Ep. 181: Cycle Health for Single Women

Do single women who aren’t trying to get pregnant need to worry about women’s health? Fertility? If you’re not trying to get pregnant, do periods matter? Hormones? All of it? The answer is YES! They matter for a multitude of reasons that you may or may not have heard. The health and wellness of single women is just as important as women who are married or trying to get pregnant. In a world focused on birth control until you’re trying to conceive, it can be a bit confusing. In this episode, hear 

• the role of reproductive health in women's overall health
• How understanding your cycle can empower you
• A story of a women who finally got answers to annoying cycle symptoms
• About cycles throughout your life, from first ovulation to menopause

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

More podcast episodes you might find helpful:

• Ep. 1: BASICS - How your body works
• Ep. 3: BASICS - Reproductive hormones
• Ep. 170: Estrogen's major impact on physical strength and long term health, with Laura Ducote

Transcript

Caitlin (00:25)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. I'm excited to talk about something that is maybe only going to specifically speak to a certain category of audience today, but it's worth it. Okay. So as a certified fertility care practitioner, I will often use the term fertility. I may even use the term fertility journey fairly frequently. And sometimes I get the question,

do single ladies still have a fertility journey? Or maybe I'll get a comment from someone ⁓ or a direct message or something like that asking, hey, you talk about fertility journey. Does that include me? I'm single. And I really appreciate these questions because it allows me the opportunity to clarify what I mean by that. I think a lot of times we will hear people say fertility journey.

and what they mean is their journey to try to conceive a pregnancy. And that makes sense because when we think about the word fertility we think about usually trying to conceive, but I want to change that just slightly from trying to conceive to our potential to conceive. So as women we have the unique potential to conceive and carry a pregnancy.

That means that we create an egg to be ovulated in a cycle. That means that we have a uterus that will grow a thick lining for possible implantation and for the development of baby. That means that we may have a cervix that will grow large when the baby leaves or it will produce cervical mucus based on our reproductive hormones. You know, we have these basic building blocks.

that are unique to women and to female anatomy. Now it doesn't mean that everybody has to have perfect reproductive systems without any issue or variation or that sort of thing. It just means that in general, women have these reproductive organs, they have these reproductive hormones that give them the potential to conceive a pregnancy.

I think a lot of times we get focused on the trying to conceive part of it and we think that's the only time when this becomes important for a person or for a couple. But fertility, our potential to conceive a pregnancy, is actually more than that. It's more significant and it's more specific to us as women.

because our reproductive system has a very clear purpose is there to help us to potentially conceive a pregnancy. However, that purpose is built into who we are as people. So our reproductive hormones, for instance, are not only there to benefit the possibility of conceiving, but our reproductive hormones are going to be responsible for a lot of our overall

health and wellness, especially during these reproductive years and then beyond. We have some previous, podcast episodes talking about the estrogen influence on things like our mental health, on our bone strength and cardiovascular risk as we get older. I'll make sure to

those in the show notes so that you can go back and listen to those as well, but our reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone actually play a huge critical role in how we feel right now and how we will feel physically and maybe even mentally as we age as well. So I think it's a real misconception and a dangerous one, at that to think that our reproductive health only matters if we're trying to conceive.

So back to me using the terminology about fertility or fertility journey. Every single woman, in my opinion, has a fertility journey because it's all about that potential to conceive a pregnancy. What that really comes down to is the health of her reproductive system. Because like we talked about, it's not just about whether or not you're going to conceive, it's about how that health is really gonna benefit and impact

your entire mind body spirit really like whole personhood and I think that that's really important. So I never want to discount women because they are not married or sexually active or they never plan on having children or they have some sort of illness or injury that's going to prevent them from trying to conceive or anything like that. You are no less woman to be in any of those categories.

You do not have to be married You do not have to be trying to conceive You do not have to be a mother Okay, we are not going to worry about any of that kind of stuff because that is not a requirement that God puts on us. It's important though that we understand this fertility, this potential, because

Our fertility, lasts way longer than we probably even think about. It begins with our very first ovulation when we're in puberty and it lasts all the way until we hit menopause. And that is a lot of years. This is usually decades in the majority of a woman's life.

our health as a female matters. Our fertility is a good thing, even if we aren't trying to conceive. We live in a world that says that maybe our fertility, maybe this potential is an optional thing. It's an unnecessary thing. Maybe it's even a hassle of a thing.

sometimes even seen as a bad thing. But it's a part of how we're designed by God. It contributes to our flourishing, not our failure, and that's even more so when we can understand it.

I really think that it's powerful for women to understand that we have this innate superpower at our fingertips. But for any Creighton users out there, but how can we honor, nurture, preserve and protect this gift, this potential that is unique to us? I think it's, it's important to consider. So do I work with single women? Absolutely. I do.

Women deserve to know, even from a young age, that their design as women is important regardless of their family type or size. Our reproductive health is designed to help us conceive, but it's a huge part of our lives long before and after that. We feel better when we acknowledge and nurture that, and we often feel worse when we don't. And I can think of some examples here of clients that I've spoken to just in the past few weeks.

One in particular is coming to mind. She was dealing with a lot of mid-cycle spotting and she said, you know, I'm not trying to conceive. Does this even really matter? Like it's just me. It's just affecting me. I don't really care if I'm having this spotting or not. And we had an opportunity to really take a step back and talk about it. Why do we care about the spotting? Is it because we're trying to get this

perfect chart that doesn't have any variations? Absolutely not. There is no such thing, by the way. ⁓ But instead, it's because we're going to look at that spotting as a sign to get our attention, a little flag that's being waved by our reproductive system to get our attention to say, there's something going on behind the scenes that we can't see that's causing this spotting, which we can see. So we're going to pay attention to what's on the chart. And I'm talking about

Creighton model system charting, because that's what we use at Woven Natural Fertility Care. We're going to use that charting to pay attention to what's going on so that we can pinpoint the underlying condition there. Now for her in particular, it ended up being a thyroid issue. So very reluctantly, she went in and spoke with a restorative reproductive physician and they did, they looked at her chart, they saw the spotting and many other things.

But they went in and did some targeted lab draws as well. They looked at thyroid. They did a full thyroid panel, not just TSH, you know, but the full thyroid panel. And they discovered that she was having some pretty significant thyroid issues. So she ended up having that treated. She did a very natural approach, changed in, you know, diet supplements.

that sort of thing, but she also took a very low dose of medication to help with it as well. Guess what? Her entire quality of life radically improved. Yes, that is what I'm talking about. It is not just about whether or not you're trying to conceive. Your potential to conceive or your healthy functioning of your reproductive system is going to benefit

you as a person, your quality of life. So there's no qualifications for that. You don't have to be married or trying to conceive or anything else in order to deserve that kind of dignified, excellent, compassionate women's healthcare. This is why I think it's so important for my clients to get connected with those restorative reproductive physicians.

This is also why I think it's critical that you're charting your cycles so that you can see what's going on. Because guess what? She thought that she had normal cycles. She thought that all of her symptoms that she experienced from the thyroid issues were just unique things about her. Her health, her mental health, her physical health, her emotional health even. She just thought it was little quirks about her. But when she had the thyroid issue treated,

her life improved so much. And I don't want to skip over that. That is important for every single woman.

the same knowledge, same care, and same confidence that married women do. Why would there be any difference at all? So I hope that this episode has been helpful. Every single woman deserves access to this kind of knowledge, education, empowerment,

tips on advocacy and that includes you. So we have a lot of different resources that are available through Woven Well and through our organization Woven Natural Fertility Care. I am going to link some of the resources in the show notes as well as a few other episodes, the one I already mentioned and maybe one on thyroid as well, just in case that sounds like it could be you. And I also want to encourage you that if you're interested in learning more about this intersection between fertility and faith.

and how that applies even to women who are not trying to conceive, even women who are not married, but to just every woman, then I'm also going to link to my Substack. Substack is an online writing platform and every single week I'm talking about these issues of fertility and faith and how they can impact you. They are very, short. They're like a three to five minute read.

but it's a way to engage with these conversations, with these thoughts, and really invite God into this unique area of your life and your design and your personhood as a woman. As always, thanks for listening. As we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.