Preparing for Pregnancy

By Miriam Young

The importance of pre-conception care can never be under-estimated. Clients often ask me how long I spent preparing before becoming pregnant. Four years in total, although I had been using natural medicine many years prior to this. I spent two years detoxifying my body – with breaks in between. And then two years without detoxifying, but working on myself in other ways, healing myself emotionally and spiritually, undertaking a healthy diet and building myself with tonic herbs and a gentle, but powerful Chinese exercise called Qi Gong. Prior to becoming pregnant, and now as a breastfeeding Mother, I was and still am working towards perfection both consciously and subconsciously. And the wisdom within the newly forming cells also seek perfection as they make that magical journey from conception, down the fallopian tubes and implant into the Mother’s uterus. The spark of life that seeks unconditional love is within all of us.

In the first three months the foetal mass increases over 2 500 000 times. This is an extraordinary rate of growth that has unique nutritional requirements. In the first trimester, some women experience a poor appetite. Some women feel sick all the time and others may vomit. The newly growing fetus takes what it knows is already there from the mother, not only from what she eats, but also from a deeper cellular level. The baby is building herself on her Mother, both energetically, as well as extracting what she needs from her mineral reservoir. One lady was concerned because she and her husband had conceived after drinking alcohol during one weekend. As she was not normally a drinker, I assured her not to worry. She had been working on her health many months prior to this and had looked after herself most of her adult life.

If it is a soul’s aspiration to come in, it will do so. Of course it is not ideal to drink a strong cup of coffee as implantation is occurring. Ultimately however, it is the Mother’s soul and the incarnating child that has set up the agreement and the odd indulgence will not affect this spiritual bond. It is the subconscious intent that is often the most powerful.

There are a number of ways an inspiring Mother and Father can work on themselves through detoxification, emotional healing, nutrition and strengthening of the internal organs. When this is done consciously, we have the ability to take responsibility, giving the incoming soul not only the gift of life, but also a healthy body. This can only be reflected in a healthy consciousness and the natural unfolding of the child’s emotional world and personality. By working on and healing ourselves now, we are also healing the soul that has chosen us, before he or she even gets here. What greater gift can there be?

Ask yourself; is it really necessary to take all those synthetically produced vitamins? Is it possible to save that money and buy organically grown food that contains ‘real’ vitamins and has a ‘life force’ that feeds us energetically?

There are however two plant-based supplements that I recommend for preconception care, pregnancy and breastfeeding – colloidal minerals and ‘green’ food supplements called spirillina, barley grass and wheat grass. These green foods are the most nutrient dense food available on the planet. They are complete ‘super foods’, high in nutrients – Vitamin C, all of the B’s including B12 and folic acid, calcium, iron, Vitamin A and E, amino acids, essential fatty acids, and are also high in chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a liver cleanser as well as a liver tonic. Colloidal Minerals contain over 70 different microscopic minerals and trace elements from plants. Pregnant and breastfeeding women who crave coffee, sweets, chocolate, common salt etc most commonly have mineral deficiencies. Colloidal minerals help prevent cravings for these foods (making a change in diet a whole lot easier) and balance out your mineral status – calcium, zinc, iron and magnesium are not the only important minerals! We need a balance of all the essential minerals and trace elements to feed our children as well as ourselves.

If you have been on the oral contraceptive pill for more than three or four years, start thinking about alternative ways to contraception. There are numerous side affects from taking the pill that I have seen in my practice, and you may read about, (try the internet), including depression, gallbladder disease, liver damage, fibroids, migraines, high blood pressure, abnormal pap smears and so the list goes on. An adolescent who has been menstruating for less than two years should not go on the pill! The pill affects our ability to absorb nutrients from our food adequately. If a woman conceives too soon after coming off the pill, the risk of miscarriage and birth defects is far greater.

Statistics show us that The ‘Billings’ method or the ‘Natural Fertility’ way of contra-ception is, when used correctly, between 97 and 99 percent effective. The combination pill is only slightly higher than this. Natural methods of contraception have been updated; they are no longer dinosaurs of the past.

With Natural Fertility, the same methods can be used to achieve conscious conception, as well as to avoid it. What seemingly appear to be low levels of fertility may often be resolved, by pinpointing the most fertile time in your cycle. No other birth control method can offer you this; in fact most birth control methods have the capabilities to further lower levels of fertility and may even cause it.

Your job and/or hobbies and where you live as well as the food and water you consume are all worth addressing in terms of toxic accumulation. Hairdressers may experience day-to-day exposure to hair products, bleaches and dyes, gardeners to insecticides and fertilisers. Detoxification or cleansing addresses the three major organs of elimination in the body, the kidneys, liver and bowel. By cleansing these major organs, the whole body is able to sigh with relief as whole ranges of chronic symptoms are frequently lifted. The process of cleansing involves a detox that lasts for a minimum of two weeks and includes the taking of herbal medicine and the eating of specific foods.

It takes roughly four months for spermatogenesis to complete its course and roughly four months for an egg to reach maturation. A healthy woman makes a healthy egg. A healthy man makes healthy sperm. A healthy egg and a healthy sperm make a healthy baby. Preconception care is equally important for men as it is for women. And it has been scientifically proven that the sperm accounts for 50% of this responsibility. All detoxification programmes should be well and truly completed for both male and female prior to this four-month period, before a ‘baby-making’ attempt is made. Adequate nutritional status should also already be achieved prior to these four months so that the egg and sperm develop in an environment that is prepared and healthy.

Herbal medicine is not only used in detoxification but can be implemented to balance hormones, assist ovulation, normalise menstruation, reduce PMS, promote fertile mucus, destroy candida, increase sperm count, increase libido, tone the mucous membranes, build the uterus, strengthen the immune system, alleviate constipation, heal digestion, reduce anxiety as well as depression to name but a few.

If you would like to have a first or subsequent baby sometime in the next few months or even years, start preparing consciously now. It is never too early. All you can do to yourself is get healthier! If you feel you have failed somehow, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, start again and go back to the natural basics. You can never go backwards.