The baby monitors

Tim places special emphasis on helping a woman to prepare her body to conceive, as well as to carry a baby and be ready for the onslaught of motherhood. ‘Many women think they have one, isolated issue, but you tend to find that so many problems will be linked, and you have to look at their system as a whole,’ he explains. ‘In essence, I try to help a woman to find balance.’ To do this, Tim has created what he calls the #TW5 formula: ‘It’s like a checklist. If you look at all five elements, then you will line all your ducks up in a row and give yourself the perfect platform from which to make a baby.’

Tim’s #TW5 formula

1. Cardio-respiratory fitness. If you don’t exercise your heart and lungs, nothing else will work properly.

2. Structural strength and conditioning. I try to help women think of their pelvis as a nest, a safe environment glued together with strong muscles to make both the baby and the pregnancy comfortable. You want to create a perfect nest to help conception.

3. Food and drink. Food is fuel. Your diet is important, as is hydration. Remember that you are preparing your body for a baby, not for a red carpet: high protein and fasting are out; whole milk and plenty of water are in.

4. Rest, recovery and sleep. This is the most important and the easiest to miss. The knock-on effects of bad sleep and the failure to listen to your body are huge. Learn to tell whether you are just being lazy, or if you really are tired and need to rest.

5. State of mind. If you don’t believe you can have a baby, you won’t ever have one. Equally, stress can be hugely detrimental. The great thing is, if you attack points one to four, you tend to find this rights itself. (timweeks.co.uk)

Hannah Richards

Hannah Richards is a functional diagnostic nutritionist (she uses nutritional analysis to assess and promote the health of her patients, as well as to prevent illness) who specialises in gut dysfunction and hormonal imbalance. In particular, she is able to guide women who have been having difficulties conceiving, or who have suffered miscarriages, to change their diet to maximise their chances of pregnancy.

‘Again and again women come in with fertility issues, or having lost their baby, and when their diet is changed they go on to have a successful pregnancy,’ she says from her office in the Move Three Sixty health and fitness studio in North London. ‘Most people are on a sugar high most of the time, because most people eat a lot of carbohydrates. If your diet is largely based on foods that break down to sugars, and you are not eating the right fats and proteins, you mess up your steroidal hormonal pathways. If you consume too many simple carbohydrates, you also crank up your levels of insulin, leading to raised testosterone, and hence to an imbalance in your levels of oestrogen and progesterone. If the ratio between these hormones is not optimal, you may have a miscarriage or may not get pregnant.’

Hannah begins all consultations with an extremely detailed nutritional analysis, supported by saliva and urine tests. ‘If there is more sugar in someone’s diet than there is protein or fat, it is a red flag; equally if people are hungry or thirsty all the time.’ One Russian client, Sofia, came to Hannah having had two miscarriages. ‘We diagnosed high sugar levels, despite what appeared to be a good diet: her husband was making her a pint of fresh juice every morning, then she would graze on raisins and more fruit, and her meals were wraps with vegetables and no proteins.’ Once she addressed her diet, she found she had more energy and also went on to conceive, and bear, a healthy child.

Hannah’s tips

1. Make food and health your priority. Sort out your diet before you become pregnant; you are what your child will become.

2. If it isn’t animal or fish, it is a carbohydrate and will sooner or later convert to sugar. You need to be sure you are balancing carbs with fats and proteins.

3. There’s no such thing as moderation. Cut out sources of sugar that have no benefits: alcohol, table sugar, processed goods, takeaways, cakes, sweets and biscuits. These foods do nothing but harm the body.

4. Eat full-fat, not low-fat. Fat satisfies us, it keeps us warm, it feeds the ligaments and tendons and keeps the body strong. Good sources include full-fat organic milk, avocado, meat, cheese, coconut oil, olive oil.

5. Create a stress-free environment — in the kitchen, in the bedroom, at work, with your relationships. Being in balance allows us to rest and enhances the function of the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes repair and balance for a healthy body. (movethreesixty.com)

Ross J Barr

Ross J Barr has operated as a TCM & Five Element acupuncturist for over ten years, following training in London, Japan and Germany. He has a devoted following at his Wimpole Street and Notting Hill practices, and his speciality is infertility. Around 60 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men he treats come to him with fertility-related issues.

‘We live at such a pace now, especially in London, with so much pressure on women to achieve so much in such a short space of time. I see many women in their late thirties who have exhausted themselves from city life. Women are working harder and longer. They drink more, sleep less, eat on the run or not at all, until they reach a point where they are running on adrenaline and sooner or later menstruation becomes a luxury that their bodies can no longer afford; they literally don’t have the energy or the blood for it, and this usually happens at a point where they have decided they might want a family.’ Ross believes that acupuncture is an ideal remedy for this perfect storm of circumstances. Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese medicine, ‘is great for regulating the menstrual cycle, and so its ability to enhance fertility is huge’.

He works intensively with women while they are trying to conceive. ‘Recently I saw a 41-year-old lady who’d had four failed IVF attempts and had been trying to conceive for ten years. She came to see me on ovulation day so we were able to do a treatment specially aimed to enhance the chances of conception. I had an email from her yesterday to say she was pregnant. She firmly believes that the acupuncture treatment shifted things for her internally and said she’d felt relaxed in a way she’d forgotten she could feel.’

Ross’ tips

1. Modern IVF is incredible for so many reasons but I’m always surprised when I find out a patient isn’t eating three meals a day, or nearly enough to get them through their working day, let alone enough to build the energy needed for conception. Lots of the working women I see are anaemic, and as a result their periods can become lighter and less frequent. Sometimes raising your iron levels can do a huge amount for your cycle. Floradix is a great blood tonic that gives your body all the building blocks for good, healthy blood production.

2. Book some acupuncture sessions. It is not only great at reducing the stress of trying to conceive, but in regulating the hormones it can improve the quality of the embryo and endometrium and help reduce the chance of miscarriage. In addition it’s very effective at reducing the unwanted effects of IVF drug treatment, such as headaches, depression and weight gain.

3. Remove yourself from your normal environment. Sometimes a trip away, even for a weekend, during ovulation removes us from the normal stress-inducing routine. It’s no coincidence that people often conceive when they’re on holiday. For some people that can be enough to make a difference.

4. Stop beating yourself up emotionally. Trying to conceive can become all-encompassing, with your whole life fixated on doing the right things. Having a glass of wine occasionally can give a small respite from the pressure. If you do stray from the path, try to enjoy it wholeheartedly. Feelings of guilt and shame can be far more detrimental to stress levels than a slice of cake. If you do the right things 80 per cent of the time, your system should be robust enough to deal with the odd indulgence.

5. Do less. Often patients fill their lives with so much activity that they exhaust themselves, and there isn’t much left over for anything else (like the act of conception). Being healthy and well-balanced isn’t just about being physically fit. Rushing from work to get to the gym five times a week is only going to deplete you further. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your health is to just stop, sit down and breathe for ten minutes. Conserve some of your energy. In order to feed a pregnancy your body needs more reserves of energy, not less. (rossbarr.com)