which will be a requirement for all dietitians starting in 2024. This degree is followed by a rigorous 1200 hours of clinical coursework and a comprehensive national exam to become certified. Maintaining certification requires annual continuing education to help stay current on the research and best practices.
A dietitian is a nutritionist, but a nutritionist is not a dietitian. What’s the difference? Literally anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, it is not a regulated term. This can be quite confusing, but it is an important distinction! Dietitians are trained to provide individualized guidance and are very aware that guidance that will help one person thrive could be harmful to a different person.
Dietitian’s work in many different settings and can have many different specialties.
What is a Fertility Dietitian?
A fertility dietitian is a dietitian that specializes in helping women and couples optimize their nutrition for fertility. A fertility dietitian can help you determine what changes would be best for you depending on your current health status, health goals and fertility history. This is especially important if you are struggling with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), thyroid imbalance, insulin resistance, IBS, bowel disease, or irregular cycles.
In my practice, The Fertility Dietitian, I take a functional and integrative approach to uncover the root cause of your symptoms and fertility struggles so you can learn how to work with your body and optimize fertility. A functional approach to fertility is vastly different than a conventional approach.
What is a Functional Medicine Dietitian?
As a functional medicine dietitian, I work to find the root cause of your fertility struggles by looking at the whole body and teaching you how to work with your body. This involves functional testing to look at things like gut health, hormone metabolism, detox pathways, nutrient status, immune function and inflammation. I recognize that the whole body is connected and we must work with it in order to improve fertility.
The conventional medicine approach to fertility involves prescriptions to stimulate follicle growth, synthetic hormones, removing eggs and/or placing sperm for fertilization. These can be helpful tools, but they do nothing for helping you determine what barriers there are for fertility which can have an impact on many other areas of your health and the life-long health of your future child.
No matter how you are trying to conceive or how long you have been trying, we can work together to improve egg quality, sperm quality & reproductive environment to greatly increase your chances of taking home a healthy baby, all in less time than medical intervention alone. Working with both partners and looking at the whole body is crucial for improving reproductive function.
If you are interested in learning more about what it might look like to work together, please follow this link to join my waitlist for a free Fertility Strategy Session. During this phone call we will discuss whether I can help you reach your goals & what it would look like to work together.
Get this! Most chromosomal errors occur before ovulation as a result of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is increased from poor nutrition, gut health, suppressed immune system, inactivity, chronic stress, smoking, toxins etc. This is why there can be a big difference in egg quality in women of different ages.
Targeted nutrition & lifestyle changes during preconception (at least 3-4 months before conception) greatly improve egg quality & reduce genetic errors. Yes, it takes this long to see changes in egg quality……This time is SO valuable, as research shows that genetic errors cause more miscarriage than every other known cause of miscarriage combined! AND Egg quality & genetic errors can impair pregnancy from even happening in the first place. Not to mention your risk of pregnancy complications decrease with preconception care!! Take that geriatric pregnancy! (I despise this term BTW…but more on that later).
The good news is there is still A LOT you can do to support the quality of eggs & improve your chances of conceiving a healthy babe even after you turn 35.
Start here:
Boost antioxidant intake by eating a variety of fruits, veggies & healthy fats. Antioxidants protect eggs from oxidative stress, which increases as we get older. Supplements should be individualized!
Support your body’s detox organs by eating enough, including quality protein foods like eggs & fish and staying hydrated with water. Your liver & kidney’s will thank you!
Focus on quality sleep. Time to rest & repair is crucial for egg quality & fertility. Avoid screens before bed and aim for 7-9 hours of shut eye.
Aim for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week. Exercise keeps inflammation down, supports hormone balance & keeps blood flowing.
If you are looking for individualized guidance, schedule a free consult by clicking here.