The Negative Impact Your Daily Coffee Might be Having on Your Fertility
At our last Talking Motherhood event, we met some of the most incredible #workingmoms in New York City. Among them was one of our panelists, Alisa Vitti - who, on top of being a women's hormonal expert, is also a mother! She wowed our guests with her expertise on our bodies and the various unexpected habits that may be messing with our wellness. She's all about making it easier to understand what our bodies need so that we can make better choices for ourselves, so today she touches on a daily habit for many city working mothers - coffee.
Image via Hello Giggles
In previous posts I’ve explained the real dangers of coffee (and all caffeinated drinks) for women and told you exactly how to detox from your coffee habit. There’s no way around it – coffee is toxic for women. All those studies that hit the headlines about the positive benefits of coffee, seem to pale in comparison to the latest findings. When it comes to one important issue, both men and women need to listen up – and that’s how coffee impacts fertility.
If you’re trying to conceive, and especially if you’re dealing with the kind of issues that impair your fertility like irregular periods or PCOS, then you need to put down that Starbucks cup. Whether you want to get pregnant this month or next year, this is too important to ignore. If healthy regular ovulation, hormone balance, perfect periods, and having a baby one day are essential to you, then research says you need to ditch the coffee.
Look, I know how hard that sounds. I used to love my coffee. But I realized it was not worth it and that, in the end, I didn’t need it like I had been told. I stepped out of the coffee culture and felt so much better for it – better sleep, better periods, less PMS. It was vital, because as a PCOS sufferer I knew that any external hormone-hampering was only going to cause me health issues, both short and long term.
For some women, coffee is the only endocrine disruptor they haven’t yet expelled from their lives – the chemical-laden shampoos are gone, the cleaning products are all-natural, they say no to plastics – but coffee is hard to give up, it’s become as all-American a ritual as baseball and Thanksgiving.
How coffee increases infertility
- 3 cups of coffee a day consumed by women or men increases the risk of miscarriage dramatically – by 74%
- Caffeine is associated with sub-optimal or suppressed fertility and, therefore, difficulties conceiving
- Drinking caffeinated beverages during early pregnancy (before you may know that you’re pregnant) increases the risk of early pregnancy loss
- Caffeine is considered an impairment to fertility alongside alcohol and smoking
- Men who drink 2 of more cups of coffee a day had a lower chance of conception via IVF
- Coffee disrupts ovulation by increasing cortisol levels and stressing the adrenals
- Coffee depletes vital vitamins and minerals needed for ovulation and healthy fertility (including absolutely necessary B vitamins and folate) and coffee’s acidity causes gut health problems
Rather than waiting until you want to conceive, you might as well detox from coffee starting today. You’ll see a rapid improvement in your whole cycle experience – including less PMS symptoms, less cramping, easier periods, more regular cycles, and better moods, all as a positive consequence of leaving your hormones and ovulation undisrupted and unharmed by caffeine.
Always remember, that once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that finally start to work for you! You can do this – the science of your body is on your side!
to your FLO,
Alisa
Alisa Vitti, HHC, is an integrative nutritionist, best-selling author of WomanCode, creator of the WomanCode System, and the founder of FLOLiving.com, a virtual health center that supports women’s hormonal and reproductive health. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Alisa has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, has a web series on Lifetime, and has been a regular contributor for CBS, Fox, Shape, Women’s Health, MindBodyGreen, and the Huffington Post. She is also "The Hormone Whisperer" for Yahoo Health and serves on their advisory board. She has presented at TEDx, Talks@Google, Summit Series Outside, Hay House, WIE Symposium, and SHE Summit.