The first time I hear someone say that bitters can boost fertility and cure infertility, I thought it was unscientific. I dismissed the folk-remedy philosophy that bitters can make a woman conceive. Not until I started researching the causes of unexplained infertility. Bitters work so well because they boost fertility and combat infertility through different mechanisms. This range from boosting your overall health and toning reproductive organs specifically. Yes, bitters balance the hormones, tones the ovary and makes the ovary release healthy eggs.
The problem with many infertile patients is that they do not associate infertility with ‘fertile nutrition.’ Good nutrition is the foundation a healthy body. Remember a healthy ovary is to be found in a healthy body. When the ovary is healthy, it produces healthy egg (ovum) and healthy egg produces healthy pregnancy leading to the birth of a healthy baby.
How does bitters boost fertility? Well, bitters tone and tune-up the five pillars of health: mind and mood, ingestion, digestion, circulation, immune system.
Bitters stimulate the bitter receptors at the back of the tongue to shut down the craving for refined sugar. This in turn stimulates the vagus nerve (the 10th cranial nerve) responsible for release of digestive enzymes. Any time your digestion improves, your overall health improves. Note also that sugar is the cause of 250 diseases including causing auto immunity and free radical damage which can retard the reproductive organs including the ovary.
Bitters also helps the detoxification work of the liver and the kidneys. Estrogen is eliminated in the liver which is also responsible for balancing all reproductive hormones. The liver pushes to the kidneys the wastes that are water soluble to be eliminated through the urine. The force of the kidneys rules the reproductive organs according to Chinese medicine. Detoxification also help the body to remove pollution of the antibodies that fight disease and initiate tissue repair and degeneration. This can boost the fertility of the ovaries and eliminate ovarian cysts and premature ovarian failure. Bitters have been known to correct irregular menstruation which is a sign of anovulation and hormonal imbalance.
Once infertility is diagnosed, stress tend to kick in. The body is not designed to handle excessive stress. Mental stress releases stress hormones which cause oxidation, immune depletion, inflammation and fibrosis. Bitters are adaptogens that helps the body cope with stress. Adaptogens tend to tone the the internal organs and bring them back to normal physiological function.
Bitters also eliminate estrogen dominance by eliminating excess estradiol (the bad estrogen) while boosting the level of progesterone and testesterone secretion. Without hormonal balance, the ovary, the immune system and ovulation is thrown off balance, too. In fact hormonal imbalance causes majority of the women fibrosis diseases that has been blamed for unexplained infertility. These include uterine fibroids, anovulation, polycystic ovary disease, endometriosis, endometrial hyperplasia, adenomyosis, irregular periods, and luteal phase defect. Bitters helps eliminate growths or tumors including falopian tube blockade due to adhesions.
Specifically not only does bitters help mature eggs, they also help ovulation and propelling the released eggs to the falopian tube to be fertilized by the advancing spermatozoa. Note that once pregnancy test is positive, bitters are no longer needed.
The bitters that are effective (used in combination of other herbs) are gentian (called bitter root), bitter leaf (common in African-folk medicine), golden seal, dandelion greens and watercress. The Chinese bitters are a form of gentian or bitter root found in Europe.
You take bitters consistently for one month to regularize the menstrual periods and stop if period starts again. Then take for the second month and stop if pregnancy occurs. By then it is no longer necessary. If there is no pregnancy, take after your period is over for six days and stop just before ovulation starts. Continue the cycle if there is no pregnancy. It takes an average of two months to get pregnant with bitters.
