The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

Part 2 - What Egg Freezing Estimators Measure And What They Miss - Fertility Naturopath Insights

• Helen Zee

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Join fertility-focused naturopath Nicole Haak to unpack Australia’s egg freezing estimators and why a single percentage cannot capture your full fertility picture. We break down what the calculators measure, where they fall short, and the practical steps that can improve egg quality, sperm health, and IVF outcomes over time. 


• How the federal egg freezing calculators are built from population data 

• Why IVF cannot improve egg quality and why inputs matter before retrieval 
• Male factor as a common blind spot and the value of deeper testing 
• Why age influences results but does not define individual success 
• The fertility context gap: endometriosis stage, thyroid, metabolic and gut health 
• Modifiable risk factors that shift outcomes: endocrine disruptors, diet, weight, exercise, stress and sleep 
• Why digestion and nutrient absorption matter for hormone balance 
• The three to four month preconception care window for meaningful change 
• Targeted nutrients: vitamin D, zinc, choline and antioxidants like CoQ10 and vitamin C 

Show notes:

Research study showing the impact of fertility with lifestyle changes.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8812443/


About Nicole:

With over 12 years of clinical experience, Nicole Haak is a naturopath with a strong focus on fertility, preconception care, and reproductive health. She is passionate about supporting individuals and couples on their journey to conceive, using practical, evidence-informed strategies that fit into everyday life.

Nicole has a special interest in hormone balance, thyroid health, gut health, and stress—key factors that influence fertility outcomes. She provides personalised care for natural conception as well as IVF and assisted reproductive support, with a warm and empathetic approach.

She is a registered member of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society (ATMS) and holds a Bachelor of Health Science (Complementary Medicine) and an Advanced Diploma of Naturopathy.

As a mother of three, Nicole understands the emotional and physical aspects of the fertility journey, offering realistic, supportive care tailored to each stage.

https://nicolehaak.com.au/

Welcome And Why This Matters

Speaker

Welcome to the Home of Fertility, a space for real conversation and expert insights about fertility, healing, and creating family. I'm Liz Walton.

Speaker 1

And I'm Helen Zee. We are two mums who've walked this path and are passionate about supporting you on your journey. Emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Speaker

We talk about it all. Fertility treatment, holistic support, relationships, mindset, and the emotional highs and lows.

Speaker 1

Because sometimes the missing piece lies in someone else's story, in the quiet wisdom of the body, or in a breakthrough that's finally made for you.

Speaker

We are so glad you are here. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1

Hello, listeners, and welcome. Today we are joined by Nicole Haak, who is a naturopath with a strong focus on fertility and reproductive health. She provides personalised care for conception, whether it is and naturally trying to conceive, going through IVF, or having assisted reproductive support. Nicole is a registered member of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society, holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences and an advanced diploma of naturopathy. So we are in very good hands today to talk about egg-freezing estimators that are circulating around Australia and also trying to bridge that information gap from a perspective of having an estimator and getting into the lens of how we can improve our egg quality and how we can improve our chances of conception. Welcome, Nicole. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2

Thanks for

Meet Nicole And The Estimators

Speaker 2

having me. It's really exciting.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is. And for our listeners who may not know or are interested in knowing more, the uh egg freezing estimators and calculators was an initiative by the Australian federal government uh to try and get more transparency in the fertility space to give potential patients an indicator of their success rates and trying to bring that into having a central point through IVF clinics where a patient or a client can look up fertility clinics and see the kind of results that they have had. So, which I feel is an excellent um uh improvement where you've got the estimator on one side and you've also can go and screen a whole heap of clinics and see the types of results that people and clinicians have. So, what has been your experience with the calculators and the estimators, Nicole?

Speaker 2

Yeah, so we've had a couple of clients coming in and um talking about them. So, you know, it's obviously that message is getting out there, and um, you know, when those clients have come in to see me, it's been around, I suppose, getting a bit of information around what it all means, um, but what they can do. So, what can they do to improve their chances, essentially, right? So, um, and this all really comes back to that preconception care. Like ultimately, um, whether you're going through IVF or you're doing uh natural fertility, it really comes back to your health. Um, but these calculators are, you know, if you have a bit of a play around with them like you and I have, um, you know, you start to see the impact of uh the number of cycles, the number of eggs, and age. So age, yeah, seems to be a big determinant in terms of you know the output of these calculators.

Speaker 1

Um let's talk, yeah, questions out, right? Yeah, you said the magic word age because not many people know that so the federal government supported for this, funded for this to these calculators to to be created, and they were created by the University of New South Wales. And what they did is put in a whole heap of statistics for from the population regarding on age and other parameters to then try and give someone back the algorithm of the potentiality of them being able to get pregnant within a cycle, within and what the egg freezing success rates are going to be and the probability of the IVF success based on age and fertility history, right?

Speaker

Yes.

Speaker 1

So we're gonna flush this out. Now I've gone in myself and put in age and I've put in uh uh sperm age of uh a potential, you know, my potential partner, and it also asks you whether you've got endometriosis, and they're just checklists. There's only about seven or eight questions, but it doesn't go into the detail of sure, someone can say they've got endometriosis, but what stage? Where? Like,

What The Calculator Measures

Speaker 1

is it um how complicated is it with other surgeries that they've had or or scar tissues that they might have, right? So you and I both know that if we're just looking at age on its own, it is not um an indicator of the success. So we're gonna talk about that and explore that a little bit further. Now, the calculators talk about, as I said, the age of the person, the age of a sperm provider, if known, only if known, right? Whereas we know malefactor is huge. It is 40% of the equation. Um, whether you're previously been pregnant and been successful, uh, infertility diagnosis, like I said, endometriosis, hormonal factors, uh, whether you have been diagnosed with unexplained infertility, and also whether you've had previous IVF treatment. So they're the factors that we put in, and it gives you the imports from that calculator, gives you the chance of having a baby after one egg retrieval cycle, the probability after two cycles, the probability after three cycles, and also the cumulative chance of success rate across the cycles. So I'm gonna take a pause there because I want to start talking about age versus the health and quality of that person at any particular age.

Speaker 2

Yeah, exactly. So the yes, so the calculator is you know great at giving a guideline as such, you know, um, but it doesn't speak to the quality or the health, right? So the quality of the egg or the health of the individual, right? And and that's where really, you know, doing preconception work essentially prior to doing any, you know, egg collection um and hormonal treatment would be really indicated because the the likelihood of improving those outcomes within that calculator, um, yeah, is really quite yeah, astounding. So yeah.

Speaker 1

So from there's a lot of research out there that now just talks mainly about mitochondrial health. And there's also a lot of work that's been done on um women over 40 and how they can also improve their egg quality and health, health, overall health. Because when we do all these changes and we'll talk about some of the things that make a big difference, it's not just the egg and the sperm that gets revitalized and has a uh higher mitochondrial output. And it, you know, um, it's not just that whenever we eat, or when you know we're not vaping, or we're taking our high vitamin D supplements and vitamin C supplements, it's every cell of the body that gets the and and all areas, um, all the different uh operating systems of the body that get um benefits from it as well. So take us through, my friend, about where we can um the myth of age can be parked and what we can do to actually because it is just an estimate, right? It is an estimate, it's just an estimate, it's an input, it is a starting point, it doesn't have a personalized approach. Correct, exactly, and it's yeah. I come to you, I come to you and I say, Hey Nicole, I've just done this egg freezing estimate, and um it tells me that I've got uh a 45% chance of getting pregnant in my first cycle, and I want to improve that. What can I do?

Speaker 2

Um, so just before I go through those sorts of things that you can do, I did want to just mention that um, you know, just talking about age, egg numbers do decrease as we age, right? So basically the quality of those eggs decreases and the risk of um abnormal abnormalities increase after the age of 35. And at that point in time, after many years of you know, eggs, these eggs have been formed when you were a fetus, essentially, right? So these are eggs that your mum, essentially, yeah, and you were born with as such. So and the older you get, the older those eggs are. And so, you know, all the things that you can do in terms of improving the quality of those eggs are around um lifestyle modifications, so or modifiable risk factors essentially. So, and you know, let's talk about those. Those main things are, you know, smoking and vaping, um, alcohol, uh, and drug use, um, also endocrine disruptors, so that is, you know, from um, you know, and plastics and chemicals and herbicides and pesticides and you know, all these sorts of things. So whether it be from, you know, plastics, whether it be from sprays, whether it be from household cleaning items, from personal care items, um, basically anything that you're exposing your body to can have um an impact on your hormone balance and on the egg quality, the resultant egg quality. Um, diet has a huge impact, yeah, on and and the different um balance of your macros and your micros in your diet. They're hugely impactful. Um, things like exercise uh as well and weight, whether you be underweight or overweight, you know, getting to a healthy weight is really important because that has an impact not only on your hormone balance, but also on the egg quality. Um stress. Stress, yep. Well, yes,

Age Versus Egg Quality

Speaker 2

stress can have a huge impact. Um that has a very big impact on your hormone balance, particularly, as well as nutrient absorption. So you can have the healthiest diet in the world. Um, but if you're not just digesting that food properly, breaking it down and then assimilating it, those nutrients into the body, your body can't get access to those nutrients to make the things that it needs to make, such as a healthy egg. And if we're just talking about the egg, yeah, making a healthy egg. Um, yeah. So there's lots of modifiable factors that can be worked on. Um alongside those, and they're sort of modifiable factors, you've also got other health concerns that may be um present. Things like uh, you know, thyroid health, yeah, gut health, um, sleep, um, yeah, diabetes, cholesterol issues, you know, so many different things. And certainly what you were mentioning before around um mitochondrial health, yeah, the the energy that that cell has um to do what it needs to do. Yeah. And um, the older we get, the more that that sort of declines in time. And, you know, what can we do to improve that? Yeah, and provide those antioxidants and improvement in mitochondrial function um to support those fast dividing cells.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed. Um, when I was doing my research project with a leading IVF clinic, I was their lifestyle trainer. So I was brought in to focus on exercise, diet, and also uh meditative approaches. Absolutely. And I I did that for six months and then carried that over for two years. And in that time, we had about a 70% success rate in live births, but not but. And most of the people that came through that program and made those changes saw a hundred percent change in some kind of factor to do with their fertility health. Not necessarily they didn't get pregnant straight away, but they were having more eggs at egg collection, the embryos were lasting more at um, you know, the blastocyst stage. Yeah. And this was purely, purely based on lifestyle factors, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so where the research shows and it proves that even decreasing 5% body fat for someone that is tipping in the uh beyond the normal weight, so close to overweight or overweight or obesity, decreasing 5% body fat stimulates a variant reserve.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And that has an impact on hormonal health as well. So, for example, with POS, even just a 5% decrease in weight if someone is overweight, yeah. Um, the impact on hormonal, um, their hormone balance as such is huge. And essentially, your your eggs are growing and developing because of hormone stimulation. So getting your hormones, you know, in this beautiful cyclical nature that um our bodies are primed for, yeah, just lovely and cyclical every month, doing what it needs to do. Um, that's such a key element of um getting good, healthy eggs as well, and getting that ovulation on the other side, right? So that body has got to the point where it can actually ovulate.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and that ovulation, you know, the energy that it takes to ovulate is incredible. Like we most of us don't even feel it when we're ovulating. Some women get a bit of a twinge and a pain, an ovulation pain. But the amount of energy that it takes the body for that ovulation to take place, it's like the whoo. And then we need all this premium fuel, which as you talked about, which is the nutrients being digested and assimilated through the body to keep that vroom vroom high performance vehicle running. If we're gonna be putting uh crappy petrol, crappy petrol into that, into that car, it's not gonna be able to go the distance, right? Exactly. We want to be able to put premium fuel. I think I'm bringing this up because at the time of this recording, we are in a bit of a gas petrol, you know, shortage. And so it's like, wow, we can even bring that conversation back into our um reproductive health. Absolutely chugging along, chugging along. And so this is what we need for both the males and the females. We need that premium fuel because this is where the big bang happens, right? Yeah, that's right. Happens naturally, internally, through sexual intercourse, and you're not seeing what's going on, or whether it's happening over a petra dish, even that embryologist is looking for that premium supercharged egg and sperm to try and put together. Yeah? That's right, exactly. What we're seeing. So what we whether it's through a looking glass or whether it's internally, the building blocks of what's needed is exactly the same.

Speaker 2

That's right, exactly. And exactly. And just um just talking. Sorry, Helen. No, no, no, you

Modifiable Risks That Move Outcomes

Speaker 2

go next, my friend. No, no, I was just gonna say, um, you know, I was looking at a study that uh, and I'll just read a bit of the information out so I'm saying it like in correctly. Yes. So this particular study examined um couples who were trying to conceive um naturally over a 12-month um period. And um 38% of the couples with four adverse lifestyle factors, so four adverse lifestyle factors, only 38% of them conceived. So the adverse lifestyle factors were the ones that we were talking about before, in terms of, you know, um alcohol, drugs, smoking, vaping, vaping, um, uh endocrine disruptors, like plastics and chemicals and those sorts of things, and stress, um, EMFs, exposure to radiation, those sorts of things, caffeine, um, sedentary exercise, um, sedentary lifestyle, as well as poor nutrition. So four of those, yeah, um, 38% of couples are conceived, 52% of couples with three adverse lifestyle factors conceived, 62 with two, 71% with one, and then with none, it rose up to 83%.

Speaker 1

That's incredible.

Speaker 2

So what regardless of the figures, uh, you know, ultimately that's really not in that important from a personal perspective. But what it does show is the importance of modifying those elements, yeah, that we were talking about. Yeah. Um, because they do, what you were saying, they do have an absolute impact. Um, and whatever you can do, whatever tweaks you can do to improve your outcome, um, yeah, especially when you're spending that money to freeze your eggs, it's um yeah, really important.

Speaker 1

Because ultimately, you know, uh a patient will go into the calculator and and pop in, you know, those statistics uh for those eight, seven or eight questions. And they'll they'll they have this cumulative result and the percentage of what might be possible. And again, as we said at the beginning of this uh discussion, that is based on population statistics of the past. That does not really take into account a personalized approach. Now, when you overlayer, and I know that you know, you in your work that you do, when you layer and overlayer, transpose that, let's have a look at your lifestyle factors out of these four or seven different categories of lifestyle factors, and you do particular tests. I know that you can can get particular tests that a person can do, they could that comes back in as well, so we can talk about that. Then you've got a personalized representation of what is possible. And you and I both know, my friend, in our private practice, that when we when we our clients do. the things that we are suggesting that they do, the results are the results are there is a much higher chance for that individual person to achieve their their you know their their baby goals right and actually today um I actually went to visit a uh a friend that's had her second baby she was an ex-client of mine and you know she's got POS and it she also did have to go through IVF for both children uh but this second round was less invasive than the first round because she started to realize that this stuff really does make a difference made the changes and it's like whoa this is my beautiful eight week old baby yeah and I still have POS but I actually did not struggle as much as I did when I did the first one where I just kept going no should be right no I'm not planning no I don't need to do this and the things that she didn't do for the first pregnancy and the amount of cycles that she had to go through and then what she did put in place for her second pregnancy and it cut down six cycles. Yeah right yeah purely by well I can't say definitively but I'm gonna say for a lot of it because she started taking on the lifestyle factors that have been known to decrease the symptoms of POS yeah absolutely right oh that's so good yeah amazing that's amazing so I had baby cuddles you had baby cuddles today you're a lucky lady I had lots of baby cuddles I actually did a mums and bubs post fitness training and I actually at one point was carrying two babies and talking to the bummers about how to exercise so I'm all to my I love it so good. I love baby cuddles yeah yeah um so what were you saying before um Nicole about you know what you do and where you bridge the gap that the calculators and the estimators can't do is the complexity of a person's medical condition and history. You know you take that into account the overall health factors which may be thyroid related metabolic health insulin resistance any autoimmune conditions the hormonal balance as well as the egg quality and this is where you can bridge that what I call in my private practice the fertility context gap.

Speaker 2

Okay put someone's overall personalized fertility into context and you're able to give someone the prescription of where the gaps are and what they can do about themselves right yeah because there's so much you can do there is so much you know if your if your overall health is good yeah so you know getting yourself nice and healthy making sure your vitamins and minerals are replete that your you know you don't have any digestive issues your thyroids operating optimally you're sleeping well your um you know all these things yeah your blood glucose is well balanced you're exercising you're spending some some time out in the sun you know all these really important things you start to see the impact on your hormonal health so your hormones whenever we talk about hormones

Research Proof And Real Client Wins

Speaker 2

it's a reflection of your health yeah it's not a separate thing it's actually a little playbook yeah of ah okay you're experiencing this or you're experiencing that or this is happening oh right then let's look over here because it's it's a a view into your overall health so getting all this you know the underlying aspects nice and healthy will have a beautiful flow and effect to your hormonal health and that then has an impact on egg quality. And um even you know if you're trying to conceive naturally or through IVF that period of time in terms of that preconception care, let's call it yeah um needs to be at least three months. It's not a short amount of time, right? At least three months preferably four um if you and a little bit more if you can great but yeah that that's what we're talking about that consistent effort over a period of time to improve not only your health but the health of your eggs.

Speaker 1

Yeah I mean on and on a a strong note is IVF and assisted therapies cannot improve your egg quality. No or your you know and even when you know you're depositing sperm but let's just keep it with the egg right it cannot improve your egg quality it's impossible at this present moment to start you know and I know that there's clinics and processes where in the uh fluid in the uh petrodish fluid there are particular nutrients and building blocks that they put in there to try and uh facilitate that but hey if you're listening and what I'm gonna ask of Nicole next is just to give it a few top tips about what you would recommend that a person does say in any of the supplement ranges which you know would make a difference like you know your vitamin D's your vitamin C's quercetin or vitamin K or anything else I'm just gonna you know preface that for you but egg freezing is basically like whether you take ultra you've got you want to you've got a party and you want to freeze some ice are you going to use swamp water are you going to use tap water are you going to use filtered water because what you put in the freezer however long that stays there that quality is not going to change it's what you put in that's what gets frozen in time it's cryogenics. What you take out and thaw out that is still the same quality that you put in you will thaw out and then you've got to reintroduce that back into your body yes so let's talk about a few things my friend three five whatever you want just if you could be succinctly say as your bare minimum if you're not doing this I would be suggesting that you try and get these vitamins into your diet doesn't even have to be supplements but try and get these levels of vitamins and minerals in your diet what would you suggest so look from a from a supplement perspective as a bare minimum it would be a a good quality preconception multivitamin.

Speaker 2

So and good quality I mean not just your elevates etc you need good quality ones with the right forms of B vitamins and added choline and yeah so a good quality one and fish oils. So they're the two bare minimum supplements um as such obviously if someone's got deficiencies for example like zinc which is important for egg development um then you you know you'd want to be looking at some zinc. Vitamin D is really also important for hormonal health. If someone's a little bit older then you would be looking at antioxidants like coQ10, resveratrol, vitamin C. So your antioxidants are also really important and from a food perspective you get those through your um your fruit and vegetables right so your seasonal rainbow vegetables always ensure that you're having um at least one cup of dark green leafy veggies every day.

Speaker 1

So that's your things like spinach silver beet rocket um bok choy broccoli like yeah dark green leafies one cup at least every day that's my tip um and then two cups of seasonal uh and rainbow yeah rainbow meaning you just get as many different veggies stirroes and you that's right exactly um there is a little bit of talk around um so between 30 and 40 different fruit and vegetable varieties over a week so just to improve that gut microbiome as well yeah so and then you're getting all those micronutrients so choline is also really important and you can get that as a separate nutrient or through dietary sources for example like eggs yeah

Supplements And Food For Egg Health

Speaker 1

um so choline's really important for that nervous system development interesting choline is in eggs and we're trying to to make eggs reproductive health and avocado to avocados side by side look like two testes yeah what males you know really good fats and exactly good fats exactly and protein yeah you need protein as well so good fats proteins wide variety of vegetables but the key nutrients just to reiterate that yeah good quality multivitamin naturopathic ones are excellent fish oils and then whatever other nutrients are needed yeah like your antioxidants vitamin D zinc and magnesium calciumized ones you and I mean we're talking about generic here going a little bit above and beyond what is in a you know a um uh over-the-counter prenatal so um we're talking above and beyond that little bit extra and absolutely the research shows it higher doses of vitamin D, higher doses of vitamin C are needed um you know, as you said the choline as well and depending on age you know we do need to make sure that we're getting those building blocks into our body and um yeah yeah and also you know there are our clients a better chance it just gives the clients a better chance of going through you know natural conception and or you know through IVF treatment. And the same applies for males right I always I talk about this until the cows come home. There are so many times that I've actually seen this as I you know do a um a clinical history of my clients that I'm going to be working with and it just breaks my heart when when I hear that women have gone through failed cycle upon cycle upon cycle and then when I start talking about the reproductive health of the male it's like oh there's just some you know just generic testing that's done and it's all okay and I'm like okay now let's go for some deeper testing which you know I I can't prescribe because I'm not a you know medically medical doctor or pathology but when I work with their doctors and tell them about what should happen we actually find that there is male factor that is actually affecting and affected all those failed cycles prior right yeah and it's not in non-invasive for a male yes yes exactly right yeah non-invasive so even to the point I'll share this story and and then I've heard a few of these stories so even in the in the same female sex relationship which want to go for a donor sperm and they want to go for a known donor who's already got a child so they're doing something privately within their home two years of failed treatment then they said to the male donor how about you go and get your sperm tested and his sperm was low quality yeah right yeah two years wasted because no one thought that okay he's

Male Factor And Deeper Testing

Speaker 1

had one child no one he could be able to have more children but no one thought that the quality of health today not two years ago not three years ago but the quality of the health of that person today is what needs to be taken into consideration and can take place right yeah what a crying shame two years of IVF treatment between this same-sex female couple as well you know and wanting to also yeah use a donor and that was you know that was never factored in so yeah it's it's hard to hear as well not even in same sex couple relationships but any relationship where I don't know in my experience females take it on they take on we're the ones with the hormones we're the ones that got to do all this work and um and so they they're the ones that appear and they're putting in the hard yards right and um doing work for two people that's right both both both partners yeah both really need to be doing the work um you know luckily for a male it's only for a short period of time and then yeah yeah yeah essentially yeah essentially whereas those two ages that are female makes frequency that's right there then during pregnancy then postpartum so for the rest lifestyle changes uh need to be around for a lot longer that's right exactly yeah exactly wonderful is there anything else you'd want to finish off with in adding to this conversation about the estimators and what people can um how people can improve their improve their health yeah look I just just really quickly um just mention obviously along we've spoken about supplements and lifestyle changes and nutrients and and things like that and antioxidants um but there's also some beautiful herbs that can be used and just you know know that acupuncture there's a lot of really good research around the benefits of acupuncture as well um improving hormonal health too so yeah there's lots of other yeah supportive therapies that can help and be part of that overall journey um yeah in terms of fertility outcomes so um yeah yeah thank you so much for your time your expertise um and coming along for the conversation and for those listening just know that when you plug in that information in those calculators they are a good starting point in proactively

Acupuncture Support And Closing CTA

Speaker 1

uh getting you on the front foot of your fertility awareness it highlights the roles of your age as well as um what is possible when you do take those that estimate to your clinician um and get personalized health plan to up those outcomes even more exactly yeah amazing it's been lovely talking with you tonight as well and um yeah really great conversation yeah thank you so much great thanks for joining us at the Homer Fertility we hope today's episode brought you clarity comfort and connection if this podcast resonated please share it leave a review or subscribe this helps us support more people that are on this path and if you'd like to connect or share your story find us on Instagram and Facebook at Australian Fertility Summit.

Speaker

Remember the missing piece might be waiting in a story your body's wisdom or something new just made for you take care and we'll see you next time