# Vegetarianism & Fertility



## Pumpkin2904 (Dec 1, 2011)

I do not eat meat, have not for 12 yrs and my acupuncturist thinks this may be a issue in my not being able to concieve.... What would you do if in same position... Would you eat meat ? Just interested in people's views.


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

I am a veggie as well and have never been told that this is an issue.  Meany meany woman are veggies and go on to have healthy pregnancies.  

I think the bigger issue is what is the rest of your diet like?  Do you eat healthy, lots of fruit and veg? Are you a healthy weight etc etc

If i was honest if my fertility dr told me this then i would eat meat, but an acupuncturist , who probably does not specialise in fertility, no i would not eat meat.  Sorry to be blunt. xxx


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## Pumpkin2904 (Dec 1, 2011)

Thanks for response.
I do try to eat healthy...I could do with losing a few pounds. I don't drink or smoke. My age goes against me I suppose being 42. The acupuncturist specialises in fertilty which is why I go to her and she was telling me about a client who after trying for many years to get pregnant when back to eating meat and was pregnant 3 months later.
She mentioned it to me as I'm blood deficient whatever that means. It a dilemma and I shall seriously have to consider it as a option I suppose.


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## mincepie (Jun 16, 2011)

I am veggie too and also saw an acupuncutist, they take your pulse and then describe what your blood is like. Mine was "choppy" don't really knwo what it means but they suggested to me that I eat lots of leafy green veg and kidney beans. 

One thing you might want to consider is not eating soya or drinking soya milk, if you do that. Soya is thought to have a mild contraceptive effect, so I am told. 

I think we have to be careful about drawing conclusions about "someone did this and then they got pregnant" You can't say that starting to eat meat was the thing that helped her get pregnant, as I am sure you know. Its hard to ignore advice though isn't it because we want to try anything which might work. 

Good luck to you.

Mincepie


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## coweyes (Sep 4, 2008)

Mincepie


I think you have just said exactly what i was thinking!  Its sooo easy to change so much about you and the way you live as the drive to have a baby is obviously so strong.  But i think you have to select the things that you believe in and discard the things that you don't!


I re started eating meat for a while but tbh it made no difference.  


Good luck in what every you decide


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## Pumpkin2904 (Dec 1, 2011)

Mincepie

I was told I am blood deficient and this I think is why she mentioned about eating red meat.

Good Luck hope all works out for you all x


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## Helen78 (Oct 17, 2010)

Hiya,

I've been a veggie (a proper one, no gelatine etc) for 13 years and I can't imagine ever eating meat/fish again and I certainly wouldn't be swayed by a "fertility expert" acupuncturist!!! Does she also advocate the eating of carpet fluff for athlete's foot? 

Apologies for the strong opinion but what she has said enraged me somewhat!! 

xxx


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## Ellie.st (Mar 11, 2005)

I've been a strict vegetarian since I was 12 ( a very long time  ), and I stuck with it during all the time I was ttc.  If you Google, you may find some evidence that being veggie can reduce fertility in some instances but then if you look at countries where the population is predominantly veggie, they don't seem to be dying out!!! I'd always had what I considered to be a very healthy diet but when I went to a nutritional therapist before starting out on IVF (using the Foresight approach which tests you for nutritional deficiencies/surpluses by analysing a hair sample), she came up with a variety of suggestions re supplements for DH and me.  As well as finding that we were deficient in certain minerals, the other thing which surprised me was that we weren't eating enough protein - 60g a day is recommended (ie not, for example, 60g of a food like cheese containing protein, but 60g of protein which, if I remember correctly, would mean eating 90g of cheese. (This proportion may not be totally accurate but I hope you get my drift   .)  

I personally think that overhauling our diet and taking supplements made a difference to our IVF outcome (see my profile below _ and I was 42 like you when I got my first BFP).  I think it is worth looking into. If nothing else, it may improve your general health which can only be good for ttc.  If you don't want to go down the Foresight/nutritional therapy route, I would really recommend having a read of the following two books:  "Fertility and Conception" by Zita West and "Natural Solutions to Infertility" by Marilyn Glenville as they both contain loads of what I found to be very useful advice re supplements and diet.

I'm quite a believer in accupunture for IVF and I would be interested if an accupuncturist specialising in fertility was picking up something unusual - but I personally wouldn't see it as a reason to start eating mear but rather as a prompt to double-check my diet and see if it could be improved.  The advice about avoiding soya, especially around ovulation time or EC time in IVF, is also very good as it has been proved to have contraceptive qualities.

Good luck with your tx.

Ellie


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## urbangirl (Jul 28, 2010)

Hi there, this rang bells with me because I was vegetarian for many, many years, longer than you. I have been having chinese medicine for a while, and all the time my chinese doctor was advising me to eat some red meat because I was qi deficient. This then graduated to what they call blood deficiency (which is worse than qi deficiency).  That was the syndrome in my case anyway.  I didn't change my diet because I wanted to stay vegetarian and figured I could live with  bit of tiredness but I did change it when I realised I had fertility problems. I started eating a tiny bit of meat, and now I am eating more- just the amount of meat I feel I need. i.e I won't eat a huge steak but I might eat a small one.  My feeling is everyone is different, there are plenty of vegetarians who do very well on a meat-free diet, but others who don't, it depends on your constitution and I think that it just didn't suit mine, I wasn't absorbing the nutrients I needed from a veggie diet, though millions of others clearly do.  I don't think your acupuncturist would advise everyone with a fertility problem who comes to her to eat meat, but in your particular case she is advising it because, I guess, she has diagnosed you as having a deficiency syndrome.  Deficiency syndroms need supplementing of some sort, acupuncture isn't enough because it just moves the energy around, but it can't really increase it, as is my basic understanding.  You could ask her what would be the best alternative to meat if you don't want to stop being vegetarian.  Personally, I am going to carry on with my small scale meat diet at least until I get pregnant, I don't suffer from blood deficiency anymore, and I don't feel anything like as tired as I was before, for me eating meat again just filled in some gaps.  Also, you're 42?(can't remember what your profile said, can't see it now) I would do everything you can, at 43+ it becomes much, much harder.  Best of luck 

Re soya having a contraceptive effect- it hasn't stopped the Japanese and Chinese any...


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## Pumpkin2904 (Dec 1, 2011)

Urbangirl

The Accupuncturist has said I am blood deficient which is why she mentioned eating some redmeat. 
I have started taking b12 on top of pregnacare and royal jelly and see what happens. Also having a polyp removed mid Jan.

Thanks ladies for all your responses x


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## da1sy (Jun 30, 2007)

Hi I've been strict veggie for 23 years and managed to get my miracle on my 3rd icsi attempt. I did take veggie protein powder to up my protein levels though. So don't think its an issue - also my vegan friend just had a baby on her 4th attempt at 40. Pretty sure my recent bad luck is just to do with age and immune issues not me being veggie.

The only thing with being veggie was that I had the nuchal/blood test when I was pregnant with DS and came up very high risk on the blood test - and after weeks of anguish my amnio result was that my DS was fine. I googled this and found there is a link between getting false positive high risk and being vegetarian.

If you need iron to strengthen your blood then the spatone sachets are good and easy on the stomach.

good luck A x


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