The baby-making diet
Eat well, cut stress… and try a ‘fish and chip’ bath. Natural fertility expert Emma Cannon shares her secrets of preparing for pregnancy
Fertility expert Emma Cannon’s secrets on preparing for a baby
So you’re ready to get pregnant. You bin the Pill or condoms, have sex and that’s it, right? Possibly not. Aged 30, you have a one in five chance of conceiving each month. Aged 40, it’s down to one in 20. One in seven couples have difficulty conceiving.
That’s where Emma Cannon comes in. She helps women create a fertile environment in their body, to prepare for conception. Qualified in Traditional Chinese medicine, she’s specialised in fertility acupuncture for more than 20 years,
and patients often come to her via IVF clinics as well as word of mouth.
Cannon seems an unlikely health guru, dressed in black wool Marni trackpants and slippers (her Chelsea clinic is a shoe-free zone). The walls are painted French grey, and it’s homely, furnished with an eclectic mix of Moroccan rugs, pretty lace curtains, Indian pink upholstery and flower paintings by one of her former patients. Long before the current wellness trend, when I first went to see her 11 years ago, Cannon was treating patients with acupuncture, serving green tea in delicate saucerlike cups – lukewarm, which keeps it from being bitter – and advising me to boil up bones for nutrient-rich broth. Her approach to fertility seemed the opposite of medicine and IVF; all about looking after and nourishing yourself.
AS WELL AS PRACTISING ACUPUNCTURE, CANNON TRAINED WITH DOCTORS AT THE VIVA MAYR CLINIC IN AUSTRIA.
That clinic’s focus on digestion as the root of good health chimes with her training, she says. “I can tell everything I need to know from your menstrual cycle and your digestion, as well as how you present yourself emotionally, and the overall climate of your life,” she tells me.
It was an annus horribilis 12 years ago that inspired her treatment philosophy today. That year, she had a miscarriage at 20 weeks, crashed two cars and was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to her lymph glands. “I used to treat women all day, then race across London to pick up my two daughters from school, felt I had to cook them perfect, organic meals. You can live a very healthy life but in a really dysfunctional way.”
The fact Cannon had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy for her cancer reflects her working practice – working alongside medicine as opposed to instead of it. What came out of her recovery was the importance of flexibility rather than control. “What’s good about control? All the best stuff, like love, happens when you let go of it,” she smiles.
Often the women she sees are the opposite. “I see women who are underweight, have no periods at all. On the surface, they may have a healthy lifestyle, but underneath there is an ultra vigilance.” One client had seen so many nutritionists, she was left with very few ‘allowed’ foods. “Sometimes I just say, forget the diet, it’s so joyless,” says Cannon. “In my clinic, I used to leave my first book
The Baby-making Bible next to the Flat Belly Diet. I can’t tell you how many women picked up the diet book.”
Her new book, Fertile, is full of recipes for delicious, nutritious food, requested by clients. “I wrote it because a lot of things people cut out for ‘wellness’ are good for fertility,” says Cannon. Full-fat dairy, for one, good fats in general, like seeds, even meat.
Cannon makes a distinction between infertility – women with no eggs, blocked tubes, men with no sperm – and subfertility, which is everyone else, and for which lifestyle changes may be helpful. If you’re younger, she says, you’re likely resilient to the negative impact of alcohol, lack of sleep, not great food, can get away with it and get pregnant. Though fertility isn’t totally age dependent, she adds. “Some women are as fertile at 40 as others are at 20.”
IN HER TED TALK, CANNON TALKS ABOUT A MENTAL STATE OF ABUNDANCE AS A FERTILE STATE OF MIND.
I ask her how attitude can make a difference to fertility. “On some level, we conceive when we feel safe,” she says. “If you’re pumping out loads of adrenaline, the body thinks it’s in danger. There is research that shows the likelihood of conception is reduced when stress levels are high.” Women are often panicking by the time they see Cannon, trying to get pregnant by living perfectly. “The conversation about fertility is always about fear and lack – ‘she left it too late’, for example. The fertile window becomes a monthly obsession and the monthly bleed a heart-wrenching disappointment.” Cannon wants to change this, for women to thrive during trying to get pregnant and to get pregnant, by finding balance, learning to relax, being flexible, thinking in terms of abundance, not lack. “If you want to nourish another person, first you must nourish yourself. Understand what your body needs and what makes you happy. And be kind to yourself.”
Fertile: Nourish And Balance Your Body For Baby Making by Emma Cannon (Ebury, £20)
“If you want to NOURISH another person, first you must nourish YOURSELF”