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Conception

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Original poster

food and drink advice on IVF

30 replies

Moomin · 08/01/2005 16:09

Dh and I are due to start iui (and then ivf next month or the month after if iui doesn't work). I know quite a bit about nutritional advice when ttc naturally (having done so for two years now!) but i wondered if there are any major no-nos or solid advice before embarking on ivf? ta x

OP posts:
DelGirl · 09/01/2005 09:27

moomin, good luck with the treatment. I've had 5 lots of iui and am now 25 weeks pg and all going well. It's difficult but try not to get too hung up over the food you eat etc although I agree, it's best to cut down or cut out alcohol. wrt the baby aspirin, I hope Ladymuck won't mind me saying but this is something you should really discuss with the consultant's and or gp as everyone is different. I think it has the effect of thinning the blood so the embryo can burrow into the uterus easier but if you already have thin blood it can cause problems with bleeding so i'm told. Not trying to alarm you or disagree with ladymuck, just that it's worth checking before you decide to take it. Best of luck. If you need any more info, just shout. Do you know what drugs you're going on yet btw?

Original poster
Moomin · 09/01/2005 09:21

that's great, thanks for that info and advice. I was on an ivf board last night but it was mostly a US/canadian one and i got a bit frightened in the end about all the nutrition advice - it seemed really daunting. one of the things that really stressed us out when ttc was all the restrictions we put on ourselves and how tense that made us feel. we actually have a very healthy diet (me more so than dh who pigs out on cakes & biccies at work) and we don't really drink too much but we've discussed it and decided to lay off completely while this is going on. tbh, i think dh is shit-scared if we fail, i will blame him unless he's led a saintly existence!! two things that struck me on this website was that everyone seemed to be drinking/taking wheatgrass, much for the same reasons you give about baby aspirin. they also said that soya products are a big no-no, as is certain fish/shellfish. I'm a semi-veggie, in that i eat fish but no meat and i eat some soya products, although i've switched to quorn mostly. is this 'evil' as well?

Part of me thinks that i'll get much more stessed out if i start worrying about everything that passes my lips, rather than if i just cut our caffiene and alcohol, which i think i can do, and generally look after myself, with the odd treat.

Good advice about the 'course of treatment' as well, thanks so much x

OP posts:
ladymuck · 09/01/2005 09:09

Getting dhs to be as serious about it is difficult. DH has a lousy diet so I did want him to take a multivitamin during the run-up to IVF - you would hve thought that I was asking him to have the daily injections.

Baby Aspirin (ie 75mg aspirin) is available over the counter. It was one tablet a day from the start of down-regging through to the end of the first trimester. I think it is meant to improve blood circulation, which helps the drugs to do their thing and gives you a nice thick womb lining etc.

I have had 4 attempts at IVF with attempts 3 and 4 resulting in ds1 and ds2 respectively.

My other tip would be to look at it as a course of treatment - My hospital, the Lister always recommended that women mentally prepared themselves for say 4 or 5 attempts (and according to their stats, around 80+% would have a baby). It also takes a bit of pressure off any one cycle. On our 4th cycle I had a negative pregnancy test, and tbh I wasn't that disappointed, I just thought, well we'll fit in another cycle before Christmas. As it was the hospital had asked me to test too early....

Original poster
Moomin · 08/01/2005 20:46

thanks ladymuck, that's very interesting. I've long had a bit of a thing about dh and his alcohol consumption. Not that he drinks a lot, mind, but when he does go out with his mates(maybe once or twice a month)he does tend to drink a fair bit. I think this is worse than drinking say a glass of wine, every night or two, as it constitutes binge drinking, doesn't it? but he makes me feel guilty when he's about to go out (when this was an issue at times when we've been very consciously ttc) by asking what i want him to do that night in terms of drinking or not - like i'm some kind of all-powerful deity. all i want is for him to use his common sense and take it easy!!!!!!!!! sorry, didn't want this to become a rant. i guess i'm getting a bit nervous about it, which i didn't want to do, as we got ourselves in a state after months and months of not conceiving and i felt very uptight.

anyway, the baby asprin thing was interesting too. How much and when, etc? if you don't mind me asking, ladymuck, how many rounds of ivf did you do and which were successful? hope you don't mind me picking your brains.

OP posts:
ladymuck · 08/01/2005 16:32

Can't think of anything unusual. Are you on baby aspirin too? I know it was suddenly a big thing a couple of years back (and have to confess that the cycles where I took it I did conceive).

There was also some theory flying around which seemed to indicate that the embryo "sensed" whether the mother was nutritionally up to coping with a pg, and didn't implant if not... But everything I was told was to carry on life as normal (but keeping alcohol low and cutting out smoking if possible).

As an aside, during my last IVF I shared a room with a couple who were very worried about Dh's sperm count. They had had a cycle the previous June, where, on the day, Dh's sperm count was abnormally low (he'd previously also been normal). This had thrown them as they ended up with ICSI and didn't conceive. This time round the sperm count was much better. It appeared that that dip had been caused by alcohol imbibed during the World Cup!!! Must admit, given what the woman has to go through in terms of drugs etc, I would have been furious to have been let down like that!

Good luck btw!