Organic Foods for Fertility and Pregancy

Eating to optimize fertility or to maintain a health pregnancy can be a challenge for some.  Most people generally understand that eating as many organic and non-pesticide treated foods as possible is the healthiest way to go.  Studies now show that one’s fertility can be affected by pesticides and that newborn babies are born with a chemical load in their tiny bodies.  We don’t fully understand the long term impacts of this.  Mandala Midwifery Care’s advice for both our fertility and our pregnancy clients is pretty simple – the less chemicals going into your body, the better, and striving to eat only organic foods is one way to do that.

Organic foods can be much more expensive than their non-organic counterparts and sometimes availability can be limited in your area. Check out the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists to help aid in your shopping efforts.  The Dirty Dozen lists fruits and vegetables that contain the highest concentration of chemicals both on the inside and the outside when raised on conventional farms.  By contrast, the Clean Fifteen is a list of fruits and vegetables that have a relatively low concentration of pesticides in and on them even when raised on conventional farms.  Avoid the Dirty Dozen! And if you have limited resources, you can feel better about what your are eating by buying fruits and vegetables on the Clean Fifteen list.

 

Here’s a few resources for those looking for more information.

http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/pesticides-and-male-infertility.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/health/babies-are-polluted-at-birth-new-report-says/625/

http://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1477-7827-4-30