Preface

Holistic practices brought us together and together we are bringing you an incredible conception, pregnancy, and postpartum guidebook. We’d like to take a moment to introduce ourselves.

Christa Orecchio is a clinical and holistic nutritionist with nine years of experience in private practice and an astounding success rate at helping thousands of people heal and thrive using three guiding principles:

1. Always aim to identify the root cause of a health issue instead of addressing and managing individual symptoms.

2. Use food as your medicine whenever possible.

3. Combine the clinical aspects of healing with mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of healing in order to address the whole person to achieve truly vibrant health.

These three guiding principles led Christa to discover how to help women conceive naturally, healthfully, and quickly by paying homage to the inherent wisdom of their own bodies. Her philosophy and process is simple: Give the body what it needs, remove what burdens it, and it will heal itself. It is also effective: She has helped hundreds of individual clients get pregnant using the principles in this book.

Christa’s nutrition practice, The Whole Journey, was one of the busiest nutrition practices in San Diego with a team of nutritionists and chefs behind it. Then, in 2013, she decided to shift directions so that she could help more people at once than was possible in a one-on-one setting. She hosts a weekly FOX San Diego segment called “Food as Medicine” and is the cohost of a nationally syndicated health talk show on the Doctor Television Channel (DrTV) called The Randy and Christa Show. She also concurrently developed a series of online courses for The Whole Journey that have successfully guided thousands of people through distinct programs that focus on nutrition and/or digestive repair. All of Christa’s programs focus on digestive health first, as the cornerstone of building the health of the entire body, and especially to prepare for conception.

Willow Buckley is a certified classical homeopath, labor doula, prenatal yoga instructor, wife, and mother of two.

As a homeopath, Willow has treated hundreds of children and infants. Her studies taught her to always take the mother’s pregnancy and birth details into account because this was often a key element to finding the best remedy for the child. Her goal was nothing more than keeping the health and emotional well-being of the mother balanced before and during pregnancy so that her children would have strong immune systems. She feels that treating the mother before and during pregnancy is like treating the soil before a seed is sown. The soil will be nutrient dense and will be the most nourishing for the plant to grow.

This way of thinking attracted her to all things birth related, and she became a certified labor doula. In this place of maternal support, she has been able to guide and treat women while pregnant, during labor and birth, and in the weeks and months following delivery; she even treats the whole family for years afterward. She cherishes the chance to nourish the body, the soil, and loves to see her clients gracefully experience being pregnant, laboring, and giving birth. Her many clients benefit from her postpartum care for both the mother and the baby. Whether it’s nutrition, homeopathy, or other holistic suggestions, she is often their first call with questions.

As a holistic clinical nutritionist and a homeopath/doula, we strive to live out the holistic lifestyle every day. So how did we come to write this book together? Four years ago, while Christa, Willow, and Willow’s husband, Marcus, were having dinner together, Willow and Marcus mentioned they were on a six-month cleanse to prepare to conceive their first child. Willow told Christa she was looking for a holistic nutrition book that outlined the benefits of the baby’s growth at each stage through food and supplements and asked for a recommendation. Christa could not think of a single one—and she’s built her business on being the go-to nutritional expert for thousands of people! So Christa told Willow: “Let’s write it.” The four years that followed brought endless brainstorming sessions, hours at the computer distilling years of collective wisdom and clinical experience, and the first-hand lessons learned from Willow’s two pregnancies—both after the age of thirty, and both of which successfully embodied the principles presented in this book.

The prenatal books we have read usually focus on just one aspect of pregnancy: nutrition and recipes; or what to expect in your changing body; or learning about the development of your growing baby; or exploring alternative approaches to pregnancy, including herbal remedies and midwifery. Some include research to support their content, while others rely on their experience to inform topics.

This book is different because it is a comprehensive guide that covers every step of the journey to having a baby naturally, from preconception to postpartum. We believe that having a child is not limited to three trimesters but actually entails five trimesters. The first is preconception and the fifth is the first few months postpartum. (For more information on the five trimesters, please see page xv.) There is no reason to limit the journey to while the baby is inside the womb, as preparing the body before conception and taking care of the body after birth can make drastic positive health impacts for both mom and baby. We provide evidence-based nutritional guidelines and scientific findings, as well as experience-based advice at each trimester for the health of mom, baby, and dad. For each stage of the journey, we provide a clear guide for what to remove from a mama-to-be’s diet, what to add, and menu options to incorporate these suggestions.

We address the more uncomfortable realities of each phase of pregnancy and postpartum (morning sickness, heartburn, mastitis) with classical homeopathic remedies and holistic lifestyle suggestions to not only ease discomfort but to actually enhance a sense of well-being. We are a mother’s biggest cheerleaders—education, empowerment, and encouragement underlie every sentence we write to each of you amazing women.

Although this book is beneficial for every woman looking to get pregnant, we do focus on women age thirty and older who wish to conceive naturally—an age we have traditionally been told is a “bit too late” for easy conception. Through it all we present the most current research in nutrition and homeopathy to equip you with wide-ranging knowledge with which you can make your best choices. In a time that can bring great uncertainty and fear, we provide empowerment and the support of your best (and most knowledgeable) girlfriends.

We are so honored to be your guides on this most beautiful journey.

With love,

Christa and Willow