Bone Broth for Fertility, IVF and Pregnancy Health

If you’re looking to boost your fertility, maximize your chances of IVF success, ensure a smooth pregnancy and give bub the best start to life, high-quality bone broth is an ideal natural health supplement packed with fertility-boosting nutrients.

All-natural bone broth is full of the key building blocks of fertility, including good fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals that are available to the body in an easily digestible form. This helps balance your hormones, heal infertility issues and boost general fertility.

Although this article is particularly focused on fertility for women, the fertility boosting benefits of bone broth can aid men equally well.

Drinking natural bone broth to enhance fertility is nothing new. In fact, it has been used in traditional cultures for centuries. Just as chicken soup is highly recommended when you’re feeling ill; there is good evidence to support the health-giving benefits of bone broth as a daily health supplement.

So, what is it about bone broth that makes it so healthy? In essence, we must be able to properly digest the food we eat for optimal health. Bone broth helps keep our gut microbiome healthy, assists the immune system in fighting pathogens, fights unhealthy levels of inflammation and boosts our response to stressors. These are critical functions for general good health, but particularly for fertility health.

 Healthy gut, healthy hormones

One of the keys to bone broth’s effectiveness in supporting fertility is its proven power for healing digestive disorders, which in turn supports hormone health.

Every day we’re learning more and more about the hugely important role that gut health plays in our general wellbeing. Good gut health is also essential for good hormonal health.

We’ve covered the benefits of bone broth for gut health and healing in detail in this article: Bone Broth for Good Gut Health. Many of the general benefits of bone broth covered in the article apply particularly strongly to women who are looking to maintain their fertility, undergoing an IVF program, or during pregnancy when their bodies are most in need of essential nutrients.

It stands to reason that, if your gut is not functioning optimally, you are not digesting and absorbing the nutrients you require. Particularly if you suffer from a gut ailment such as leaky gut syndrome or irritable bowel syndrome, for example, your body is unable to absorb the essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients needed to produce hormones.  

Bone broth has proven to be a great dietary supplement for helping those suffering from these types of gut ailments and other gut problems, such as bloating and constipation. Again, our article, Bone Broth for Good Gut Health, explains in detail.

Natural bone broth can also help protect against the effects of food sensitivities and allergies that can increase the inflammatory response in the body. This can increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol that can throw your whole hormone system out of whack.

 Healthy hormone production, balancing and detoxification

The healthy hormone benefits of bone both don’t stop there. Bone broth is also a great source of the amino acids proline and glycine.

The role of amino acids is a big subject, but suffice it to say that they play a profound role in our health in many ways – promoting a healthy immune system, general gut and digestive health, liver function and detoxification, sperm production in men, as well as the very important role of ensuring hormonal health in women.

As you can image, it’s essential to consume adequate amounts of amino acids. In women, not only are they essential for hormone production and the hormone detoxification process, but they also prevent hormone imbalance issues such as estrogen dominance. This, in turn, can lead to fertility blocking problems like PCOS and endometriosis.

The good selection of easily absorbed amino acids in bone broth helps your body create the optimal ecosystem for fertility. 

Bone broth is also one of the best sources of calcium and collagen. Like amino acids, calcium is essential for hormone balancing and liver detoxifying.

Collagen (which is broken down into gelatin in both broth brewing process) is a nutrient that repairs our cells and tissues. For this reason, bone broth is fantastic for keeping us strong and youthful, both internally and externally.

Healthy pregnancy, healthy bub

Bone broth provides important nutrients that assist in a smooth healthy pregnancy, and a healthy, happy bub. By making a good-quality bone broth a regular part of a healthy diet can assist you and bub in a variety of ways.

 A morning sickness soother

Bone broth is a nutrient-packed way of calming the stomach and nourishing your body when you can’t keep much down because of morning sickness and nausea. Meat is the most common food aversion women experience during pregnancy (26% of women experience it), so bone broth is an excellent way to provide your body with those essential nutrients that are particularly high in meat, but in a much more stomach-friendly way.

Many expectant mums have found a mug of warm bone broth has a wonderfully soothing effect first thing in the morning. The added nutrients help maintain your energy levels and internal balance throughout the day. Bone broth is also a great way of sneaking in those meaty nutrients into recipes without a meaty overwhelm.

Essential nutrients for growing babies

Bone broth is packed with the essential nutrients that are the building blocks of little bodies, such as magnesium, calcium, phosphorus and collagen among them.

Research has shown that getting plenty of magnesium during pregnancy can help prevent early contractions of the uterus. Magnesium also relaxes the muscles and helps you sleep at night.

Most of us know of the important role calcium plays in our diet, and it’s another important nutrient that’s high in good-quality bone broths. Along with magnesium, it helps build strong teeth and bones, as well as maintaining a whole bunch of essential body functions, such as normal blood clotting, muscle and nervous system function, normal hormone production and much more.

The phosphorous found in bone broth assists with many of the functions calcium does, but it also plays an essential role in making protein available for building and repairing cells.  

The important anti-inflammatory compounds called cysteine and glycine that are found in bone broth help keep your body in a low-inflammatory state that is essential for creating the right environment for an embryo to grow in a natural, healthy way. Because of the increased blood volume required during pregnancy, you need two to 10 times the normal amount of glycine.

The bone marrow constituent of natural bone broth also plays an important blood-building role throughout pregnancy.

Bone broth is also high in Glycosaminoglycans, the best known of which is glucosamine and chondroitin. This family of carbohydrates found in bones and connective tissue can help promote good bone and ligament health for both you and your baby.

Post-pregnancy healing and stretch mark prevention

It’s the very high collagen component of bone broth that makes it such a valuable healing food for the body during and after pregnancy. After all, collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies. Think of it as the glue that holds our bodies together. And, as you would expect, it’s during pregnancy that women really need that extra collagen boost.

Collagen is also a crucial nutrient that keeps our skin supple and elastic. This is why many new mums have praised bone broth and its high collagen component for preventing and reducing stretch marks and speeding up post-partum healing. 

With its incredible nutrient density and its capacity to be easily absorbed by the body, naturally brewed bone broth is an ideal health supplement both on the road to conception and throughout pregnancy, as well as setting bub up with the building blocks for a healthy and happy life.

From our perspective it’s simple: when good things go into a broth, good things go into you and your bub. Simple.