Yes, You Can Get Pregnant

May 26, 2014
In this pregnancy guide, Raupp (Chill Out and Get Healthy), an acupuncturist and practitioner of Traditional Oriental Medicine (TOM), draws on the best principles of Western and Eastern medicine for improving fertility. According to Raupp, a mind-body nexus is the key: the book begins with emotional health, emphasizing the importance of joy, passion, courage, and confidence. Raupp's recommendations include exhibiting a strong belief in your own fertility, dealing with fears and past traumas, reciting mantras, meditating, and completing writing exercises. Acupuncture, fertility treatments, and "hot sex" also help, while gluten and phthalates do not. A seven-day "Fertility Rejuvenation Plan" describes, hour-by-hour, how to bring together advice on exercise, sleep, and nutrition, and avoid environmental toxins. The schedule includes mental-emotional health as part of the recipe: "While you're snacking, think a positive thought like: I love my self-love health mission." In this nuanced book, Raupp shifts comfortably between describing a woman's uterus as "the child's palace" to discussing follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) with a reproductive endocrinologist.