We know that our fertility isn’t going to last forever, but what most of us don’t realize is that there is something that we can do about it. There are treatments like using castor oil packs for fertility that can make a huge difference. Castor oil promotes healing in the body by increasing lymphatic circulation, enhancing immune function, reducing inflammation, stimulating liver function, and enhancing your body’s natural detoxification process.¹ Castor oil has been used to aid healing for thousands of years and has been proven to help with fertility issues.
We believe that knowledge is power and that women who learn all they can make good decisions for their fertility. Castor oil packs for fertility work by helping to decrease water retention, improve digestive function, improve circulation, and stimulate liver function during the luteal phase of their menstrual cycles in particular.
Benefits of Castor Oil for Fertility
Castor oil often seems miraculous, for who would expect so many beneficial medicinal effects—everything from preventing abdominal surgery to dissolving gallstones and eliminating warts—from a common, inexpensive lubricant, used mostly today for industrial purposes. Castor oil packs work for fertility in three ways:
1. Detoxes The Reproductive and Lymphatic System
There is something mysterious in how the application of hot castor oil, soaked in flannel cloth and applied to the skin, brings about a sometimes startling change in the way the body is functioning. Using castor oil packs for fertility rids the body of any disturbance in the reproductive system that might have displaced reproduction. The packs stimulate the lymphatic system, helping cleanse the reproductive organs and promote healing of damaged tissues where the pack is applied.
2. Improves Overall Circulation
Castor oil packs boost fertility by promoting circulation and bringing fresh oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to the reproductive organs. The concept behind this is that when your reproductive organs (i.e., your uterus and fallopian tubes) are stagnant, it can cause painful menstruation, digestive complaints, and even infertility. Healthy circulation promotes healing, scar tissue repair, and breakdown of old adhesions.
3. Stimulates The Liver
Your liver breaks down fat produce energy and plays a key role in maintaining your blood sugar balance. Your liver removes hormones, drugs, and other biologically active molecules from the blood. If excess toxins and hormones are overwhelming the liver, they may be stored, in the liver and fat. More strain on your liver makes it more likely that your hormones will be out of balance.
Poor liver function can worsen premenstrual symptoms, acne, irregular menstrual cycles, and menstrual cramps. This can lead to hormonal imbalance which may impair fertility. Castor oil packs can help detoxify the liver. Your liver also cleanses your blood, regulates your cholesterol levels, and regulates the balance of sex hormones in your body.
Your liver is working continuously — day and night — to break down hormones, chemicals, and toxins to get them out of your bloodstream so you can go on functioning normally.
How Does Castor Oil Packs Work?
- Castor oil, when absorbed, stimulates the bodily function that will remove the products of inflammation (as they exist in the appendix) from the appendix itself, leaving it freer to function normally.
- Castor oil absorbed into the tissues may, in its vibratory activity (for all things are in essence vibratory in nature), act to stimulate the nerves in the area where it is applied.
- Castor oil packs help to stimulate the lymphatics to drain more adequately the tissues under duress. Any reproductive organ or portion of the body which is clogged with waste in which the lymph nodes have not removed respond in a beneficial way to castor oil packs.
Infertility can be a difficult problem to treat, and modern interventions — while sometimes effective — can be expensive. There are lots of health conditions that can affect a woman’s fertility—some you’d expect and some you wouldn’t—and the medications you use to treat them can have bad effects, too, whether they’re prescription or over the counter. Luckily, there are natural ways to increase your fertility and become pregnant faster.
How To Use a Castor Oil Pack for Fertility
To use a castor oil pack for fertility, you will need the following materials:
- Castor oil
- Flannel cloth
- Electric heating pad
- Plastic sheet—no coloring
- Two or three safety pins
- Bath towel
- A wool flannel works best when creating a castor oil pack for fertility. The cloth should be two or four thicknesses when folded and should measure about ten by twelve or fourteen inches in size after being folded. This is the perfect size for the abdominal application.
- Pour the castor oil onto the cloth, using a plastic sheet to keep it from seeping through. Make sure the cloth is saturated but not dripping with oil. Apply the pack to your lower abdomen and place the plastic sheet on the outside.
- Place the heating pad on the plastic sheet, covering the pack, and turn the heat to low first, then to medium and higher if the body is comfortable with it. Do not burn your skin. This is the opposite effect you are seeking.
- Wrap a bath towel, folded lengthwise, around your trunk, so that it covers the pack and the heating pad, and fasten it in place with safety pins. The castor oil pack should remain in place for an hour to an hour and a half.
- Afterward, cleanse the skin with a mixture of baking soda and warm water—two teaspoons to a quart.
The castor oil pack can be kept in a plastic container for future use. Unless the castor oil pack becomes discolored or the oil becomes rancid, you can continue to use it for about a month. It can also be kept in the refrigerator, but it should then always be warmed up before
How Often to Use Castor Oil Packs for Fertility
You should use a castor oil pack for fertility three to seven days a week. Especially during the follicular stage (from the end of your period until ovulation). If you are trying to conceive, do not use castor oil packs after ovulation. And if you think you’re pregnant? Stop using them immediately.
Other Approaches to Improve Fertility
Using a castor oil pack for fertility is a great start but many other factors will influence your chances to get pregnant.
Relax, Move, and Eat Well
The effects of chronic stress are well documented. They include decreased cognitive acuity, changes in blood sugar regulation, decreased thyroid activity, and impaired reproductive function. It is important to move the body and mind from a state of “fight or flight” to one that allows for rest, repair and increased fertility.
Breath and Relax for Fertility
It’s very to roll your eyes when someone tells you that deep breathing is an important cleansing technique. It sounds:
- a) too simple to be true, and
- b) in the fertility arena this advice edges dangerously close to those polarizing words “just relax.”
Yet, there are strong scientifically acknowledged reasons why breathing may be an important catalyst in the fertility process. Belly breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which controls important body functions such as respiration and digestion and sends sensory information to the brain. Since good blood flow and tissue oxygenation is important for fertility, these vascular actions are important.
Using belly breath works for fertility on a mechanical level. When we relax the belly and breathe into the abdomen, the large, strong diaphragm muscle contracts downward. This action promotes the circulation of lymph, resulting in improved clearance of metabolic waste.
Close your eyes right now and focus on your breath. Identify your breathing pattern.
- Are your shoulders, back, and neck rigid as you breathe?
- Is your belly moving?
- If you’re not using belly breath, try this exercise:
- Sit in a straight-backed chair with your feet flat on the floor, or lie down. Place one hand on your belly.
- Close your eyes and begin to breathe in and out through your nose.
- Breathe deep into the abdomen, feeling your belly expand with the inhale.
- As you exhale, feel the hand and the belly gently move back toward the spine.
Continue this breathing pattern for 5-10 minutes. It may be helpful to visualize a balloon behind the navel that you inflate with the in-breath and empty with the out-breath.
With practice, this will become your habitual breathing pattern and you will reap the fertility-benefits of relaxation, better circulation, and a serene mind
Move and Stretch
In our opinion, possibly more than any other form of physical activity, yoga is effective at promoting radiant health and protecting the body from the ravages of stress. Yoga relieves stress, which can negatively impact your ability to get pregnant. Studies have shown that women with more biomarkers for stress in their saliva had less of a chance of getting pregnant during ovulation than women with fewer biomarkers for stress and that women with higher levels of cortisol in their bodies had an increased risk of miscarriage.
On a physical level, the poses strengthen and purify body tissues. Daily activities create tight bundles of muscle and connective tissue that decrease joint mobility, restrict blood flow, and have a negative effect on posture. As you know, restricting blood flow is not optimal for fertility. The right kind of yoga and stretches, however, can reverse this process.
Key poses to increase fertility:
- Forward folds and back bends
- Twisting
- Balance poses
- Inversions
Eat Well
It is important to eat a fertility-friendly diet. The following are key nutrients that support the body’s methylation processes and the foods where they are found:
- FOLIC ACID: Green leafy vegetables (romaine lettuce, spinach, endive, kale), sunflower seeds, liver
- VITAMIN B12: Meat, liver, shellfish, milk VITAMIN B6: Whole grains, vegetables, nuts, meat
- CHOLINE: Egg yolks, soy products, cooked meats
- METHIONINE: Sesame seeds, cottage cheese, Brazil nuts, fish, peppers, spinach
If you’re trying to get pregnant, there are a lot of holistic changes you can make to your routine before going down the IUI or IVF path. Gynostemma extract and niruha basti are a few herbs used to treat infertility and if you have questions or concerns about castor oil packs for fertility, please speak directly with your healthcare provider.