Recently I found out my dear friend’s daughter is pregnant. Yippee, I get to see the progress of growing another being up close. She and her husband prepared to improve their chances of healthy conception and pregnancy. I think it would be wonderful if everyone could take action to support healthy conception.
Make a reasonable effort, set the best intentions, then Ishvara Pranidhanna, surrender to a higher power. Relinquishing control is a just part of baby-making for the couple, parents, and even an adopted aunt (me). It was lovely to see my niece for that is how I think of her, desiring, preparing for and achieving a successful healthy conception.
The creation of new life is a wondrous process for everyone, full of potential. I would wish each conception to be a planned joyous thing. But in our current society we have many couples with unplanned accidental pregnancies as well as others with conception issues. Both situations create stress for parents or would-be parents.
Ayurveda’s View On Conception
Ayurveda suggests that conceiving and bearing a child is a blessed activity to be entered into with due wisdom and attention. The timing of an auspicious conception is chosen with care. Detoxification or pancha karma may be one step in the preparation. Both parents are given ahara diet and vihara lifestyle practices to convey optimum health to the child. Part of the conveyance is the baby’s prakruti. The dosha makeup or prakruti is the playground and learning environment for each spirit to grow and explore.
What Contributes To Prakruti?
“Deeds of previous incarnation, physical & psychological state of mother and father during conception, nutrition & regimen of mother, social melue, practice of wholesomeness by mother (during pregnancy) and child in postnatal period and many more factors are attributed in the prakriti formation.”
International Journal Of Ayurvedic And Herbal Medicine 2:3 (2012)477:487
As I mentioned, much of creating a new life involves bowing to a higher power, but there are things that moms dads and close family can do.
8 Actions To Support Healthy Conception
- Clarify your desire as a person or couple, set your intention, reach out to your health care team and community to garner the support you need.
- Address any (vikruti) imbalances in your life. Ideally both parents want to be their healthiest when creating a new person.
- Follow a healthy daily routine (dinacharya) to support balanced dosha for mom and dad from conception forward.
- Eat lots of vegetables with the colors of the rainbow and the six tastes each day.
- Check with your health care team about the appropriate use of herbs, prescriptions, and over the counter medications during conception and pregnancy.
- Prioritize restful sleep in your schedule and develop a solid evening wind-down routine.
- Cultivate Ease. Stress can interfere with ovulation and lower sperm count, dropping chances of conception.
- Plan sex to support conception. Have sex during fertile times and restrain during infertile to optimize chances of conception
Contemporary Tools To Engage with Ayurvedic Guidelines For Healthy Conception
Many of these suggestions are about resetting the priorities in your life. Make the time, space, allocate energy and build health for your baby. Here are several contemporary ideas to help you incorporate Ayurvedic guidelines on healthy conception into your life.
Classes
There are online articles and courses to help the family prepare. If you think this will help you, here are a couple to check out.
- “Preparing for Pregnancy A Couple’s Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility”
- The Bija Fertility Program
Ovulation Apps
A woman adds menstrual cycle and temperature data into her app on her phone. The tools track the data and use an algorithm to predict future fertility. Women use these applications both for birth control or enhance the chance of conception. The science is far from perfect, but it can help. There are many different brands of ovulation apps available.
Conception Vacations
Several young couples I know planned conception vacations. The idea is to go on vacation and get pregnant. Let go of stress, cultivate ease, do fun things together, and create time to make love. Hotel chains in support of this ideas market special conception extended weekend packages in a truly contemporary western spin.
The purpose of this article is to share and educate on Ayurveda. The information provided on this website is not a substitute for professional medical care, treatment, or advice. All the material here is for information purposes only. Always share strategy and work with your health care team.
