Causes & Treatment
6 fertility books to pop on your reading list
Holly Pigache | 9 Dec 2021
Here at TRB HQ, we know now from super personal experience that when you’re starting any kind of health, fertility or IVF treatment journey, we tend to want to sniff out all of the extra help and information we can get – beyond the clinic’s dry information leaflets!
Taking to Google, we quickly realised it’s a pretty mixed bag out there, when it comes to finding genuinely helpful and supportive resources.
So we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite fertility books – covering everything from treatment and specific conditions to lifestyle tweaks and mindset – to help you make informed decisions when it comes to you, your journey and your body.
Read on (pun intended) for our personal picks of the bunch.
For bigger-picture advice
When you’re not quite sure where to start, IVF: All You Need to Know by Clare Goulty and Sue Bedford might be the one for you.
Goulty and Bedford have edited this collection of invaluable information by leading fertility experts. A “step-by-step guide”, this book leads you from choosing the right fertility clinic for you, through preparing your mind and body for IVF, understanding different treatments and potential complications. The recipe guide seems like a handy addition but it’s clearly not written by foodies (I should know, my mum was a chef).
To make sure you don’t abandon your treatment on account of a boring diet, you might want to read Zita West’s The IVF Diet – as recommended by lots of our IG followers (follow our Instagram here).
Covering so much more than “just” nutrition, this week-by-week diet and lifestyle plan will help you become pregnant with IVF.
To get 10% off Zita West’s premium fertility supplements, enter code TRB10 at checkout.
Image credit: Zita West and Goulty and Bedford via Waterstones
Image credit: Rebecca Fett via Waterstones
For specific support
For optimal IVF results, you want to feel like you’re doing all you can to support yourself, and that includes the cells inside you, too.
It Starts with the Egg by Rebecca Fett (recommended by so many members in our community) is evidence-backed and practical in its approach to improving egg quality for fertility (and ultimately, IVF).
For staying sane
If your fertility journey is driving you bananas, check out Tori Day’s book, Warrior, about “staying sane while trying to conceive”.
TTC is a rollercoaster of a journey – there are emotional highs, emotional lows and more medical appointments than you care to think about.
Day’s book is a candid, diary-style look at the path to becoming pregnant that many find comforting and relatable. Opinions differ on the narrative style, though.
Image credit: Tori Day via Amazon
Image credit: The Magic of… via Sensitive Matters and Happy Together via Happy Together Children’s Books
For explaining IVF to Little Ones
Further down the line, The Magic of You books by Sensitive Matters (see our full review here) are a beautiful and unique way of clearly explaining donor conception to your donor-conceived child/children, fully personalised to your family situation.
Similarly, the Happy Together series provides eight “heartwarming” scenarios to introduce young children to the family-building concepts of IVF, egg, sperm and embryo donations and surrogacy. An illustrated bear couple (two mums, two dads, a mum and a dad) or a single bear mum are used to explain their journey of becoming parents.
Want to share your fave fertility books?
We love your suggestions of recommended reading for fertility, IVF and donor conception.
As always, we’re keen to hear advice and shared stories from everyone in our community so message us on Instagram to share your recommended books for IVF treatment and more!
We’ll be sharing more recommended reading lists in the coming months, so keep your ideas coming and we’ll be sure to include them.
