Is there a connection between heartburn, reflux, and infertility/miscarriage? Well, let’s break this down and connect the dots. First let’s talk about heartburn, reflux, and associated symptoms.
Heartburn is that rising chest pain that gives a burning sensation, often when lying down. It can be accompanied by reflux, which is when acid from the stomach gets pushed up the esophagus. Sometimes it also causes a cough or nausea.
Since the primary symptom is a burning sensation, the conventional treatment has mostly been to neutralize the acid or to stop your stomach from making more acid. Nothing could be further from what you need, and the real (and very simple) remedy could be the one thing that helps you get (and stay) pregnant!
The real cause of heartburn and reflux is LOW stomach acid — not high. When food enters your stomach, you should have enough hydrochloric acid to make the stomach contents at a pH of 1.5 to 3. This extremely low pH (and extremely HIGH acidity) is required to make the pyloric sphincter (the valve at the bottom of your stomach) open to let the food down to the small intestine. In the small intestine, food is further digested so that nutrients can get absorbed into your bloodstream through the small intestinal lining.
If the stomach content is not acidic enough, the pyloric sphincter won’t open, so food gets backed up in the stomach and starts to push upward into the esophagus. This is what causes the symptoms of heartburn. Eventually, when another meal comes in, the pyloric sphincter has to open, but the food that goes into the small intestine is not acidic enough to trigger the next events required for complete digestion and later, absorption of nutrients.
The connection to fertility is that your food doesn’t get digested and nutrients don’t get absorbed properly. This lack of digestion means your gut bacteria will struggle in their role to produce and excrete hormones and neurotransmitters because they’re being distracted by pathogens (like rogue bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi) that would have otherwise been killed by your stomach acid.
So what do you do if you have heartburn, which we now know is from having too little stomach acid? Cut out spicy foods and coffee? Maybe, maybe not. Stomach acid declines with age, stress, antibiotic use, and a long-term low protein diet. Since we all get old, are under stress, and have usually had antibiotics multiple times in our lives, many of us are prone to needing supplementation.
You may benefit from a digestive enzyme complex. There may also be foods that bring on indigestion for you, besides or instead of highly acidic foods.
If you already take a digestive enzyme supplement and still suffer from heartburn and infertility, you may need individualized help to get (and stay) pregnant. A comprehensive stool analysis (to see your gut bacteria) and a blood test to check for food sensitivities may be just what you need.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation here to see if this may be the key to unlock your fertility!
