Does your diet affect your fertility?

Can the right foods really improve your chances of having a child? Here’s what we know.

Visit any online fertility chat room, and one of the main topics of discussion will likely be what to eat to maximize your chances of conceiving.

In addition to the multitude of dietary supplements touted as fertility boosters, there are also a variety of foods believed to contribute to a healthy pregnancy.

Amid all the myths and marketing, what is the real evidence for the use of certain foods to improve male and female fertility and support fetal development?

Pollution causing a male fertility crisis

First of all, when it comes to supporting a healthy pregnancy and fetus, certain nutrients can really make a difference, like folic acid. When taken before and during pregnancy, it has been shown to help prevent anencephaly, a birth defect of the baby’s brain, and spina bifida, which affects the baby’s spine.

Because these abnormalities develop very early in pregnancy, often before the woman knows she is pregnant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all women of childbearing age take 400 micrograms (mcg) of folic acid each day.

Fortifying staple foods such as cereals with folic acid may provide even more effective protection, as many pregnancies are unplanned. It is estimated that in 2019, effective fortification programs prevented 22% of potential cases of folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly worldwide.

Folic acid may have an added benefit: When taken as a supplement by women trying to conceive, it may increase the chances of getting pregnant, although more trials are needed to confirm this.

What about other foods and supplements? Is there a “fertility diet” that maximizes your chances of conceiving?

Research suggests diet may affect male fertility

To answer this question, it is necessary to analyze the main reasons for infertility.

In the United States, after a year of unprotected sex, 15% of couples fail to conceive. The potential causes are multiple.

On the female side, the ovaries may be unable to produce healthy eggs, or the egg may not be able to move from the ovaries to the uterus – for example, due to blocked fallopian tubes. Even if the egg makes this journey successfully, it may not attach to the wall of the uterus or survive once it has attached.

On the male side, sperm quality is crucial for fertility. This includes their ability to move efficiently (motility), their shape and size (morphology), and their number in a given amount of sperm (sperm count).

A range of factors can threaten sperm quality, including environmental issues such as pollution. Even after testing, the cause of infertility is not always clear: around 15% of infertility cases remain unexplained.

While no food or supplement can be a silver bullet for these potential problems, experts say diet can play a beneficial role throughout the process of trying to conceive and beyond.

Obviously, being well nourished is essential. The consequences of malnutrition can be devastating for prenatal health.

Perhaps the best-known results in this area come from a study of babies conceived during the so-called “Dutch Hunger Winter” of 1944, an eight-month famine that occurred when the Nazis cut off food supplies to the Netherlands at the end of World War II.

Expectant mothers were surviving on just 400 calories a day, a fraction of the intake needed for a healthy pregnancy. Babies conceived at this time suffered a range of adverse health consequences: they were smaller and thinner than those born before or after them, and their heads were smaller. As adults, they had higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and schizophrenia, and tended to die younger.

For those who have access to sufficient nutrition, it is still important to get the right mix of nutrients. While discussions about beneficial foods often focus on female fertility, there is a growing awareness of how diet can also affect male fertility.

A 2015 study of couples undergoing IVF found that men’s meat consumption, and particularly the type of meat they ate, affected outcomes, as measured by fertilization rates.

Eating more poultry had a positive impact on fertilization rates, while eating processed meat (like bacon and sausages) had a negative impact.

Men who ate the least processed meat, less than 1.5 servings per week on average, had an 82% chance of their partner getting pregnant, while men who ate the most processed meat, 4.3 servings per week on average, had only a 54% chance.