Vitamin D

Why Vitamin D3 is vital for Fertility & Pregnancy

Importance of Vitamin D3

Vitamin D3 is not just any vitamin, it works in the same way as hormones. Unlike other vitamins, vitamin D3 has receptors present in virtually every cell and tissue in your body and is involved in every biological process. It interacts directly with 2,000 genes, and indirectly with all the others.

Simply from a health perspective, optimising Vitamin D3 levels is crucial for all aspects of good health.

How does Vitamin D3 benefit Fertility & Pregnancy?

  • Improves sperm quality
  • Improves reproductive health
  • Enhances immune system, thereby helping lower risk of problems with implantation or miscarriages
  • Reduces risk of pre-eclampsia, premature delivery and pregnancy complications
  • Improves mothers general health during pregnancy, thus reducing need for medication which would lead to further implications
  • Virtually eliminates type 1 diabetes
  • Decreased risk of infections, asthma, eczema in newborns
  • Decreases risk of mother having vaginal infections
  • Reduces risk of autism
  • Plays an important role in immune modulation for mother and baby

What is the correct dose of Vitamin D3?

Check your supplement pack - we guarantee it will contain around 400iu (international units) of Vitamin D3.

Latest research shows that the RDA (recommended daily allowance) of 400iu is less than 10% of what we actually require.

Your body requires 35iu per lb of body weight, therefore a person weighing 10 stone (140lbs) * 35iu = 4,900iu - so if you are only taking 400iu it is likely you will be vitamin D deficient. In the correct conditions your body is capable of making up to 20,000iu per day!!

Fortified Foods containing Vitamin D - these will not provide you with your daily requirements as firstly they are too low a dose and tend to be synthetic.

How to get Vitamin D3?

The first option should always be through nature, which as everyone knows is through the sun. However, we live in the UK where we do not get adequate sun light to obtain vitamin D. Even in the summer, most people seek to get their sun at the wrong time of day.

The 2 types of sun rays we are concerned about are UVA and UVB. UVA rays are the ones that are more likely to cause skin problems. UVB rays are strongest when the sun is highest in the sky, which is what we are looking for in order for our skin to produce vitamin D.

Never getting sunburn is the idea, as you should build up your tan and resistance gradually to fulfil your body’s vitamin D potential.

Quick Tip

A simple way to know if it's tanning time - if the length of your shadow is shorter than your height, then you are in the tanning zone. (NEVER BURN!)

Supplements

As we've mentioned, it is pretty hard to get adequate vitamin D levels living in the UK, and food sources do not provide high enough levels, therefore supplementation is required. As always, practitioner supplements are recommended to ensure good quality. You should always take Vitamin D with fat.

This content has been kindly supplied by: Clare & Donovan Blake