By 2045, Sperm Counts Could Hit Zero: Vida Delrahim on Trimester Zero & The Male Fertility Crisis | Ep 60

Vida Delrahim was 14 weeks pregnant when her OBGYN went silent and said the words she'll never forget: "I'm so sorry. There's no heartbeat." A year later, after a second miscarriage with no medical explanation, she got a phone call from her best friend Ronit — who had lost her pregnancy the same week. WeNatal was born from that call.

In this episode, Vida sits down with Aimee to talk about the fertility conversation no one is having: that men are 50% of the equation, that sperm counts have dropped 50% in two generations, and that Dr. Shanna Swan's research projects we could effectively reach zero sperm by 2045. She unpacks "trimester zero" — the 90 days before conception that may matter more than anything else — and why the term geriatric pregnancy is one of the most damaging labels in modern medicine.

If you've ever been told you're "too old," that your labs are "normal," or that fertility is "a women's issue" — this conversation will change how you think about your body, your partner, and the future of reproductive health.

Head over to wenatal.com/THEMANAGEHER to start your WeNatal routine today, and receive a free magnesium supplement ($30 value) with your first prenatal subscription.

Connect with Vida & WeNatal: Website: https://wenatal.com Instagram: @vidadelrahim · @we_natal TikTok: @wenatal

Connect with The Manage Her: Web: https://www.themanageher.com IG / TikTok / YouTube / LinkedIn: @themanageher

Transcript

0:07

Today's guest is someone who is quietly leading a revolution in how we think about fertility, health, and preparation for motherhood, and honestly, for life. I'm sitting down with Vida Delrahim, co-founder of WeNatal, a company that was born not out of theory, but out of lived experience, deep questioning, and a refusal to accept normal as good enough. WeNatal wasn't built from theory. It was built after both founders experienced miscarriage and refused to accept no answers as an outcome. That moment became the catalyst for a deeper investigation into what we're being told about fertility, about the role of both partners, and about the gap between what's considered normal and what's actually optimal. In this conversation, we're going to talk about why normal lab results don't always mean optimal health, the global fertility crisis that no one's talking about, why men are 50% of the fertility equation and why they've been left out, and something called trimester zero, the three months before conception, and that may matter more than anything else. This conversation is part science, part story, and part wake-up call. And if you've ever thought about having children or supporting someone who is, this episode is essential. Vida, thank you so much for being here on The Manager today. So let's start. Could you tell me your story? It's such a powerful entry into this conversation. Can you take us back to what led you to start WeNatal? Yes. And thank you for having me. I'm so excited for our chat and feel connected to what a powerhouse you are. So it's funny because like many founders, it wasn't really in our roadmap. Ronit and I became best friends at our Nike corporate careers over 20 years ago, literally going through our young single lives together, climbing our corporate ladders, dating at the same time, getting married around the same time, and always thought we might once want to work together because we were so connected, but never really knew what would come out of the heartbreak of our pregnancy losses and so how it began was around eight years ago ronit and i were at nike i i specifically was leading massive global events for nike and my job was really to think through the athletes you know every footstep and how to make them from good to great and knowing what prep goes into making athletes Amazing. And what sometimes shaving an ounce of off their shoe or apparel could be the difference between gold and silver. And so I spent my life being, you know, so conscious of the details and what it takes to be great at your craft. And when it came to pregnancy, I treated it like a casual job. I was like, we're young, we're healthy. You know, we've married a couple of years. We should just start trying like many of us. And got pregnant and went in for a 14-week ultrasound, which should have been a routine checkup. I had already told everyone because I was past the first trimester, which many of us are told you're safe after the first trimester. Only to see my OBGYN's face drop. The room goes silent. And he looked at me and just said, I'm so sorry. There's no heartbeat. Words I will never forget. It's the worst. The worst. The heartbreak. the, you know, driving home, crying so hard, your jaw aches. And for me specifically, I started scrutinizing everything I've ever done from the stress at work to maybe the workout, the soul cycle class. Was it too much caffeine? Because I love coffee. Was it, you know, I could have picked any of those things, but I, I went into this deep depression wondering what I did to cause it or deserve it. Luckily for me, Ronit was my best friend. She had just had her daughter. She was now working for Dr. Mark Hyman, who is a big name in functional medicine. And she encouraged me to go beyond everything. You know, my doctor just looked at me and said, you know, it's very common, it's normal, just keep trying when you're ready. But she said, you know, look beyond your labs, look beyond what they're saying is normal. And she encouraged me and lo and behold, found out I have Hashimoto's, which is a thyroid disorder, worked on my, you know, diet, lifestyle, nutrition, got everything in order. And in that process of going deeper, I was able to get myself in a healthier state and have my baby girl, Dahlia, who's now eight years old. And, you know, I thought the nightmare was over. I thought I had learned everything about prenatal care. I am now taking care of myself. I'd remove more toxins from my world to fast forward to spring of 2020 amidst the COVID chaos. We were, we were both trying for our seconds, went in for another routine checkup to get that same deafening silence. And I was there having my second miscarriage was dismissed, just told, you know, it just happens. The only thing that changed for me was a week later, my best friend calls me and the same exact thing happened to her. Oh, I knew she had the perfect prenatal care routine. She was working for the best doctors. She knew everything to do and she was given the same, you know, probably her age. She was 41 at the time. You know, she was given no answers, but thank goodness she was working in the functional medicine space. So she knew there's more to the story and she started doing crazy amounts of research. and uncovered the stats about men being 50% of pregnancy health and men literally on high dose antioxidants, four to five times being able to improve the likelihood of their partner having not only a healthy pregnancy, a healthy child and giving them their lifelong genetics. And I remember Amy, the day she called me, I remember where I was and what I was wearing because it was so basic. It's like intuitive. We know it takes two to make a baby. But the fact that I had had multiple losses, my husband was standing in the room for both of them and not a single person turned to him to even ask him a question about his diet, his lifestyle. And here he was living his best life, doing whatever he wanted. I was literally analyzing the shampoo and the skincare I put on my body to see if I could Something is the same thing that stopped us in our tracks. We said, why is no one talking about men's health? Why is there not men's prenatals on the market, especially with the research about these high dose antioxidant? So what we did, Ronit put us on a protocol. she put our husbands on a protocol with all the research. The men agreed to, you know, a couple months, three months. And we'll talk about trimester zero of no toxic behaviors. No, you know, cleaning it up. We both had our second daughters, you know, a couple months apart. And literally that became our, why we're like, we need to make fertility a team sport. We need to educate about the optimism of having kids later in life and the joys of it. And not, I was called geriatric. I was like damaged at the time. So, Yeah, because if you're over 35, you're geriatric, right? And Ronit had her second daughter healthy at 42 on her first try. So my point is there's so much more to the story. There's so much we can do. There's so much optimism and it is a two player game and it's time for the narrative to change. It's time for, you know, fertility to not be a women's health issue, but to be a team sport. And so that's why we needle was born. Yes. Four years in, we've helped over 30,000 people who wanted to have kids become parents. And we're just on the start. We're just at the beginning of what we hope to be. Millions. Amazing. Vida, good job. Way to turn something that's, you know, making lemonade out of lemons. That's like our family motto. I love that. Sometimes you don't know why these negative things are happening to you or you blame yourself, which Lord knows I did. But you don't always have the foresight. Like if I didn't have that second miscarriage a week apart from my best friend, while it was the most devastating life experience, it was in my path And I'm so grateful for that soul who came for that short amount of time because it opened up my life's mission. And now we're able to help so many people behind us. And so just a little bit of hope for anyone going through a hard time. Sometimes we don't always know why it's there, but knowing it's there for a reason and having that amount of faith can dramatically improve your outlook and your perspective and will hopefully lead to miracles down the road. Absolutely. I feel like that's such the mindset shift from victim to, this is happening for me, not to me, is such a big one. And I see it a lot with the women that are on my show, that they have this, maybe they've always had this mindset, or maybe this mindset came along for them at some point in their lives where they realized, this is bigger than me. This is happening for us. How can we make this work for us? Yeah. It's amazing. Amazing. Well, it's just to have a friend that to walk you through and be with you guys? And how did you guys building this together after going through this experience? How did that change the way that you built WeNatal? Yeah. So, you know, our mission was so simple. It was to give everyone behind us what we didn't have. So it was about, you know, when we literally sat at our local Whole Foods with a Google doc called Bestie Co and opened a doc and said prenatal care for her and him. And it was all about three simple things. First of all, it was like community over isolation. You need a village, but no one talks about the village that you need before you start trying because we're all having kids later in life. Our world is more toxic. You want that shoulder to cry on. God forbid you have a loss or something bad happens. And so community, and we are the community for, you know, for our, for our people. Um, it was about education over fear because, you know, I have friends and family who are being fear mongered, you know, IVF is your only choice, or you have unexplained infertility or you're 25 and it's too late. You should have frozen your eggs by now. I can't even tell you, you know, we were so grateful for the assisted reproductive technology. It's miracles and helping so many people. However, no matter what we talk about today, this foundation of getting healthy and the things you can do will only help your outcomes in any route that you take those, you know, IVF clinics and some of them are multi-billion dollar industries. It's a 20 billion overall industry. And so you have to know that some of them do have quotas. Some of them are pushing you maybe for what's in their best interest and not yours. And being an advocate in your health journey and everything is such an important part of your journey, not just to parenthood, but in life. And so much of that starts before you have kids to know how to read labels, to know what you're ingesting, to know how to advocate for yourself and find a doctor that meets your needs might be great for your friend, but if you don't vibe with your doctor, it's okay to find someone who you feel safe and supported with. And so that became our why. And then really it was about creating a better choice for prenatals because we realized the supplement space is not regulated and there's no FDA telling people what they can or can't do. So anyone could put out anything and it's scary. Yes. As long as it's generally regarded as safe, grasp. They're basically unregulated. When we brought Mommalicious to market, I was shocked at the process in the US versus the process in Canada. Because in Canada, you have to go through Health Canada. They look at every single ingredient and who you're buying it from, where it's sourced from, every single ingredient that's in your product. We don't have that with the FDA here. So it is an eye-opener for sure. I agree. And I honestly wish every country was as rigorous as Canada. We love them and there's a huge wellness audience there. But Really, I guarantee you 90% of what's on the shelves wouldn't pass that Canadian checkpoint because there isn't the clean. So what we needle was born on is like clean, potent, pure. We have some of the best doctors who formulated based on clinical research, every ingredient, every dose, but also the most important PSA coming out of this is if you're taking supplements, please make sure they are third-party tested. That means an outside agency is checking to make sure what's on the label is really what you're getting And it's free of toxins, fillers, molds. I mean, there's so many. Heavy metals. Exactly. Yeah. So there is so much to this world that we uncovered when we were taking our own supplements. And that's why WeNatal was born. You're amazing. It's amazing what women can do when we're on a mission and you put two moms together on a mission and it's just like we can change the world. It's just such an important way that we celebrate women in seeing that our life experiences shape what we do and how we influence the world and how we're able to help other people with the companies that we form. We are motivated by different things than men. in a lot of ways. And so when a woman is doing a thing in a woman's way, it's usually very purpose-driven. You know, the purpose first, purpose first. And so, okay, so you said something that really stuck with me when we talked last week. Normal isn't always optimal. Can you unpack that for us in the context of women's health and fertility? Absolutely. So just in general, when we get our lab work done, our physical once a year, we're getting labs and the range is massive. They're comparing you to everyone in the country, which we know most of our country is sadly very unhealthy. We have an obesity issue. We have blood sugar issues. We have so many, you know, we have rising issues of infertility due to PCOS, endometriosis, you name it. And so that range is massive. So if you're just in the range, they tell you you're fine. Fine isn't optimal. Optimal is actually doing everything to their best level, getting above Average. Getting your vitamin D. You're all the crucial levels of nutrients that we know not only support the parents health, supports the baby's health, brain health. You want to reduce inflammation with a high quality omega and so just in layman's terms, look at that range. You don't just want to like just make it or be and really, most often, you know, doctors are well intentioned but they look and everything's green, which means you're somewhere in this massive range, and they're telling you you're fine, which was my case. I then went to specialists. I knew I had brain fog and hair loss, all the things associated with thyroid disorders, but I was just brushing under the rug as a 20 year corporate executive who's busy, who doesn't have time to dig deeper. And I went to, you know, an endocrinologist found out I went deeper and that's when they uncovered. And so a lot of the labs are very basic. They're comparing you to everyone in the nation. And you want to just not pass. You want to be in that top quarter percent, which means you have the right nutrients. Your health is setting the stage. And arguably, this is the most important time in your life where you just don't want to make it through pregnancy. And go back to my athlete example. You want to thrive because the genes you are giving your children, it's not just for baby. It's for their lifelong health. And I wish more people would realize that this trimester zero, this three to six months before they try to conceive is this window of opportunity. It is as if you signed up for the LA marathon, you wouldn't sign up today and run tomorrow. You would hopefully buy the shoes, get a training plan, put the work in, start with one mile, get to 26 miles. Like there's so much we do to prep for our wedding day or even, our nursery or our baby shower. I know people have spent months planning a nursery, but yet literally the lifelong health of their kids, we're just rushing and we're told we're too old and you should have started yesterday. And so that's actually counter to what you think. If, even if you are having kids later in life, which by the way, is the new normal, more women are having kids in their forties and their twenties. So I want everyone to hear that, that it's not, you're not geriatric. You are doing what's right for you. Yeah. I had three kids over 35. I had one at 35. I had one at 40 and I had one at 43. And a lot of our kids feel empowered. Like it's amazing to have a career and be able to have kids later in life and be in a different stage, no matter which journey you take. I just don't want anyone to feel damaged or what I felt, which was like, I'm too old. I'm lucky if I even get pregnant. And that was kind of the words that were told to me. So it is powerful. It's a time where you have options and yeah, we're so passionate about the education because it can make a difference. Yeah, absolutely. I know, you know, one of the reasons that my mom and I got into this space all those years ago, it was like 14 years ago now, but it was because my mother was born with spina bifida. If my grandmother had folate in her diet, not folic acid, which is what's added to all of our food, we carry a gene called MTFHR. If you have MTFHR, and if you are trying to get pregnant, please get tested for it. 40% of the population carries this gene. You cannot convert folic acid into folate. And if you can't, your children really are at a risk of neural tube defects, one of those being spina bifida. So my mom has had this lifelong condition due to her mother's diet and this genetic condition that her mother had that she has as well. And I'm so glad that she, you know, then my mother went on to be an organic chemist and a doctor of pharmacology. And when I got married, she handed me Adele Davis's book called let's have healthy children. And so I started, you know, I was, I didn't get pregnant right away. I really struggled with fertility all through my twenties, 25 to 30. I did not get pregnant. Had the Hashimoto's, the PCOS, the metabolic syndrome, all of the above. When I finally did get pregnant, it was really because I had gotten my health in shape. I had finally gotten my body healthy enough to carry a baby, I think. That was it. But I had to be willing to do the work to do that. It was a lot of work. 100%. And first of all, your mom is a trailblazer, also ahead of her time, but making lemonade out of lemons. 100%. I wish more people knew about MTHFR. I also have it. there's a big, you know, PSA and it's based on old research. As long as you have folic acid, every prenatal is the same, just take one. And it couldn't be further from the truth. We need all their ingredients are bioavailable, which means we have the ingredients and the forms that everyone could absorb no matter our genetic mutations, which I also have. And so you've learned that sadly through hardship, but it's so important for everyone to know. And again, these, it's not normal testing. People just start trying, but Getting both partners, it's just knowledge is power. And so using that time to really level up your health like you would if it was your wedding day and you wanted to get in shape, seeing what the level playing field is for both of your health conditions can only make your options better, stronger. And same as me, I was in such a high stress job, high powered executive, adrenal fatigue, 20 years in corporate. And, you know, after I came out of that and worked with a functional medicine doctor, she's like, you literally, your body thinks you're being chased by a bear every single day. That's not only not normal, it's moving the blood to your limbs to run. Likely you're sitting in an office, probably snacking. You're not only not only using the energy, that stress is creating havoc in your body. I just learned it from such a like layman's term that like we're all stressed, whether it's that text message, the constant screen time. We're all consuming so much more, sitting more, not outdoors enough, you know, sedentary lifestyles, eating over processed food, which is stresses in the body and the more mental stress that we all have. And so what that amounts to is it can't. it's harder to prioritize conception than maybe if you were living at just a more healthy outdoor active lifestyle, like maybe our grandparents were. And so it's just education. It's like, Hey, go back to the basics, get a little more sunlight, get a little movement before the meetings. I take some of my calls on zoom and I walk around the block. I try to get up more. I also prioritize sleep, which is so underrated, but as arguably you only had one thing in your fertility chart, journey to prioritize. It's free and it's so important. It's the only time your body could restore everything that's happened to it during the day and the toxic world we're living in. But it's really back to the basics. So it's like eight hours of sleep. Eight hours, quality sleep. Listen, I invest in Oura Ring because sometimes you could be in 10 hours, but you're not getting enough deep sleep or REM sleep. And so I also believe that sometimes too much information can be stressful, right? I had to break up with my Oura Ring for a But I will say like finding a rhythm that works for you, whether it's sleeping earlier or, you know, maybe scrolling a little bit less at night. For me, I could not not scroll. So I've bought, you know, the red light, blue, black and glasses. I bought red light bulbs for our bedroom. I try to do some things to combat it. Listen, I'm also not saying like take away the joys of life. Some people love to get in bed and watch a show or do the things. It's about the 80-20 rule. It's about empowering yourself with the knowledge that works, but also really doing your best to... reduce some of these things that could be damaging our health. Yeah. I always tell my husband, it's like, we're our own zookeeper in a lot of ways. because we do live in these animal bodies and we have to do our best to kind of serve and maintain these bodies that we live in. And Our bodies, we are animals. So animals need the right amount of sleep. They need to sleep at the right time of day. Epigenetics have taught us that certain epigenetic functions only run at certain hours of the night. So if you're not asleep when those functions are supposed to run, those systems can't run. So those protocols that should be running while you're sleeping, you're going to miss those protocols. There's certain things we really, with all of the scientific information that we have now, we've never been in a better position to maintain these bodies. We understand what they need, but in a lot of ways, we're so entertained and so distracted and we have to like change our intention so that we can get back to this place of being really good stewards of the bodies that we're in. I love what you said about we are inherently animals, and it is back to the basics. It's almost like we all have iPhones. So imagine our world in the last 50 years has changed so dramatically. Consider it iOS 15, the software, the inputs, the toxicity, the plastics. It is so different than the way our grandparents grew up. And here we are. iPhone 1 is our body, right? So it's like so much new data trying to be processed by old software you know like hardware yes and it's it's really hard and so it there's a mismatch between what's happening in our environment and what our body is trying to keep up with yes and that's why we say like the more you can go back to the sleep the quality food eating the rainbow less processed more sunlight just think about our ancestors those are the same things that support fertility are lifelong health. So no matter what stage of life your audience is listening in is in, this is crucial for like longevity and biohacking. And you hear all these fun buzzwords and you're being told to buy all the things in the wellness space. But really, I would say if you have a dollar to spend, go back to the basics, a clean water filter, bringing plants indoors, opening up windows because the air outside is cleaner than the air in our homes. And these are the things that we're so passionate about educating on because it doesn't have to be so complicated. We're really trying to support people on the things that they can do. Yeah. And your fertility is a reflection of your overall health. as a human being. So there's nothing wrong with improving our overall health. This is really good for us so that we can have longer lives, so we can live healthier lives. Fertility is just one function of this. But for me, I feel like because of my struggles, because of my fertility journey that I was on, I'm in much better health at 47 than I would have been had I not gone through those struggles. Had I not learned how to maintain my human body and eat like a human, I really went back to the basics. I read a Victoria Butenko's book, Green for Life, which was all about green smoothies. And kind of like if we were, you know, living more of a forager hunter gatherer life, which our bodies kind of evolved for, we would be eating a lot more green leafy vegetables than we do. You know, you look at the ape diet, and it's primarily green leafy vegetables. But you know, if an ape had its way, it would go for processed sugar every time. Yeah. And you look at us and we're like, oh, look, we've basically escaped the zookeeper and now we're eating what an ape would eat if they could eat anything they wanted, which is really bad for your health. It is really addictive. We've all had the potato chips or the dessert and wanting more. I mean, what was fascinating to me, I heard a podcast where they basically said once nicotine wasn't a thing and there was all the PSAs about it destroying people's health, those same chemists and people who are putting together the things that made nicotine addictive moved on to processed foods. So think of your favorite Cheetos and chips. They're literally putting like more salt, more of that, like, and they're yummy and they're addictive and we all get it. really here to say is that it shouldn't be the majority. Right now, Americans, 70% of their diet is ultra processed foods. You need to reverse the script and get back to whole foods. And listen, again, back to the joys of life. If you do love it, it's the 80-20 rule for me. I'll still eat out. And you know, when you're eating out, you're probably getting seed oils and not as healthy meats. But you're enjoying life and the things that make you happy, if it is a glass of wine or if it is But not letting that be the everyday should be the exception and not the rule. Yeah. It's like when we're on vacation, I let the kids kind of eat whatever they want. And but it's part of our vacation plan. My like, oh, it's the only time my kids can have Lucky Charms. And it's like, OK, we go to Cabo and these all inclusives, the food is out there. So you're right. You have to let it happen. I can't control everything. And in fact, the stress of me trying to control everything is only going to damage me. And that's what I've learned. Because I am a bit of a control freak. Exactly. I know. But I mean, I feel like most type A women are, you know, I want to control everything. But the more you can learn to surrender every once in a while, it's healthy for us. It's good for our adrenals. Keep us from cortisol dumping over things we have no control over. And I think, again, back to knowledge. I don't know if you've watched the Plastic Detox. Oh, so good. Now that we know Lucky Charms, we're like, oh, my God, the colors that you like. Yes. Petroleum-based products in our food. You don't really think of how much petroleum our children are eating or being exposed to by even like food wrappers, food containers, the forks or plates that they're eating off of, the plastic cups. They're toys. Yes. Or I was just in the gym this morning and literally I saw one of those air fresheners go poof. And I was like, oh, my God, we're all breathing in plastic. This is ballet. Yeah. Yes. It's around us. Again, I can't control every environment. You go to airports and they're very, you know, fragrant. Oh, yes. It's around us. And I think we shouldn't go crazy. It's easier said than done. It's hard to unsee things. But knowing that, like, you control what you can control. In your home. Yeah. Yeah. In our home, it's funny. It's all about the clean cleaning products, green clean cleaning products. You don't realize how toxic the cleaning products are until you're trying to get pregnant. Oh my God, the shampoo, the body wash, the fragrances that we put on our skin, the lotions that have fragrance in them. Women especially are super exposed to lots of toxic stuff. A lot. Cosmetics. Like, yeah, the kitchen and the bathroom are probably hiding the most toxins in your life. And this is not like a... you know, a fear mongering, get rid of everything in your house. What we say is like, Hey, when you learn one thing, if you run out of Clorox in your house, can you find like a branch basics or a Levant or like cleaner plant-based brands? If you run out of mascara, there are so many amazing beauty brands now that are way cleaner. Like when we first started this brand 10 years ago, it was a little bit more granola finding clean brands. Now Sephora has a whole clean beauty section and people are, there's way better options is my point. And so don't be scared, be empowered. And when you run out of one thing, maybe it's a nonstick pan, maybe get cast iron or stainless steel. And when you run out of your body wash, get a cleaner form. And so we have a clean brand database. We also have a free guide on our website. We'll link it all. But there are resources and our point is not to freak you out, but more just to give you the tools because... These micro acts do build up to get to your point. You did all these things and had your healthy children. And same with me. I was working at Nike. I thought I was wellness focused, but I actually didn't know until I really started to like pull back the covers and learn. Yeah, yeah. Knowledge is power, right? So the more we know, if you don't know, you're not going to be able to make informed decisions about the products that are in your household that are going to influence your health, your husband's health, your children's health. But the more informed that women are on the manager, it's all about how can women learn more because the more a woman knows... We do a lot with information. Our knowledge influences all of the people around us. It goes not just to our husbands, our children. It can also influence our parents and our parents making healthier choices. So it's one of those things. If you're interested in healthy beauty, I have an episode with Laura of Roots Beauty. It's an early one. I want to say it's like episode 10. So if you're interested in clean beauty, go check out that episode. Yeah, Laura Linsenmeier. That episode is good if you're interested. in learning about healthy beauty and how, you know, I studied art history. So for me, when I studied Edo period Japan, the thing that stuck with me, Vida, was that the geisha only lived to be about 29 years old because they were using lead to make their faces white. White. Yeah. So it's like how many, and to me, every time I watched my older daughter who uses a lot of toxic makeup, I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is the exact same thing. Well, and I didn't even know up until, you know, when I got into this world that our biggest organ is our skin and it absorbs everything. So it makes sense that they didn't know in the products. I mean, it's just like these colors that are in our lipstick that have been banned in other countries, you know? So it is important to be empowered, especially for our kids because these are hormone disruptors. It could be affecting your daughter's fertility down the line. And so empowering them with good choices and us. And I'd say, again, our... our skin is an important one. So everyone should watch that episode because we want to put things on our skin that like it's like as you're eating it, you would think that, you know, think of it that crucially. Yeah, absolutely. I have another one about toxic clothes too. Another episode with another fabulous woman who does organic clothing because we're also, because of our skin being one of the largest organs, we don't really think about the plastics exposure that we're also getting from textiles, our clothes that we wear. We're wearing loungewear. We're all sweating in it. It has plastics in it and you're absorbing those plastics. Yeah. It's just to know. To know is to learn to To learn is to change. And it's one of those, it's just that women having these kinds of conversations, if we can just help one woman just to learn just a little bit more, it affects the whole world. When one woman knows something, she's not just going to keep it to herself. like laugh because like a lot of people have you seen on their baby registries, they'll have like detergent just for the baby. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're like holding the baby, you're nursing the baby, you're burping the baby, your clothes needs to be clean too. And so no matter these steps we take, not only will help your fertility journey or overall health, but it's the home you want to welcome a child into anyway, right? Like they're going to be touching the windows and the things you want that Windex to be a cleaner form, crawling on the floors, you know, habits are just like lifelong habits. You don't just have to be in a fertility journey to care about this stuff. This is stuff that all of us should be consumed with because of what we're being spewed out with, you know, products and sadly, just like the air and the food we're given. Absolutely. And one of the things that I love that you guys are talking about is bringing men into this conversation about fertility. It has been too long. Why has this been overlooked and what are we missing because of it? Oh my God, Amy, this one is like near and dear to my heart because like I said, there I had two losses. I had scrutinized. I've been depressed. I've been through the ringer. about why my body kept failing me. It's societal history. The only explanation I have is like, you know, it's kind of like the geisha girls. They didn't know women's are carrying the babies. And for the longest time, we've been the ones scrutinized and making fertility a woman's health issue. Now that we know literally sperm health is not just, you know, like we knew it takes two, but for some reason, even though men's health work is usually very studied. I feel like there's a little bit of ego in this that the men could do no wrong and their swimmers are just fine. But the reality is now that we've pulled back the covers, now that the research is coming out, there's researchers like Dr. Shauna Swan, who basically said by 2045, there could be no sperm. No sperm, like none, like spermageddon. So close. That's like less than 20 years away. And no one's talking about this. Vita, why? It's unbelievable. We're talking about endangered species, the global climate crisis. We're talking about all these things. We are an endangered species. And the reality is men today have 50% of the sperm their grandfathers did. And if the trends continue, it's looking pretty scary. And so why this mission is so important is to educate people because no matter where you are in your life, we need to be boosting our health, our wellness. This is the health we're our future children. And I'm talking about the people who want to have kids who are struggling and don't know why. So first of all, we need to level up and both partners need to get on board, get their health in order, reduce the toxins, eat well, and supplement is like supplementing is like the lowest hanging fruit because our food quality, as you know, Amy is not what it once was. No, it's not. That is our biggest announcement, but why it's happening. I think it's, it, the narrative is changing. There's more and more brands talking about this global fertility crisis that the sperm decline, plastics are a huge part of it, the toxic exposure we're getting, cell phones in the pocket. Men don't even know some behaviors that are quite healthy like saunas and jacuzzis actually when you're trying to conceive or not because sperm is very sensitive to heat. Right. education and taking a little bit of the stigma away from men getting checked. And there's so many amazing at home sperm testing kits. We use legacy and there's a bunch out there. And so what's great is like to your point about the knowledge is power. You don't have to go to a sterile doctor's office. You could do at home tests. You both can start to dig deeper and really see what you need to get ready for that marathon together and show up on race day and be prepared and not fall flat. Yeah, it really is. I thought of myself as training for a marathon with my fertility journey. And by the time I got, finally, five years later, got pregnant with my first child, I just, all the way through, it was... I didn't even, it was perfection with the food, perfection with the, with the skincare, you know, everything I could do not to expose this baby and to, to keep him as healthy as possible, um, to have a healthy birth. He did, I had a healthy birth with him. It was an easy birth, but it was, you challenging thing to carry a baby to term to give birth and to get through that fourth trimester which is like the you know on the other side of the third trimester to get through the fourth trimester totally and actually a lot of people including myself before i knew about we natal like literally like oh i had the baby i can stop taking vitamins no and Yes, and I got my first ever root canal. I broke a toe just like bumping into the couch. I became so depleted because now I was sleep deprived. I was feeding her nonstop and I didn't know. And so fourth trimester, please stay on your high quality food, high quality supplementation because you are now more depleted taking care of another human and likely sleep deprived and likely, you know, might be feeding or whatever the case may be and when you're nursing, you really need extra, you knew you really do. If you want to have high quality milk, you want to have good milk supply. You need to continue with your prenatal vitamin throughout your nursing journey and with these babies. Yeah. because it's women don't stop on four trimester. And by the way, some, and your hair will be beautiful. So just go with it. hair fall out at four months. Again, I didn't know. That's why. Some people say postpartum could last five to seven years. And I feel it. My youngest is now five and I'm just starting to feel like myself again and get back in shape. And so again, not here to scare you. Our food system is not as nutritious as it once was. So our soil is depleted. We're not getting the minerals. And then apparently the way that glyphosate works, it actually blocks your body's ability to get the minerals out of the food too. So we're seeing people with like glycine deficiencies, glycine is amino acid. If you're glycine deficient, your hair will fall out. What? It's just the science behind all of this stuff. It's we really, at least we're understanding what's happening. Exactly. And we have answers and, you know, make sure you're doing the research because sometimes we're also taught to believe this is just postpartum or this is normal. Everyone's hair falls out at four months. It doesn't have to be. No, it doesn't. Exactly. Yeah. If your nutrition is adequate or adequate plus, your hair will actually maybe stay beautiful for years. I have a three-year-old. My hair is just finally starting to thin out on me a little. Oh, it looks gorgeous. It's cool. We have customers who write in like, after we natal, my second postpartum was so much easier. I was happier. I had postpartum depression after my first because my life so drastically changed and I stopped taking my supplements. So I was so out of it. But now you learn a lot of that is nutrient depletion. And so again, just taking care of yourself is more than just a self care routine. It's about replenishing everything you're giving. Yeah. And mama is the most important person in the house. You got to take care of her. Honestly, because if you can't, if you aren't well, you can't take care of anyone else. So it's, you are worth it. You know, you have to take care of you. You really do. When you're a mom, you have to realize now you are a VIP, very, very important person. I agree. The household runs on you and so taking care of yourself doesn't, you know, it shouldn't be like a nice to have. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else we need to know about trimester zero? Like we get it. It's critical. What should we be doing? Is there anything else we can do to improve this trimester zero? also say why it's so important. So men and women, men are regenerating sperm every second of the day. So they are the superheroes that no matter what batch of sperm they're currently holding in 72 days, they could have a completely new situation with clean food, with supplementation, with diet, exercise movement. There's like studies that say men who take 4,000 steps can dramatically improve their testosterone and sperm. So it's like, that's not even a lot by the way, basic movement. So 72 days for men and Oh, by the way, one of the biggest myths we love to dispel is that women, you're just stuck with the eggs that you have. Have you heard that before? Oh, yeah. totally, you know, June and gloom. And while it's true for quantity, yes, we have a certain number when we're born the most we'll ever have. And every month we reduce them. No one's talking about the quality and you need one good egg. The egg is maturing is this amazing time of opportunity where you can improve egg quality. And that's actually why we came out with a supplement called egg quality. Plus there's targeted nutrients for all of us who are having kids later in life or may have experienced loss that improve the mitochondria of the cell. And the egg has the most mitochondria in your body. And so those hundred days, call it three months for both partners are this huge window of opportunity. And so it literally goes back to everything we just spoke about. Supplementing is the lowest hanging fruit, great quality, potent bioavailable and third-party tested. I would say why it is why we need to exist. Whole foods, the Mediterranean diet has been the most researched on fertility, movement, sleep, you know, befriending stress and finding some things that work for you. It's Overall toxin exposure, you know, like we talked about cleaning up the home as you run out of stuff. Those are probably the biggest guidance we can give you and slowly absorb, you know, kind of making this a more healthy lifestyle. It shouldn't just be a check the box for fertility. This is like things that will... ultimately be with you for a lifelong health journey. Yeah. Because who doesn't want to be healthy? I do. I want to be healthy for my whole lifetime. I'm not just looking at being a mom. I can't wait to be a healthy grandma. Now that I'm here, it's like, oh, I want to keep this journey going. I want to be as healthy as I can be for as long as I can be. And I think that a lot of women who've struggled with fertility find that a part of their journey. And once you discover that health is possible with changes, you're like, oh, wow, what else can I do? How else can I improve myself? So the bigger picture, there's a lot of conversation right now about the global fertility decline. What are you seeing in the data? And how serious is it really? We got into this a little. You know, I don't like to fear. They don't scare people, but it is serious. I'll just tell you from the basic stats and what we've learned. A couple of short years ago when we were incepting weenatal, the World Health Organization was claiming one in eight couples are dealing with infertility. A few short years later, now it's one in six, and actually the CDC is saying in the U.S. it's one in five. So we all know someone being affected by infertility, trying. I'm sure we all know someone. But if you just look at overall global birth rates, 2.1 is the replacement rate of every woman giving 2.1 births approximately replaces us as species on earth. Majority of the countries in the world have now dropped below 2.1. So if you look at Italy's at 1.2. South Korea's at 0.8. Even the U.S. is at 1.7. I mean, it is alarming to the point where you could see we're having less kids, we're having kids later in life, and a lot of people we know are struggling. So really what we're talking about here is how do we help the people who want to have children who might be having a hard time? Amy, you were very young and it took you five years. There is a real struggle out there. And by the way, the other thing I want to say is that age is only one part of it. And typically when you go to these fertility clinics and what we were called advanced maternal age, geriatric, you call it, they say after 35, basically your fertility jumps off a cliff and you should too. No joking. But like, that's kind of how they make you feel. And I've had friends who literally are like, I have no options. I have friends at 40 who are in tears, who are like, I'm not married yet. That's not the truth there. It is one portion, but there are 40 year olds like yourself who are way healthier than some 20 year olds on the planet who are not neglecting their bodies. And so I want people to feel empowered that the things we do, the acts of food, diet, lifestyle, the body care, the skincare, All that stuff plays into your chronological age, not your biological age. And so while sometimes the system might tell you age is important, it is, but it's only one of the factors. And sometimes people get freaked out by their AMH. And that is one factor as well. Ronit had very low AMH and had two kids successfully very later in life, you know, without IVF or anything. And so again, not getting in your head about everything spewed at you is probably the best advice I could give you. I know it's hard when you're in it. And I know it feels like people giving you advice, oh, don't stress, your baby's coming, have faith, is like you just want to like strangle them because it's like unfair. However, the stress plays into it too. And the mental aspect is a big part of our body's able ability to know that it's safe and it's okay to reproduce. Because think about times of war and famine, your body like kind of protects you from having kids because it knows it's unsafe. And right now that stress is different, but it's the same physiological response. Yeah, our bodies don't know the difference. They don't. They don't. So that's the thing. We have to start imagining that we're, you know, start imagining yourself. My mom always says, go to your happy place. Like spend a few minutes a day in Hawaii on walking on the beach. Even if you're just imagining you're there, your body doesn't know the difference. Agreed. Sometimes it's just for as simple as me is like I step outside of my office and go for a walk or like seeing nature or listen, stress is never going away. So anyone who tells you, you know, avoid stress when you're trying to have a baby. I like look at them like they have two heads. It is here. It's here to stay. We're busier than we've ever been, but it's okay. Find what works for you. Some people like to meditate. That wasn't my thing. I could, I found it hard to shut my brain down, but music helped me taking walks, helped me getting within, you know, I'm close to a beach, but I never go, but I did take walks, you know, trying to see some trees, sometimes walking in grass or like letting your foot hit. something from nature. So find what works for you. There isn't a one size fits all, but it is important to incorporate. And why we natal actually might be the only supplement brand that has a journal was because we truly believe in gratitude and the mentality of a few minutes a day, taking gratitude, loving thought for your partner, for yourself, for your future baby. And we even have like questions to talk to your partner about. And it's just a beautifully written journal by someone who's been through it, had multiple losses and was kind out the other side. And so that's just another tool in the toolbox. Consider all of this just things to empower and give you options. That's amazing. Yeah. It's having a good headspace about it because I do see so many couples that are struggling with fertility and it's consuming them and they're so, so stressed out and kind of finding a little bit of the surrender can actually go a long way. I've found that finding that ease and grace comes with surrendering to the process and things. Do your best and then surrender a little bit because your body actually will respond more easily to receiving in the surrender process. You do the prep and then you get to race and you do your best and you surrender. And I can't even tell you, Amy, I have so many stories of customers who were told they're infertile, then found, like you, diet, nutrition, lifestyle changes, and had a healthy baby. Or use the surrogate. Or five. Yeah, exactly. Or use the surrogate. Or I have a friend that adopted, was told she could never have kids after they adopted, and she thought there's no chance she had a baby. I mean, that just shows you the stress response at its best. And your body can do it. I have faith. And by the way, we're here for you as community. We have an amazing medical board. We have nutritionists, dieticians. We're here to answer any question, whether you DM us or email us. I just want you to know WeNatal can also help you just with the simple, I need to know this. We have blog topics on pretty much every interesting conversation in this. Caffeine in pregnancy, GLP-1s in pregnancy, you name it, our doctors are writing about it. And so just consider us a resource. That's mainly why our brand was born, was for education. You are awesome, Vida. Oh, my gosh. It really is. It's the micro changes that we make that change the needle, whether it's the mindset and the stress or finding ways to manage our toxin load, making sure that we are getting... sufficient nutrition with the right supplements, changing the way that we eat, getting away from ultra processed food. I love it. And women, I feel like women in business, it's all about business and integrity. It's not business or integrity. We're always trying to find this alignment. And I love that you've chosen to stay bootstrapped and prioritize product integrity over rapid growth. Can you talk about this decision and what allowed you to protect? Yes. Thank you for mentioning that because I think, you know, it's pretty sexy to be VC funded and have all the money and do all the ads and, you know, get a big salary from day one. But for us, the journey was simple to truly help people and give the resources we didn't have. And from what we wanted, we wanted the integrity to be in the formula and the products. We didn't want someone down our neck to say, make it cheaper or take this vitamin out because it's too expensive because there's a lot of that. Our mission was always to be science-backed and actually a perfect example of this was six months into launching WeNatal, we already had the top formula in the market and our medical advisory board said new studies, new meta-analysis of over 200 clinical studies for optimal dosages for pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and postpartum has launched. And that meant tweaking the formula If you're VC back, that meant changing the packaging, throwing away a ton of product. It wouldn't happen. But we said science is always evolving and we're going to evolve with it. I'm sure there are supplements on the market who are our grandparents who were there since then. And the formula stayed the same and it probably is shelf life is for many, many years. We have zero additives, zero fillers. Our shelf life is short because we refuse to put any additives and fillers and things that can make it shelf stable for 10, years. We won't do that. And so we've made the choice that we're going to be integrity and science backed and how you can do that is really owning your own company, not having the pressure to grow overnight and reduce your margins and do all the things. And for what you're getting, the price is as low as we possibly, our margins are tiny, but we don't care. It's literally just to give you the best at the most accessible and get it to the most number of people that we could. We know it's still, it's not inexpensive. We're doing our best, but the reality is a lot of brands will sell you a cheaper formula and then say, add extra folate, add extra choline, add extra vitamin D. And it's like, you're well over a hundred, 200 bucks when you're adding all the extra ingredients. We have 24 bioavailable ingredients and we We wouldn't take out a single one. And, you know, for around $60 a month, when you subscribe, you're getting the best forms, the best ingredients. And so to your point, we can only do that if we're bootstrapped and we're growing slow and steady. We're not taking over the world in one night, but our mission is to keep the integrity in the product. I love it. You're so right about that. If you do take the money, the VC money, you lose a lot of control over your... It does. There are always compromises that have to be made at that point. And congratulations to you guys for making that decision to stay in control of your company. It's not always... It's because we live in a world that has valued the values of the patriarchy for so long. It's money... gives us value and worth. And I'm so grateful that women are changing the way that businesses look at actually sticking to our purpose, creating the product, doing what we wanted to do and valuing that over the quick buck. I agree. Yeah. I think that I'm so proud of the women that are out there that are making the decisions like you guys are making, Vida. Good job. A lot. Listen, we're competitive. We want to get out. We want to be on every billboard and every paid media ad. We want you to see our brand, but that also will take away from the things that we, you know, inherently want to spend the money on, which is the product, the formulations, bringing new innovations to life. And so we'll just have to be okay. You know, the tortoise and the hare where it's slow and steady wins the race. And we know just by how much we've grown word of mouth and doctors and experts that we will get there. It's just going to take a little time. Yeah, and that's what we're going to talk about next. You built this company through education and trust instead of aggressive marketing. What have you learned about building a brand in a space where trust is everything? everything. Yeah. We took the opposite approach to most brands that launch, right? It's paid media. It's like ads and clickbait and, you know, trying to scare you into like clicking. This is the one thing in your fridge that will kill you. And you click and it's like, you need this, you know, that's kind of the world we're living in. Our attention span is so short, but what we said from day one to the point of integrity and science backed our influencers were the doctors, the OB-GYNs, the doulas, the midwives, the chiropractors, the acupuncturists, anyone who's an expert in their field playing in the world of fertility or women's health or men's health. And we, you know, just by assembling an incredible board like Dr. Mark Hyman and Kelly Levesque and Bridget Tiggamire, it's like really big, well-respected names. We started that way with the doctors, the practitioners. And from there, we spend time in OB-GYNs offices. We meet with midwives and doulas support patients. We're all over the place, but we didn't go, we didn't do a paid ad three years into making our company. And so our approach of the influencer was not someone just with a big following. It was someone with a credential who helps their community be better and gets the difference of nutrients and gets why we natal is different. And that word of mouth, I mean, we even had customers take it to their doctors and the doctor is impressed by the formula. Like I showed this, you know, that's how we're getting out there by true word of mouth. Yeah. But women are the best at that. Honestly, we really are. They love something. They don't keep it quiet. And so many of our customers have been with us for over four years. It's crazy to think that they like love it. They're in their postpartum, they're still taking it and they're telling everyone about it. And so we're so forever grateful to our amazing audience. And you're in the right space. Like being out on a podcast tour is probably one of the absolute best ways to go woman to woman and be able to reach your audience. People who don't know you're there yet. I think that that's I'm so glad to have you here on my show, and I can't wait to introduce you to my other podcaster friends. Thank you. It's such a more in-depth conversation that an ad doesn't do it. And so the podcast has been so near and dear to Ronit and I's heart because you can have that education, the long format, the heart-to-heart. This is why we love it. And thank you. Thank you for helping us spread our mission and excited to meet you in real life this weekend. And really, you know, we just want to be there for anyone going through it or even who just has a question. We're here for all of it. Yeah, well, I'm just I'm so glad to meet the women that are carrying on the mission because our company, you know, Mommalicious got bought out in 2017. And I've been out of that space, but it has always been a big part of my heart. And I'm so glad you guys are doing the work and continuing the mission because healthy children are the future. You know, they really are. They're the future of humanity. And this is the most important work that humanity can be doing right now is healthy. focusing on how can we make healthy babies. We appreciate you. You're doing it. You are definitely doing it. So it's an amazing conversation, Vida, because what Vida is talking about is not just fertility. It's really about awareness and taking ownership of your body in a way that I don't think we've been taught to. And I think for so many of us as women, we're managing everything and everyone, but we're not always given the full picture when it comes to our own health. So whether you're thinking about having kids in that season right now, or just you want to understand your body better, there's so much here to take with you. Vida, thank you for this conversation and for the work that you're doing. It really matters. It really does. And if this episode resonated with you, send it to someone in your life who needs to hear it. I'll see you in the next episode of The Manage Her. And thank you, Vida, for being here today. I can't wait to meet you. Thank you for having me.