Fertility Supplements: Enhancing Natural Conception Possibilities

In my fertility practice, one of the first things many women ask me is about supplements. What supplements should I take? How many? When? And, most importantly, will they help me conceive?

And like anything, supplements are exactly that - supplemental! We have to first build a foundation of healthy eating, moderate exercise, rest and recovery, and avoidance of reproductive toxins. That said, there is compelling data that some supplements have a place in the setting of fertility treatment and it can be extremely confusing when it comes to navigating which supplements to take!

First and foremost, it's important to understand that fertility supplements are not magic pills that guarantee pregnancy. Furthermore, outside of some robustly studied front runners (looking at you prenatal vitamins with folic acid), there is often limited data about the impact of any given supplement on reproductive outcomes. Finally, all of the best things tend to take time. With continued daily usage of a high quality supplement over a a period of 3 to 6 months we may begin to see meaningful improvements in egg quality and sperm parameters.

So why is it that your physician may not be keen on supplementation? For the same reason I am! It can be extremely hard to tell what is in the product you are taking, especially if that product is not manufactured in the United States and if it has not undergone testing for quality and contamination by an independent laboratory (look for things like cGMP, NSF). Furthermore just because something is "nature made" or "herbal" does not mean it is something you should be adding to your diet.

In this series of blog posts we will be exploring some of the most common reproductive supplements (like coenzyme q10, fish oil, inositol, vitamin d, folic acid, folate, vitamin e, selenium, and others) and their impacts on reproductive health.