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Holistic Fertility Handbook HERE
Preconception Checklist HERE
Tracking Your Cycle Info HERE
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Subscribe to the podcast to catch every episode. Follow us on Instagram for all the extra education and antics in between episodes at @beautifulonemidwifery
How to work with your body to achieve pregnancy naturally:
Links to all the extra good stuff:
Click to check out the Beautiful One Membership experience! NOW OPEN!
Holistic Fertility Handbook HERE
Preconception Checklist HERE
Tracking Your Cycle Info HERE
Join our email community + get instant access to our awesome Sleep Freebie: HERE
Browse all our favorite women’s supplement recommendations: HERE
Submit your answer-on-the-show questions: HERE
Subscribe to the podcast to catch every episode. Follow us on Instagram for all the extra education and antics in between episodes at @beautifulonemidwifery
You're at home with Kelly and Tiffany and I am Tiffany. And I am Kelly and we are here to talk about holistic fertility and getting pregnant naturally. What an important topic though, right? Like there's so many women who come to us who want. The best information that they can to. Have like the most connected and intentional preconception space. Or they have been trying to conceive and are on the struggle bus. I mean, yes, the problem. With modern medical support for fertility is that basically you have no instructions whatsoever, but just go have some sex. Just go, try to get pregnant. Do that for a year. And then if there's problems, then we'll massively intervene with medications and invasive procedures and, and, and, and that is just that's backwards. It's so backwards. Yeah, for sure. Especially like, oh, an entire year of trying. And then all of a sudden, oh, there's actually, now we can say that there's a problem. But we're not really going to help you solve the problem. We're just going to throw some stuff at it. And at that point I also recognize how many women are like, please throw the thing to me because. 12 cycles of getting your period when you do not want to see it can be really heartbreaking. So it's sort of this you know, it's like this perfect storm of emotion and desire and confusion and. You know, Lack of education, all kinds of stuff. Oh, for sure. And I don't think I realized what a problem it was until we started seeing well-woman clients who were coming in, because they're like, Hey, we've been trying to get pregnant and it's just not coming together. And do you think something's wrong with me? And I don't want to go off to a doctor yet. Actually. I'm not even allowed to go into my doctor for this for six more months. And how many times we've sat with wind and spent one hour, one hour only of dialing down some fertility stuff and. Later for them to email us and say, thank you so much. I'm pregnant now. And we're like, oh yes, it really is. That's how you do it. Yes. Ah, and certainly there's, you know, like more complicated. Situations and whatever, but the fact that so many of these foundational pieces, and I was going to say, maybe it's simple, not necessarily easy, but like so many of these foundational pieces are just missed. And just not even discussed or whatever. So anyway, I'm excited to share some info. Yes. Nothing that we say here today is to downplay any real true. Infertility issues. We are speaking to women who can use a little bit of extra support to naturally bring things together. In order to get connected to their body is and connected to their cycles and try to make conception happen. Yes. Okay. Before we jump in, I want to read another review because like I mentioned, last week, they are following. Thank you. Thank you ladies. You guys are so thoughtful at first when we put like the call out, I was like, oh, I wonder, I wonder if anybody will like kept looking. I was like, okay, no one has really, but maybe one day. And apparently there was a one day, there was a one day. And you guys will remember, we will buy you a drink. If you send us a message or an email that says, I heard you read my review on the podcast, then we reward you with one drink from Kelly and Tiffany. You're welcome. Okay. But really thank you. The thank you should be enough, but we want to show our thankfulness. Yep. This review is called my favorite podcast. Hm. I like that title. So do I, it's another five star review it's by Kay Lynn, 1, 3, 5, 2. 1 3, 5, 2. Probably not clin. I doubt that that's that. And then I was like, I wonder what 1, 3, 5, 2 means. It's not your birthday. Oh, no. 1 3, 5. Those are all prime numbers in six session. Two. And then too, I just don't get it. Yeah, I don't either. Okay. So, Kaitlin. Okay. If you have answers to our questions about your handle, you can include that in your, Hey, I heard you read my review. Perfect. We would like to know. Okay, this is what she says, Kelly and Tiffany feel like my midwives. I've learned so much from them throughout pregnancy and postpartum and beyond. I always come away from listening. Having gained knowledge, laughed and feeling encouraged. Dude. What a great sweet to the point review and we're doing it. This is what we wanted to do when we started it. We were like, we want to feel like we are your friends that you could sit down and like have a happy hour with kind of thing, chat about some lady stuff, but leave also being like. Yeah, I actually learned, I wasn't getting weird information for people who don't know anything. Right. And so I'm so thankful that the way that we educate and the way that we connect and all of that actually lands with people, read to. It's like, if you're listening right now, you're probably in the right space. Also, this is episode 140. We've come a long way. Maybe it will be a shared have. Okay. Segment. For that podcast. We love us a little segment. Opening segment for preconception habits for optimal health in a future pregnancy. Kelly. Why don't you take it away? I love a good segment. Yes. Okay. So we're going to have four habits, right? That you start preconception. So number one, focusing on your gut health. Happy gut health encourages a decrease in complications, an easier pregnancy overall, more comfort. We all know one of the common side effects in pregnancy also is like just digestive stuff and having a happy gut microbiome is a huge help in all of those things. So that's the first one second one decreasing endocrine disruptors. Those are the things that are going to go on your body in your body, around your body, that sort of mimics some kind of hormone. And. Basically mess up the hormonal discussion that's happening within your body. So if you are kind of thinking or on the fence of these things, this is a hugely helpful preconception habit. Getting rid of a bunch of that stuff. You have a healthier home, healthier family, healthier body, healthier pregnancy, healthier menstrual cycles, healthy or healthier, healthier. So. A worthy endeavor for sure. Number three, focusing on nutrient dense foods. So giving time and effort into what you are putting into your body will absolutely pay off preconception wise. So focusing on protein, all the micronutrients you need. You're, it's true that mineral stores and that same thing, protein micronutrients, all of that prevent most pregnancy complications. So I'll say that again, focusing on those things actually can prophylactically help you prevent complications that can come up in pregnancy. It's a little mind blowing. So clearly a very worthy thing to be focusing on. And then number four, stress management. We live in a stressful world. We live stressful lives. And so focusing on not necessarily getting rid of all the stress, because that's just not going to be possible. But focusing on some rhythms, some plans for keeping stress down or how you are going to respond to it, how you're going to breathe with it, how you're going to mentally categorize some things. But that can lead to, you know, more stable hormones, more stable metabolism, a healthier pregnancy is smoother labor, easier transitions into parenting. For sure, because that in and of itself will for sure be a stressful piece. And so those are four things that if you are in that space of like, Oh, I'm going to have a future pregnancy. What can they do? In my daily life, those four things would be the top of our lists. So if you're listening right now and you are not pregnant yet, and you have an opportunity to optimize some of those pieces, do it. Do it, do it for yourself? Yes, absolutely. We have, we have some episodes in some content that are kind of on the peripherals of this information. One of them is an episode on maximizing conception of episode 70, and I'll link that in the show notes, but we also have a preconception checklist. That's a freebie. You can do instant download and get an entire list for what you should be doing as you're preparing for pregnancy. And I'll put that in the show notes too. I have only had one real. I had three kids and I have had one real season of focusing on preconception easily. My healthiest. Easiest pregnancy labor transition postpartum. Yeah. I mean, I have had one. One event of planning pregnancy, but I did not do any of this preconception stuff. I was not in the know. Yeah. I mean, I didn't do it as quite you know, intentionally as that, but what I did know, I implemented and. New just vastly different experience. If somebody would have told me if you do this, the outcome will be better. If I had that information, I would have utilized it. Yes, for sure. And which is why we're giving some info here. It goes. Okay. So everything in fertility. Starts with a healthy cycle. And anybody who is going to try to sidetrack you into another piece before you focus on your healthy cycle. Is wrong. You need to be tracking your operation. You need to understand the quality of your ovulation in order to be successful in conceiving. You need to know. When your fertility window opens, you need to know when your fertility window peaks, you need to know when your fertility window ends and tracking all of those pieces in order to maximize pregnancy, a lot of people get pregnant on accident. So we are not talking to those people. Nope. We are talking to people who are like, I'm not getting pregnant yet. What gives. Yeah, for sure. And so if you're connected with that type of healthy cycle, what that looks like to even track it, what is your cervical mucus doing? Am I actually Relating to release an egg. Sometimes that has happened. We've had women come in where we have sorted out some things and realize that there's just not quite enough of a peak there. Right. And so we work on more things. And I truly think that understanding your menstrual cycle. I didn't understand until I was an, a. An adult after really after having my first kid that is. In my view, that's just unacceptable. And so understanding it from a young age and really recognizing what is normal versus what is common. It's huge. Absolutely. And then the second piece of fertility is leaving room for concession itself. And I can not tell you how many times we have had discussions with women. In our clinic, who, once we kind of dive down into the details of why they're not getting pregnant, it truly comes down to just not having sex on the right days. Yeah. And you're like, oh, so many missed opportunities there. Right. But then when they realize, oh, that's actually, that's what that means. That's what that, that's what my cycle is telling me. Right then. We actually are able to put the pieces together literally and figuratively to go on and have a baby. Yes. So when you have intercourse, It needs for an in you're trying to get pregnant. It needs to be during your fertile window. Right. There are like 500 million sperm that are deposited next to the cervix deposited. They are slammed. There are 500 million sperms slammed into the back of your vagina, dude. You're welcome. And they gradually get released. Swimming through your cervix, into your uterus and up through the fallopian tubes. There are sperm that get there in as little as five minutes. Those are some hunger sperm. Yeah. And so I think sometimes women are like, oh, well, hopefully it just happens in there. And like sperm can live for five days. So if I just have sex within five days of my ovulation window, that's not actually how it works. Yeah. Certainly. I mean, there's like, Yes, that has that happens, but it's not actually like if you are trying to get pregnant, you don't want to rely on the fact that sperm live for a long time. No. Yeah. In fact, you want the, you want the quick happy swimmers? Yes, they can live for five days, but most sperms fertilization ability only lasts for a couple of days. So you want that sperm slammed into your body? At real hard. Close to the time that your body releases an egg. Yeah, I suppose. I mean, if you're thinking about those guys who can make it up there for, you know, within those, that amount of time. You're kind of assuming that's probably a strong candidate, right? That's a healthy sperm who can swim quickly. Once at enough. Right. Yeah, that, and those are the type of babies that we want to make. Yep. Once your egg is released from your ovary. It only lives for 12 to 24 hours after ovulation. So even though there is some wiggle room here, it's more than just a moment, right? We do have several hours. We do want to try to capitalize on that as much as possible. Yeah, we do. And so you'll keep getting hormones that are being produced for uterine lining in preparation for like that implant implantation. That's going to happen after that sperm gets. You know, the eggs, like yes, you may pass. And conception happens now we're starting to get some hormones that are happening for implantation, and that's going to happen about six to 11 ish days after that conception. Piece happens. Yep. And so you have to conceive and conception happens in the fallopian tubes before. You're happy little baby swims down into your uterus and starts to implant. Yeah. And that's like a little journey that they take together as their. You know, Cells are dividing and. Babies growing. It's wonderful. Okay, let's talk about the role of healthy sperm, because I think sometimes women get blamed for fertility problems more than men. When in fact it's very equally divided statistically. Women who couples who have a difficult time conceiving it's about 40% on the women's side, 40% on the man side. And about 20% is some combined fertility issue. And I think, yeah, I just think it's important because we really do as women carry the brunt of most of this and not to say that men don't care or that they're not involved or anything, but usually if there is an issue, it's almost always let's do a million things to the lady. First, right. And then the men is sort of the, the man's sort of the afterthought. But if you have been trying for six months with like good charting, your menstrual cycle is normal. Your understanding when you are operating and you understand when that's happening, you're having sex around the, you know, those right times, all of that, about six months of that a sperm analysis would be a totally acceptable and encouraged idea at this point. And so. In that whole process, you can get a count, like how many sperm are there? Actually those, you know, 500 ish million guys that are getting. Lambed back there in that sample there's morphology, which is like the percentage of sperm that are normal size, normal shape, you know, like the little swimmer guys that we see, that's the morphology. And then the motility is like how they are actually moving. Are they the we're up there in five minutes, you know, guys? Or are they taking their sweet time and just not really able to actually move well. And so there are actually things you can do to create healthier sperm. And there's ways to kind of. Time intercourse to maximize that healthy sperm count that is there. This is a women's podcast. We're not going to get into that, but it's actually super fascinating. Another like side note also. There's so much information out there right now about like sperm count and what is happening to men's sperm count and all of that. It is really mindblowing. So it is worth it. I know we talk. Obviously we're a women's health. Podcast. It is so worth it. To encourage the man in your life to. Walk the same walk that you are, as you are trying to take care of your body. Well, to, you know, how create a happy space for a baby to grow and to be born and to nurse them afterwards. So important for men to be encouraged to do the same. Absolutely. And Maybe we'll do an episode on sperm one day. It's really, it's really fascinating. And we have a lot of things we can say about sperm. That is true. Not today, folks. Nope. Okay. So infertility as it is diagnosed means one year of timed intercourse and not getting pregnant. And that is what ends up, you know, that's how you get labeled with infertility is basically, you've been trying to get pregnant for a year and you have not. And so, like Kelly said, if you have been working on this and you are dialed in with your cycles and you know that you're fertile and you are giving a lot of great opportunity to the possibility of conception and you're not getting pregnant for six months, do not wait an entire year. Six months is a great time to know you're not going to be able to walk into your doctor's and have, you know, them. Give you the time of day, but you can start to do some other things, including seeing some holistic care providers doing a little bit of digging yourself and understanding what the possible causes could be. For not getting pregnant about 15% of infertility causes are unknown. So that means that 85% of the, of the reason that you're not getting pregnant is discoverable. I just was like, that's the right math, right? Yeah. It is. We've done the wrong math on this podcast before. Yep. Yes, we have. We've done very wrong math on this podcast before and sent. A frantic email to our virtual assistant. Hours later when you're thinking about it, you know, when you are like falling asleep at night and your brain just tries to wrap up a couple things for you and you're like, No, that was way off, really, really off. Carrying the one, man that matters. This was not a caring, the one situation. This is just. Oh, yeah. Home educators. Doing her best. Sometimes we joke that like, you know, if our kids don't do something well, we're like, wow, they're homeschooled. But it's mostly like burn on them. Yeah, but actually it really is just a burden on us. I don't know, ask me a question about some historical facts. I'm like, eh, I don't think he'll use that in everyday life. It's fine. There's Google. We'll find it. Yeah, we'll look it up. If you're that interested, we'll find it. Actually don't use the internet without hold on. Hold on. Okay. Some diagnosable problems can be weak sperm blocked fallopian tubes, menstrual cycle irregularity is poor quality, cervical mucus, endometriosis, pelvic infections, or some other anatomical defect that you just might not even realize that you have. Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking back to a client who came in after over a year of trying and it turned out that her fallopian tubes were both blocked due to like a previous infection of some kind and was able to go. You know, sort through that issue. And go on to get pregnant. It was, she thought that something was wrong. She was doing a million different things to encourage her own fertility, her husband was doing all of the things also when they were like, this doesn't make sense. And there was. You know, that that was sort of the key that unlocked everything. And she went on and got pregnant. Yeah. So lots of hope in going to gather more information. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. So the root causes of every single dysfunction is really important. And in infertility, That is not an exception. We want to know the root causes for why women aren't getting pregnant. One of those is just simply biological. As we get older, our age quality goes down. I know there's a lot of jokes out there about women getting older and harvesting eggs and trying to find a mate real quick to use their eggs up and blah, blah, blah. And. To some degree. Yes. Some women aren't that is going to be an, a major factor for them. Most women are going to have healthy pregnancies. Even, you know, into their late thirties and forties. But your miscarriage rate can rise up to 50% by the time that you're 40, just because your body is like, well, this isn't a healthy pregnancy. Yeah, absolutely. So it's helpful to recognize the way even just biologically we were created, right. To enhance fertility for sure. Another, I think, you know, kind of mentioned about stress support earlier. It's really important to understand what is going on with your stress levels. So the hypothalamus in our brain is going to direct our emotions. Our sleep, our body temperature. And it's also responsible for regulating observation hormones too. And so stress can prevent or delay Right. It can create super long cycles. It can stop you from ovulating altogether. It can cause just really abrupt changes with your fertility. It can be super confusing. You're like, why is everything so dry cervical mucus wise today? And yet tomorrow it's so wet. What is going on here right during that fertile window space too. And so, And helpful one to understand that yes, stress both emotionally and what's going on around you, but also stress that's happening. In your body as well. Are you doing something to stress your body out? Yeah. And that's something that you may not even have a clue or a hint on until you start daily cycle tracking. Yes, absolutely. That's I mean, it's just, there's no end to the helpfulness of tracking your cycle and I will include some information in the show notes for you guys who are like, okay, fine, fine, fine. I'm going to track my cycle. We will give you some additional education on that. The other thing to be aware of is hormonal birth control a history of using oral contraceptives puts women, not even just oral contraceptives, but any contraceptives that has a hormonal component to it. Puts women at an increased risk of irregular cycles. IE. And we're also learning that it can actually damage the cervical crypts that produce your fertile mucus. So when you're at your ambulation time and your, your discharge turns to that release sticky egg YT. Discharge you need that discharge in order to allow your sperm to get up in through your cervix. It's actually what. Propels your sperm and allows it to get inside for conception. And so if you don't have that healthy cervical mucus and the Crips of your cervix are actually like, It sounds crazy, right? It's such a great word. It's, but that's what they're called. They're called cervical Crips. And it's the place that produces and stores and releases this really good high quality fertile mucus for you. If those have been damaged because of hormonal contraceptives, you are going to need to do a lot of work in order to get those healthy and regenerated again. Yeah. If, if you are somebody who has been on hormonal birth control of any kind and are trying to get pregnant now and are not. There's a lot of things that you can be focusing on to kind of, Bring your body back into like a state of normalcy. It just depletes a lot of things. And that is a huge one in terms of actually getting pregnant for sure. Another thing to consider too is just your general body composition. So women need about 20% body fat to ovulate. Okay. So if you're underweight or just have low fat stores that can interfere with normal hormone production, it can interfere with ovulation. But on the flip side also being overweight can increase estrogen production and cause irregular cycles and delayed ovulation too. And so there's definitely this happy medium that your body wants to find. It wants to find some stability. So there may be some need for you to focus on pulling back and getting down to sort of the. The foundations of supporting your body just holistically metabolically. When I was doing, I did a metabolic health 1 0 1 course for our members in our membership. And it was mind blowing to me. It helped me so much learning new things, but also just pulling everything together to understand how much this piece actually affects every aspect of how our bodies function. And so, It definitely matters. I think it's helpful to mention also the overexercising or extreme dieting of some kind can also cause hormonal irregularities as well. And so sometimes that comes back to body composition. Sometimes that comes back to just all that stress kind of coming back to that idea that stress really does. It can come from within as well. Absolutely. The last bit of root cause for infertility that we want to share with you, our endocrine disorders. And so this is where you need somebody's help to do some lab work, take a good thorough history of you and kind of point you in a direction to solving some of these pieces. But some hormonal conditions that affect women's abilities to conceive could be polycystic ovarian syndrome or P cos diabetes, pituitary dysfunction, and thyroid disease. And so if any of those pieces are potentially a part of your own personal picture most of that we'll have to get under control before you can have a normal, healthy time conceiving. Yeah, for sure. So there's honestly, like, I know we go through that and it's like, that might feel like a lot, especially if you were in this season of trying to sort through a lot of this, but there's so much that can be done holistically to. You know, balance your hormones to regulate that cycle, that you're confused by to improve your cervical mucus to encourage and induce even ovulation. To nourish with food, with food and like run blood work, all kinds of stuff. Right. And so it's there's just, it may feel a little overwhelming. Right? You can look at that and be like, there's so much though. There's so much hope, but what do I actually do with that? Which is why we are super excited to share with you that we have every piece of those strategies mentioned in more inside our holistic fertility handbook. So it is new to y'all. 41 pages chock full of natural approaches to fertility. So within it, we're talking preconception information, we're talking medical self-advocacy to just. Amidst all of that discussion, especially about how hard it is sometimes to get good in fertility and just general fertility support information about trying to conceive early pregnancy and miscarriage protocols are in there as well. A time that can be very confusing. You potentially may not have even seen a care provider yet. So we wanted to make sure we added that in there. And then also to the people who are in a space of like, The not quite yet, don't want to be pregnant quite yet about avoiding pregnancy. It's all in there in this incredible handbook. Only$22 for you live. In the shop now. I hope you take advantage of that ladies, because it is a little sneak peek of what is available inside of our membership. Every single month, we are releasing these types of materials and education and hand holding and protocols, and really specific dialing down here is how you blank. Navigate all the different things that have to do with women's health. And so here's one thing that we want to share with you, but of course, all of this is available for free inside the membership. So you join, you pay one low monthly fee. And you have access to every single product that we have made, including this really great handbooks. So just another shout out for ways to connect to more education, more material and just continue on your journey through women's health and letting us. Be a part of that a little bit more. Yeah. Thank you so much. And we will catch you next week. My.