When you’re trying to conceive, egg quality is a huge concern. If your eggs are low quality, it’s a lot harder to conceive and have a viable pregnancy.

We’re often led to believe that age is the deciding factor in determining egg quality but this is a huge myth.

Age has a role to play but it’s not everything. Although fertility does decline with age, it’s not the case that fertility falls off a cliff once you’re 35. You actually have more control than you may think.

Egg health CAN be improved through nutrition and lifestyle interventions, which can boost your fertility naturally – even after 35. An egg can be healthier three months down the line, even though you’re technically three months older. 

Why three months? Because an egg has a life cycle of 90 days. If you’re able to conceive, the egg that was successfully implanted will have taken three months to mature. 

This is the window of opportunity to positively impact egg health. In the 90 days prior to an egg maturing, it can be influenced by various factors (some good, some bad). 

How to Support Your Fertility As You Get Older 

Age is far from the only factor that can affect egg quality. Your nutrition and lifestyle have a big role to play too. 

Balance Your Hormones 

Hormone imbalance is one of the biggest culprits of poor egg health. When your hormones are out of whack. It can affect your cycle and throw ovulation off track. Nutrition and lifestyle can offer a natural approach to balancing hormones and increasing your chances of conception. 

Eat A Nutritious Diet

Eating nutrient-dense foods that support good health is a must for improving egg health. If you currently have nutrient deficiencies, there’s a good chance that this is one of the pieces of the puzzle that can be addressed. Beyond this, we also want to make sure that your nutrition is supporting balanced blood sugar and gut health – both of which can affect your fertility too. This is where a qualified professional like myself can help you to fill in gaps in your nutrition and optimise your diet to support fertility. 

Support Your Mitochondria

Mitochondria is crucial for all cells, and eggs are no exception. It’s a vital source of energy for healthy eggs and also maintains intracellular pH, which can support the fertilisation of an egg. 

Because mitochondrial function tends to decrease with age, this is one of the reasons why so many people assume that fertility is purely age-related. 

Mitochondrial function can be supported through nutrition and in some cases, appropriate supplementation. 

Improve Gut Health

Supporting your gut health is often overlooked when it comes to fertility but there’s a strong link between your gut bacteria and your fertility. The microorganisms that live in the gut love prebiotic fibre, which produces short-chain fatty acids as it breaks down. Butyrate is one of the most significant of these as it can protect against damage to egg (and sperm) quality. 

Improve Blood Flow

A good supply of oxygen to the ovaries is essential for egg health. To maintain healthy blood flow to the ovaries, it’s important to stay well hydrated and exercise regularly. Fertility massage is another way to boost blood flow to the reproductive system as a whole. 

Reduce Your Exposure to Toxins

Exposure to toxins is a huge culprit for low-quality eggs. Toxins are lurking everywhere – from your beauty products to medications and scented candles. The more you’re exposed to toxins, the greater the burden on your liver. Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, processed foods and trans fats also increase your toxic load. 

Reduce Stress

Stress isn’t something we can necessarily avoid and that can impact fertility, particularly egg health. Reducing your stress is one of the best things you can do to improve egg health, especially if you’re currently not ovulating regularly. 

I hope this blog post gives you hope that you can still boost your fertility even if you’re over the age of 35. There’s still so much that we can do to optimise egg health and improve your chances of success. This includes looking at what may be affecting egg health and using a natural approach to addressing them. 

If you’d like to chat about how I can support your fertility journey, you can contact me here.