The average reproductive life span for a woman is approximately 30 years. Depending on when you first began menstruating, you have about 30 years of cycles in which your ovaries produce eggs that have a reasonable chance of fertilizing. We can’t necessarily change this fact but we can enhance the quality or essence of the eggs that do remain.

In the Chinese Medical Model, improving the quality of your eggs and sperm can be supported and enhanced by specific techniques: acupuncture, nutritional and/or herbal support, dietary practices, attitudinal focus, and certain exercise routines. These are some of the beginning factors to begin raising your reproductive health. Advanced maternal age isn’t a death sentence when it comes to pregnancy and birth, but there is no time to waste in creating optimal possibility for your success. The biggest secret of all, when trying to create the optimal possibility for your success, is the one you are least likely to hear from your health care provider.

The stance of the Western Medical Model is that your egg quality at any given moment is unchangeable; therefore, your egg quality after 40 is generally presumed to be both poor and unchangeable.

Both medical models have aspects of being correct. It is a fact that, when we are over the age of 40, we are in a natural decline in terms of egg quantity and quality. Yet, optimizing your egg quality (though not your egg quantity) is possible.

I have seen egg quality improve from one IVF to another as a result of direct treatment to support this. We are not overriding nature here, but rather optimizing what is left.

One way to think about it is that our ovaries are organs that respond to favorable internal surroundings, just like any other organ system does within our body. There isn’t a big, heavy gate that comes crashing down around our ovaries when we turn 40 that bars egg release! To the degree that any environment responds negatively to poor diet, toxins, drugs, stress, hormonal imbalance, that same environment responds quite favorably to healthy diet, purer lifestyle choices and hormonal rebalancing. This is true at any age. But, there is much less wiggle room after the age of forty, especially when it comes to conception.

Here are some basic tips for optimizing your egg quality:

* Eat whole foods

* Avoid processed foods

* Avoid sugar

* Exercise at least three times per week (walk, jog, bicycle, swim with regular stretching and weight resistance)

* Eliminate toxins (environmental, stress, excess alcohol, smoking etc.)

* Sleep 7-8 hours every night uninterrupted

* Avoid eating meat and dairy products treated with hormones

* Imagery to enhance egg quality

Whether you are trying to conceive naturally or with reproductive assistance your attention to the choices you make that affect your internal environment is crucial. Waste not any more time. And enjoy the journey!

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