Tag Archives: pre-conception purification

Ayurveda: Bringing Healthy Babies into a Modern World

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Today I’m going to look at two crucial ways that Ayurveda can help to bring healthy children into the world. One involves improving fertility; the other involves promoting the healthy brain health of fetuses and babies.

Falling sperm count is a serious modern problem. Back in the 1990s, Danish researchers reported “a genuine decline in semen quality over the past 50 years”, with possible implications for male fertility.

Numerous studies have linked this phenomenon to BPA, a chemical found in many plastics used to make food containers, bottles and coatings in tin cans. It is also commonly used in thermal paper in cash register receipts. Researchers claim BPA can disrupt hormones, raising the risk of a wide number of health problems such as diabetes, obesity and cancer — and disrupted sperm production. A recent Washington State University study indicated that the chemical “disrupts the delicate DNA interactions needed to create sperm.” BPA also has the potential to harm infants and the fetus. The chemical has already been banned in baby bottles in Europe because of safety fears.

The second and equally disturbing concern is the high “body burden” of toxins carried by women of childbearing age: toxins that can harm the brain development of fetuses and babies.

While the commitment to organic food and natural materials is steadily increasing around the world, we are still faced with the legacy of industrialization: a level of toxic exposure that has serious implications for future generations. Studies have focused on the three pollutants (lead, mercury and PCBs) because they are especially pervasive and persistent in the environment. Scientists identified specific risk factors to fetal and infant brain development for children of women with higher blood levels of these chemicals.

And studies show that as women grow older, the blood levels of chemical toxins increase exponentially. Women aged 30 – 39 had a 12 times greater risk and women aged 40 to 49 had a risk 30 times great than women aged 16 – 19.

The reason that risk increases with age is because the toxins accumulate in body over time. PCBs and BPA are fat-soluble chemicals. They bind to the fatty lipid layer that surrounds every cell in the body. This is where the ancient detoxification treatments of Ayurveda provide unique benefits.

In a study published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine in its September/October 2002 issue have shown that Maharishi Ayurveda Panchakarma therapy offered at The Raj, Ayurveda Health Spa greatly reduces the levels of 14 important ˜lipophilic’ (i.e. fat-soluble) toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in the body, which would otherwise remain in the body for a very long time. Studies founded by the National Institute of Health and conducted by Maharishi University have shown that person’s receiving Panchakarma treatments had a 70% reduction of heavy metals, pesticides and other hazardous chemicals than the general population.

These are the only treatments that have been proven to reduce the levels of fat-soluble toxins in the body.

For both women and men considering parenthood, a serious commitment to reducing the levels of toxins would be considered at least three months before trying to conceive a child.

The Raj offers a pre-conception and infirtility program that includes individualized treatments, diet, life-style recommendations and herbal preparations. For more information, visit The Raj Ayurveda Health Spa website:

www.theraj.com

How the Health of Your Child May Be More in Your Control Than You Think

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This week a news headline caught my eye: “Mother’s Diet Affects Silencing of Her Child’s Genes”. The research, conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, took place in Gambia and showed a clear link between a mother’s diet before she becomes pregnant and the life-long health of her child.

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I’m always excited when I see modern research that underscores knowledge promoted by Ayurveda. For over 20 years The Raj, Ayurveda Health Spa and Treatment Center has been offering a Pre-Conception Program. This program is recommended to begin eight-weeks before parents try to conceive a child. The program begins with Panchakarma, the traditional Ayurveda detoxification and purification treatments, to remove harmful toxins and promote balance in the physiology of the parents. The parents then follow a specific diet, lifestyle changes and herbal supplements recommended by an Ayurveda expert. By the time the child is conceived, an ideal environment has been created from which to create the child and in which to nurture its development.

To me the idea always seemed driven by common sense as much the data on levels of environmental toxins found in wombs and research on specific vitamins and nutrients that support fertility and child development. (See the blog post “Optimizing Fertility with Ayurveda“). But this new research took things to the level of “epigenetics”.

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. Without altering the underlying DNA sequence, genes can actually be turned off. These epigenetic changes may last through cell divisions for the duration of the cell’s life, and may also last for multiple generations. The press release from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explained, “While a child’s genes are inherited directly from their parents, how these genes are expressed is controlled through ‘epigenetic’ modifications to the DNA. One such modification involves tagging gene regions with chemical compounds called methyl groups, which results in silencing the genes. The addition of these compounds requires key nutrients including foliate, vitamins B2, B6 and B12, choline and methionine.”

This means that what we eat and how we live our lives can turn off or turn on the genes we are born with. And it can also turn off the genes that we pass on to our children.

One interesting outcome of the study was that what the mother ate before pregnancy was more important than what was eaten while carrying the child. Researcher Andrew Prentice, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “The key message is that a mother’s nutrition before she becomes pregnant is super-critical…There is a lot going on before the moment of conception.”

He also noted that pre-pregnancy diet has been linked to the chemistry of genes involved in obesity, cancer and the immune system and that these early days could shape a child’s chances of everything from developing diabetes in their 40s and 50s to having a heart attack in old age.

This study only focused on the diet of the mother, prior to conception. Ayurveda recommends that both the mother and the father attend to their diet and to the balance of their physiology before trying to conceive a child. Since 50% of the child’s DNA comes from the father, it seems obvious that that too plays an important role in determining the future health of a child.

For more information on the Pre-Conception Program at The Raj Ayurveda Health Spa go to:

http://www.theraj.com

 

 

( Picture of Family. Source: Google Advance Image Search.
Creative Commons. The image is used under the terms of Googles Creative Commons rules:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en. This photograph and credit do not constitute an endorsement of this blog or products mentioned.)

Optimizing Fertility with Ayurveda

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carry-on-stress-free-1It is not uncommon for parents of toddlers to stress over getting their children into top pre-schools so that they will have the best possible start in life. But according to Ayurveda, getting the best start for your child should begin months before the child is even conceived. While it has become more common for mothers-to-be to be alert to their diets and life-style before conceiving, modern science is just now catching up with the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda in encouraging both parents to take early steps in preparation for making a baby.

The big news in 2013 was that what men eat — and specifically if they are eating their vegetables —seriously affects the mobility and health of their sperm and the health of their future children.

In a recent Boston study, male participants who ate the most carrots had the best sperm mobility. High levels of beta-carotene, the pigment that gives carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkins their bright color, was linked to better swimming ability of sperm.

The same study found that lycopene, a bright red phytochemical found in tomatoes, red bell peppers, watermelon and papayas (but not strawberries and cherries) was linked to more properly shaped sperm. Both mobility and proper shape can affect fertility.

At the same time, a Canadian study on mice revealed that baby mice with fathers deficient in folic acid (a form of vitamin B) were 30 percent more likely to have birth defects.  The lead researcher, Dr Kimmins, of McGill University in Montreal, concluded, ‘Lots of attention has been paid to a mother’s health (during) pre-conception yet the health of the father has been pretty much ignored…. the focus has been on women because they are the incubators of the pregnancy…. But both men and women need to think about what they are doing pre-conception… Men need to eat their greens.”

Where can we find folic acid? Beans, peas and lentils, dark leafy greens, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, celery, carrots, squash, okra, brussels sprouts, citrus fruits, avocado, seeds and nuts all are high in this important compound.

The classic texts of Ayurveda offer a great depth of knowledge on how to properly prepare the body before pregnancy. This knowledge forms the basis of the Pre-Conception Program offered at The Raj, Ayurveda Health Spa and Treatment Center in Fairfield, IA.

The program begins at least eight weeks before a couple plans to conceive and starts with a week of detoxification treatments to purify and strengthen their physiologies.  These detox treatments are recommended for two reasons:

1. Accumulated impurities in parents can act as obstacles to proper nourishment. Once these toxins are removed, parents-to-be are more able to respond to dietary changes, resulting in more balanced physiologies.

2. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group (EWG), most infants come into this world “pre-polluted,” with over 200 toxic industrial chemicals circulating in their bodies.  These findings were consistent no matter where parents lived. We are exposed to chemicals by means of our air, water, soil, and food and household products. And research has shown that the earlier in life toxic exposure occurs, the more powerfully these chemicals affect a child’s development going forward.

While pre-pregnancy detox programs are becoming more and more popular, research shows that only the traditional Ayurvedic purification treatments are able to remove fat-soluble chemicals such as DDT, PCBs and dioxins. These are all hormone-mimicking chemicals known to interfere with fertility.

According to Ayurveda, it takes six weeks for the entire process of digestion and formation of the bodily tissues to take place. Thus for six weeks following the detox treatments, husband and wife follow an individually prescribed organic diet that targets specific imbalances which could be passed on to their children. The diet also provides optimum nourishment to create healthy ovum and sperm.

A healthy child is the result of healthy parents. By strengthening the basic material that makes a child, parents can increase the chance of bringing strong and healthy children into the world.

For more information on optimizing fertility visit The Raj:

http://theraj.com/infertility/index.php

 

( Picture of pregnant woman. Source: Google Advance Image Search.
Creative Commons. The image is used under the terms of Googles Creative Commons rules:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en. This photograph and credit do not constitute an endorsement of this blog or products mentioned.)