Understanding Male Fertility and Declining Birth Rates

Welcome back to Crunchy Stewardship! In Part 3 of our Fertility Series, we are shifting the spotlight to a topic that is often completely overlooked in the infertility conversation: the guys!

While women often carry the heavy burden of fertility tracking and testing, men play an equally crucial role—not just in conception, but in the health of the pregnancy itself. Chrissy brings us another fascinating anatomy lesson, explaining the miraculous 90-day lifecycle of a sperm cell and how it is perfectly designed by God to survive. Then, Katie uncovers a shocking truth about sperm morphology, comparing Weston A. Price's fertility standards from the 1930s to the shockingly low standards of modern medicine today.

We wrap up the episode by looking at the staggering statistics behind the global decline in birth rates, and why holistic health might be the key to turning the tide.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Banned Foods: Why American staples like Kraft Mac & Cheese and Ritz Crackers are restricted or banned in Europe (and what they do to your body).
• The 90-Day Cycle: Why a man's diet, stress, and lifestyle choices today actively impact his fertility three months from now.
• The Miracle of Semen: How the male body perfectly formulates fluids to neutralize the acidic female environment and nourish the sperm.
• Morphology Madness: How "normal" sperm abnormality rates went from under 20% in the 1930s to a whopping 96% today.
• The Postpartum Connection: How the quality of the sperm at conception can actually impact the mother's morning sickness, risk of hemorrhage, and postpartum depression.
• The Population Crisis: A deep dive into why U.S. and global birth rates have plummeted to historic lows and what it means for the next generation.

Resources mentioned:

• Book: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price - https://amzn.to/4bzucfi 
• Previous Episode: Fertility Series Part 1: Wrestling with God in the Waiting - https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467060/episodes/18826546 
• Previous Episode: Fertility Series Part 2: Female Fertility 101 - https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467060/episodes/18863856 

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Part 3 of the Fertility Series
01:31 Random Revelation - Foods Banned In Other Countries
06:54 Male Anatomy 101: Testes, Puberty, and Sperm Creation
12:44 The Semen Secret: Surviving the Female Environment
15:44 The 90-Day Sperm Renewal Cycle
17:35 Sperm Morphology: 1930s Standards vs. Today
30:21 How Sperm Quality Impacts Pregnancy & Postpartum
33:17 The Crisis of Declining Birth Rates & the "Replacement Rate"
42:42 Food's Impact on Health & Fertility
48:14 What We Are Covering Next: Improving Fertility

Remember, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Connect With Us: 

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FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:03

Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. I'm Chrissy Roach.

Speaker 4 0:06

And I'm Katie Fiola Jones. We are cousins on a mission to honor God by stewarding our health spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Speaker 3 0:14

From ancestral nutrition and natural remedies to biblical finance and holistic health, we are digging deep into how God intended us to live.

Speaker 5 0:22

So grab yourself a raw milk latte and join us as we unpack the ins and outs of crunchy stewardship.

Chrissy 0:33

hey everybody. Welcome back to Crunchy Stewardship. We are so glad to be with you here today. Uh, today we are going to be continuing with our fertility series. If you haven't already, uh, been listening to it go ahead and go back to the last two episodes. We did two episodes already in this fertility series. The first one. Was about our personal walks with infertility, our personal infertility journeys, and the second episode was about female fertility. So today we are going to continue that theme. We're gonna be talking about male fertility and then also just declining birth rates. Why are they happening? What is the significance of them, and what are some things that we can do to prevent it? So before we get started and all. We are definitely going to do our random revelation though. So Katie, do you have a random revelation for today?

Katie 1:31

Oh, by chance I do. So my random revelation today is actually, I learned this on probably some sort of social media outlet. Originally I saw a post that said something along the lines of, there's all these foods that are banned in other countries such as Kraft mac and cheese and Ritz crackers. And I was like, oh my gosh, is that. Like real is our Ritz crackers banned in other countries. So I went and I screenshot that post and then I, I went and looked it up on Google or maybe, um, in an AI search engine or something just to see if it was true. And it's, so, it's not technically that certain food items are actually banned in other countries. However, there's certain ingredients in these foods that are banned. So therefore. Kraft Mac and cheese, like the American version is banned in other countries. So Kraft mac and cheese is either banned or restricted in Norway as well as Austria. And in the rest of the EU it's required that the Kraft mac and cheese has a warning label. And then Ritz Crackers, it is banned in Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark, um, because they have certain limitations, but it's, again, it's technically the specific ingredients. So in Kraft Mac and cheese, it has yellow five and yellow six. And then in Ritz crackers it has hydrogenated oils. And so for Kraft mac and cheese or those like specific ingredients, the, the food dies. Those things are. Derived from petroleum. And we all kind of know now that the food dyes are linked to things like hyperactivity in children. Um, and then they're also now finding out that they could be carcinogens, so something that leads to cancer and causes cancer. So that is no bueno. And then the hydrogenated oils in the Ritz crackers are technically trans fats that do end up clogging your arteries and then lead towards things such as heart disease. And so, yeah, in these other countries they're like, no, we don't want these terrible things, but yet here in America. Or like, yeah, let's eat it like it's actually food. Um, but. It's, it's not good. There's, honestly, there's tons of things. I actually, when I was going in this deep dive, I found out that there's like lots and lots of ingredients across the board that here in America were like, yeah, let's put it in our food, especially in children's food and in other countries they're like, no way that thing causes cancer or it causes damage to your DNA or it. It like hurts your, uh, like it crosses the blood brain barrier in your brain and it causes brain damage and brain cells to die and, and things like that. And it's like, yet here in America, we're like, yeah, feed it to everybody. So, I dunno, it's quite awful. So yeah, that's my random revelation of the day

Chrissy 4:43

really just makes me wanna be more aware of the things that I'm eating. And also I think back to like, how many times did I have craft, craft, mac and cheese growing up?

Katie 4:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:54

I think that was like my afterschool snack for,

Speaker 4:57

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 4:58

A good minute.

Speaker 4:59

Well, and like Ritz crackers when you're sick, I mean, that was our go-to when we were mm-hmm. Not feeling well. It was Gatorade and Ritz Crackers and I'm like, that combo was probably so terrible for us. That's right. But yet that was like what the doctor would tell us is like, yeah. You know, get something that has electrolytes in it, do Gatorade and have some crackers just to like fill your tummy up and, yeah. That's crazy.

Chrissy 5:24

We always, we did the miso soup and saltine crackers.

Katie 5:28

Hmm. I wonder how those compare to the Ritz crackers.

Speaker 2 5:33

Uh, I think saltines would probably be better.

Speaker 5:36

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 5:37

I, I think I actually, I cannot tolerate eating Ritz crackers. They really, like, one Ritz cracker will do me in. I can feel it as soon as I take a bite. Um, but Saltines, I can still. I can still eat some of those.

Speaker 5:54

I loved Ritz crackers. I still do. I mean, if they were in front of me, I probably would eat them knowing that they're just so terrible. But I used to put the whole thing in my mouth and like use my tongue to push it up onto the top of my mouth and break it, and I just,

Speaker 2 6:08

mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:09

It was so satisfactory and I really

Speaker 2 6:11

remember. And then it disintegrates.

Speaker 6:12

Yes.

Speaker 2 6:13

And then it disintegrates in your mouth. Yes. Now R crackers, like the cheese Ritz with the cheese sandwich ones.

Speaker 6:20

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:22

Love those.

Speaker 6:23

So good. Yeah. Yeah. The snacky ones, which I'm sure is even worse with the, the, the cheese probably has food dies in it. And is it

Speaker 2 6:31

real cheese?

Speaker 6:32

Yeah, it's probably not real cheese. So no health benefits in

Speaker 2 6:36

no milk at all whatsoever.

Speaker 6:39

Ugh,

Speaker 2 6:40

gross. Alright, well. We will save the rest of that for possibly another episode in the future, talking about all of the food that is banned in Europe that we have here in the United States. But that day is not today, but today. We are going to start off by talking about male, male fertility, which I guess could be a nice segue because the foods you eat, guys out there, any guys listening, the food you eat, the things you consume affects your baby swimmers. I just gotta say. Everything you consume is going to affect how well they are created and their success at doing their job. So, um, that's very important. I, so I did the same thing with this that I did for the female fertility episodes. I went back to my anatomy textbook and read through like the entire. Creation of sperm essentially, and, and like the creation of the male fertility system, uh, or reproductive system rather. And I found it very fascinating that the testes begin to differentiate inside the abdominal cavity at only six weeks gestation. So at six weeks gestation, testes start to develop, but they don't actually descend out of the abdominal cavity until seven months gestation, which I thought was quite interesting.

Speaker 8:18

That is really wild.

Speaker 2 8:20

Yeah. It's at that seven month mark is when they actually start to produce testosterone, and then the testosterone is what brings them out of the abdominal cavity and into the scrotum. It's just so fascinating to me.

Speaker 8:33

Weird,

Speaker 2 8:33

and I can't help but think like, I wonder what premature baby boys look like, you know?

Speaker 8:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:41

They just like,

Speaker 8:41

oh, weird.

Speaker 2 8:43

Don't have balls yet.

Speaker 8:47

They're super

Speaker 2 8:48

premature. I don't know.

Speaker 8:51

Uh, yeah. That's weird. Never thought about that.

Speaker 2 8:55

Yeah, just. Question. Random, random questions with Chrissy shower. Thoughts maybe should be inside thoughts, but they're outside now. So there we have it.

Speaker 9:07

Not, not like a premature baby boys balls.

Speaker 2 9:16

Anyways, we're

Speaker 9:17

wild.

Speaker 2 9:19

Something like that or not.

Speaker 9:21

Are you, well, is that it for the anatomy lesson or is there more to your anatomy lesson?

Speaker 2 9:28

Oh, are we doing a full anatomy lesson? No, we didn't have a full anatomy lesson on the outline.

Speaker 9:35

I guess if you, if you have an anatomy lesson for us, you could share an anatomy lesson with us, but if you don't have one, okay. I'm sure there's people who are like, I don't need the anatomy lesson, but if you had one All

Speaker 2 9:47

right. If you want the anatomy lesson, listen closely. If you don't want the anatomy lesson, fast forward 10 minutes and it'll be over, I promise. Anyways, quick anatomy lesson. Here we go. Are you ready? Fun fact, unlike in the female when. A woman, a girl is born with all of her eggs practically that just need to grow before they're released. Um, a boy is not born with any of his sperm. In fact, his sperm actually don't start to develop until puberty af, which get this actually crazy. So that obviously puberty is after a boy's. Immune system has already developed, right? And so then the body starts creating this new cell, which would trigger the immune response to attack it, except God designed the entire like lining of the inside of the male reproductive tract to be like protective against like the body attacking the sperm. Huh? Which is just so fascinating. It like blocks any sort of attack that the immune system could give against the sperm. So I thought that was fascinating.'cause they, they just really have like stem cells. They don't have the actual sperm in there yet. So quick anatomy of how they are created. So you have, um, the immature sperm cells or immature. Yeah. Immature sperm cells, that's what we're gonna call'em. Um, and they're lining the, a bunch of like twisty, turny, little spaghetti noodles of the inside of the testicles. When they divide, they divide multiple times, right? And they create immature sperm. That are able to move then and they go and then develop more so into in like it's called the epi, which is, uh. Like a collection of tubules, I guess you would say, on like the side of the testy. Anyways, they're there for about three weeks and they move about one foot per day because this tubule, which from like when we look at it, it looks like it's only like an inch by maybe half an inch on the side of the testy. It's actually teeny tiny tubes that are all just coiled up that could reach up to like 21 feet long. So you have. I know it's like this small intestine, you know, you unwind it. Yeah. And it's like forever. So same idea. And they go through this tube and mature as they're going through this tubule. And once they get to the end, they are a mature sperm. And now this is the part that I think is fascinating. So when a man ejaculates his semen is only about 20% sperm, the rest of it well actually. No, I think it's more like 10% sperm. The rest of it is just extra fluids that have been added from different glands in the reproductive system. So if you think about, if you remember back to our episode last week, I talked about how the vagina is a very acidic environment and it's not. Mm-hmm. Suitable for sperm, right? And I talked about how during intercourse the pH of the vagina increases, which makes it more alkaline so it's more suitable for sperm. Well, in God's perfect design, he also created, um, some of the fluid that gets kind of put along with the sperm during intercourse includes, um. Alkaline substances, which neutralizes the inside of the vagina to make it less acidic and more, I guess, suitable for sperm.

Speaker 13:57

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 13:57

It also has fructose in it, which serves as like a nourishment for the sperm. It also has prostaglandins which react, which act on the female's uterus to create contractions, like we said in the last episode, so that the uterus will actually suck up the semen and then. It also has fibrinogen, which is that coagulation factor that I talked about in the last episode of that as soon as a man ejaculates, it solidifies, and then solely but surely liquefies. And so that's all like put into the semen at ejaculation so that the sperms will actually survive their entrance into an environment that is usually incredibly unsuitable for them. So

Speaker 14:48

weird,

Speaker 2 14:49

fascinating that it just, yeah, they, it God just created it so beautifully and so perfectly that like you take two things that really don't mix, but put'em in the perfect environment together and they mix so well and it's, it's just, it's beautiful. Um, one thing I think is. Also really fascinating is like, you know, a girl is born with a million or so eggs, right? And that's all she got.

Speaker 15:17

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 15:17

Did I say a million? Maybe it's three or 4 million. However many you got a lot. Um, for men or for boys, they are born with zero sperm, right? Mm. Puberty, sperm start to replicate and start to be created, but then it never actually stops. Because you've got the stem cell that stays there the whole time and just keeps replicating and keeps on creating more sperms ultimately, the whole process from when the sperm replicates for the first time within the testes and then like actually makes it out is about two and a half months long. So if you think about that, that means that anything that a man consumes or is exposed to for the two and a half months leading up to potential conception, um. Would affect their future children, really. So we're talking alcohol intake, we're talking smoking, we're talking toxins, we're talking air quality, food quality, protein intake, testosterone level, like the whole gamut of things. Um, all affect the sperm quality for up to three months in advance to the actual. So there you go. Yeah. Anatomy lesson closed for the day. Everyone else who skipped forward, you can now start listening again.

Speaker 16:46

Closed. We are closed. Yeah. That is really wild. Yeah. If I, I always kind of knew it would take, I, I think I wrote down like 74 to 90 days that sperm renews roughly. So that makes sense that it was about three months and. I, I always remember some of the other like tips of like, don't go in hot tubs and stuff.'cause like extreme heat can kill the sperm in general. And so it's like if you do go in a hot tub, you just have to know that now your sperm are probably dead for the next three months and you have to wait for the new ones to come and to go through all the little tubie. Now I didn't know about the, the crazy tubie that they go through.

Speaker 2 17:32

Lots of really long, teeny tiny tubes.

Speaker 17:35

Yeah. Well, what's interesting to me, so this isn't necessarily anatomy, but I went through this deep dive weird journey on sperm morphology, and so morphology is kind of like looking at the actual sperm and how they. How they act under a microscope basically. So if you like zoom in on them, you know, it's like you can see each individual one and whether or not there's any abnormalities to it. So I actually learned part of this in, um, the Westin A Price Found or. Book. So it's written by Wein a Price, um, and it's the nutrition and physical degeneration book, which I've mentioned numerous times on our podcast. It's really good. It's a really dense book. There's a lot of information. Um, and originally Wein a Price went around to find out what is causing, he's a dentist, so he was going around the world to find out what is causing cavities and degeneration within our. Teeth and, and bone structure even too, and his research around the world to find primitive cultures who had not been touched by all of the kind of new technologies and new foods and things like that. What he learned was that not only do these health areas impact dental care and your dental health, but it also impacts like every other area of your health. And one of the big areas that he found was. Fertility and yeah, for both male and female. And so he actually was explaining, um, sperm morphology. And in his book he talked about how, here I actually, I wrote down, I wrote this specific one down. He said in his book that in normal semen, the abnormal sperm heads do not exceed 19 to 20%, and that anything above 20%. So any, if they have abnormalities to the sperm, like if 25% or more. Is abnormal that it's considered clinically like a male, is considered clinically sterile. And I thought that was a really interesting fact. So basically, let me, let me back up just a little bit and then I'll reshare that fact because, so with sperm morphology, you have a few different. Common abnormalities and what they really look at is like the head of the sperm. So if you remember from health class, they kind of look like these little tadpoles and they literally have like a little head and a tail on them, and some of the abnormalities are considered. I'm not even gonna read the scientific words, I'm just gonna describe what they are, but, so one of them is the head is too large, another one is the head is too small. Another one is, um, like the sperm itself is like tapered or has a cigar shape to it, which I'm not really sure what that means. Maybe instead of having a tail, it's just like. Fat or something. I don't even know. Um, there's another one that the, they have round heads instead of oval, which is interesting'cause they're supposed to be kind of that more oly tadpole head shape. Um, but then another one is that they have a pin head, so it's more. Pointed, I guess like, uh, I don't know. And then anoth, uh, another abnormality is that they have two heads instead of one on the sperm. So these are all sorts of different abnormalities. And what he's saying is that if there is 25% or more of the actual sperm that have these abnormalities, a male is considered sterile. And this was in the 1930s that he. Said this and like the abnormal threshold he said was just at 20%. So you really wanna be aiming for less than 20% of abnormalities in order to be fertile, however. So I went and took that information and I plopped it over into my good old friend, Google Gemini, to ask Google Gemini what is considered a normal range of abnormal, uh, I guess I typed it in wrong. Heads in the semen today. I'm like literally pulling up my Google Gemini right here, and this is what I'm reading, and I'm like, I typed this wrong, but it understood me, of course, because it's ai. So then they go on to tell me that the normal range is 4%, borderline is one to 3%, and basically anyone with. Like they have less than 1% of normal, like, uh, sperm heads, then that's considered sterile. Then I was like, wait a minute. In the book nutrition and Physical Degeneration, they mentioned that the normal semen in an ab, um. The abnormal sperm heads do not, should not exceed 19 to 20%, and anything above the 25% is co considered clinically sterile. And they were like, oh yeah, you're spot on that the observations are right. And then it goes on to describe how it has dramatically changed. So normal morphology in the 1930s was considered 80% or greater. Now it's considered 4%. Greater, which is way, way, way below the sterile threshold of the 25%. And so it's just wild to me that now what's considered very normal and very healthy was once considered like beyond sterile in the thirties. So that's literally less than a hundred years ago that we were like, what is now normal was considered very, very infertile. Like you are basically sterile. And so I was just like. So blown away by this. And then I remembered that going through my own infertility journey that Wes had received like a, a semen analysis. You know, like most couples when they're going through the whole infertility journey, will go to. A fertility specialist and have a semen analysis done, because what's often missed in the infertility world and and journey is there's this big emphasis placed on females and that infertility is typically come, like it comes from a female when in reality, I forget what the number is. I may have written it down or something. And Chrissy, you can maybe even look it up if you want to while I'm chatting, but it, it's something like maybe 40%. Of infertility is actually due to the male, and that may be high or maybe low. I, I don't remember. I thought it was somewhere around 50%, but basically there's a, a great percentage of infertility challenges that actually stem from. Like the

24:48

Sperm.

Speaker 24:49

Problems. Did you look it up?

Speaker 2 24:50

Google says 50%.

Speaker 24:52

Okay. So it's like half. So obviously the male plays half the job in creating babies, and so they also create half the problems, which actually is a good and bad thing because the, the great news is that for males, it's actually very quick for them to replicate new sperm. Like what? Like we were just saying. So you. Have a greater chance of actually fixing the problems in a male than with a female. Sometimes because a female it, it can take a lot longer for a body to be like a healthy home for a baby to grow. Whereas if the problem is with the male. It should only take a few months of maybe diet change or stress change or reducing toxins, whatever it might be that's causing the problem. So it, it's, you have a greater chance of fixing that quickly at least than with a female. So that, that could be good news. But so my realization was I have this sperm test still in my documents. I'm really curious to look it up now to see. What the results were. And so what I learned, I'll go back over here to Google Gemini. I was like, what is the percentage of abnormal heads in this test? And it was like, based on this test that you scanned the abnormal. Head or amorphous head range, percentage or whatever is 64%. So the abnormal percentage is 64% and 3% are what's considered just completely deficient. Um, and so let's see. So then I went down and I went and looked. So, yeah, so it said this is, this is actually what it, this is the better breakdown. So it said the amorphous head, so it's a specific type of abnormality was six 64%, but the total abnormal forms, which means they could still produce a, like a viable baby, but it's much. More challenging or they could, um, successfully fertilize an egg, but it's much more challenging because of their tail abnormality or something like they can't swim as strong or they can't penetrate certain areas better. Whatever the total percentage of abnormal forms was, 99%. And so that means that there was only 1% that had a strict normal form, like a normal morphology, which to me is so wild because, I don't know, I'm, I like was trying to go back and so I even asked Wes, I was like, do you remember what we, what we, what the doctor said, or who we talked to about this? Because. Basically based on this, even in normal ranges today, this is like you were basically considered sterile because the 1% he was, he had 1% that was considered normal and neither of us could remember. However, it just kind of made me a little frustrated that I was like nobody, I don't remember any doctor saying that this was a problem. But yet, even in today's standards, it was considered a problem. But then in west a price standards in the thirties, it was considered wildly sterile. So anyway, it was one of those things that I'm like, I, I can't believe I'm just realizing this and like the problem could have been solved pretty easily. I don't know. Who knows?

Speaker 7 28:33

And now I should say that now, knowing this information, I definitely don't blame Wes in any way. I really do believe that God intended for our fertility journey to go exactly the way that it had happened. Um, you know, if we had known that information earlier, that would've been nice. However, I have peace knowing that we have Malachi now, and he came at just the perfect time that he was supposed to, and God just kind of made everything right the way that he does. So. Also, if you personally know Wes, maybe don't mention this story to him because I don't know that he would love that I'm just sharing this stuff. We did talk about it and he doesn't have any problems with it, but it's also just a very strange story. So, uh, maybe don't bring it up to him.

Speaker 2 29:31

That is wild. It, it makes me kind of curious, but also like, I don't really want to know. Max's results would be, you know.

Speaker 29:42

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 29:42

Um, he and I have kind of put off doing any more testing for a while. We're gonna try this new mock route that I've been taking. See how that works. Because just like the whole, like morally it mm-hmm. It's just weird.

29:58

It's

Speaker 2 29:58

to do the semen analysis and I don't love it. Max doesn't love it, so. We're, we're doing our absolute darnest to avoid it, but I think that's some really great insight. If only there was a way to do that without, yeah, the only way that you can possibly do that right now.

Speaker 30:16

Well, and the good news is, again, going back to the fact that it is really easy to heal that area of fertility. You guys are like doing a lot of the right stuff. You are reducing your toxin loads, you're improving your diets, reducing stress, you're exercising, you know, all these things that do impact sperm quality you guys are doing and you're, you're doing the right things, instead of needing to get the test, which we actually didn't end up paying for it because I forget, we had some weird, there was some sort of sales. It was really strange. But anyway, we didn't actually end up paying for it, which was just weird. So I'm like, at least we didn't spend money on this, but at least you guys know that you are likely. Heading in the right direction. Whereas like with female fertility, there's a lot of like nuanced stuff that could be happening that impact our fertility since we are the ones that actually house the baby. And your body needs to physically be ready and available to do that. Whereas like men kind of play an important role, but it's a pretty small role in the very beginning. And their sperm can like. Change over time and yeah.

Speaker 2 31:35

Although did you know that the quality of the sperm is responsible for some of women's, like the risk and likelihood of having morning sickness during. Pregnancy, the likelihood of postpartum hemorrhage after birth, the likelihood of postpartum depression. A lot of that can actually be linked all the way back to sperm quality at conception, which, you know, we say that like, oh, you know, the man is only three minutes of the equation, even though he's half the equation. But the reality is like he's actually half of the equation. An entire half, and it does impact the quality of the pregnancy and postpartum periods. The, the quality of the sperm impacts that, so it's quite fascinating.

Speaker 32:29

Yeah. The other thing I didn't really share about the, like morphology problems with the sperm is that certain abnormalities are actually linked to certain birth defects, which is really interesting. So it's uh, you know, like having too large of a head means that, um. Sperm could have extra chromosomes, and having too small of a head may mean that, um, then the fertile egg would have DNA defects and things like that, which is really quite interesting because again, you know, you just think about yeah, different birth defects. And oftentimes again, you, you a lot of times. The woman is to blame, where they're like, what did you do during birth? You know, did you drink alcohol? Did you, you know, hit your stomach on something and now they have a defect? Or did you not feed your baby proper vitamins and things like that. So when really, again. Sperm has like men have to be healthy too. Like it's not just the woman's job to be healthy and to do all this stuff. It's like men and women should be going on this journey together and being as healthy as they can so that way they can bring a super healthy baby into the world as well as, you know, to their best ability. So.

Speaker 2 34:01

Yeah, agreed. Well, let's transition into talking about the declining birth rates and what all is like, why is that happening? You know, I know a lot of people have said, oh, well, it's just because people are waiting until they're older to have kids and they're not, they're choosing not to have as many children. And while I think that might have a small impact on birth rates. Katie, you've done a lot of research and to realize that no, actually that is a very small percentage of the people who are contributing to this declining birth rate statistic. You wanna share some of the stuff that you learned about that?

Speaker 34:46

Yeah, so. I'll back up and share some of the current birth rates and, and these, I actually, I've heard them many times on different podcasts and in books and things, but I just googled these so that way we'd have some numbers that hopefully are pretty current, um, and easy to read off at this moment. But, um, it's estimated that for 2025, um, in the US here specifically that the birth rate is approximately 10. Point six to 11.9 births per 1000 people. Um, whereas in the 1920s, so if we go back about a decade, there was approximately 102.6 births per 1000 women. So 102.6 compared to 10. Point six is a very dramatic decline, um, in just the last a hundred years globally. However, it is kind of interesting. The rates don't seem as dramatic to drop, but they do. I mean, it's still a decently. Dramatic rate. So the global birth rate, um, currently is 16.1 to 17.1 births per 1000 people. Whereas in the twenties it was about 35 to 40 births per 1000 people. So it's not as dramatic as the Just America, but it does show that there is a global. Crisis happening. Um, that is impacting the everybody, obviously. And yeah, it's, it's really, it's one of those things that it, it maybe doesn't sound as wild to you, like, oh, okay, there's a lot of people on the planet, but the real issue is, um, what's what's called like our, we need to know what the repopulation rate is in order for. The next generation to basically take on all of the things going on in the world.

Speaker 2 37:06

You know, it's, it's interesting hearing the statistics that you mentioned. It's when you think about, when people say like, the reasons why people overseas. Maybe a hundred years ago had less children than we had here in America. They would say, oh, well it's because, you know, overseas, they don't have the type of healthcare that we have, or they don't have the type of resources we have, or it like health disparities and things like that. And I think that's very true. But now. The, the statistics have reversed, but the health disparities haven't technically, and technically third world countries still have those health disparities. The le, the rates of disease, um, not chronic disease, acute disease that kills very quickly and. Steals births and they don't have as much testing and you know, strategies for troubleshooting problems. And yet somehow now they have a higher birth rate than us here in America, who supposedly has the best healthcare system in the world. Funny enough, I actually, this weekend I was talking with a. Oh, what was, she's an epidemiologist who specifically studies birth rates in America, and I was like, wow, how fitting, uh, that we're recording this this week, but she was saying how America is the, has the lowest birth rate out of all of the industrialized countries. We have the highest maternal mortality rate out of all of the industrialized countries, which is pretty much like Europe, a lot of Asia, things like that.

Speaker 38:58

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 38:59

That we're compared to. And it just makes you think like, we think we're really doing great around here. You know, we spend so much more money on healthcare. Yet our statistics do not reflect the amount of money and effort that we put into healthcare. So yeah, that's really interesting. Going back to the statistics, just how they've changed over the years, but. Yeah, you were saying something about, um, repopulation, isn't that the rate at which a couple needs to have children so that the next generation can even essentially like fill the shoes of the previous generation and Yes. Prevent overall population decline.

Speaker 39:47

Yes. Yeah, so, and I, I think the better phrase for it, and I'm just, I was just finding it again, is the replacement rate. And so it's the rate at which a country can maintain its population over future generations. And so. I get, uh, newsletters from Tangle. I don't know if anybody here has heard of them. Um, actually I think I recently stopped getting them'cause I, I stopped liking them, but I, I copied this quote from them, but basically they were talking about how, um, we're kind of in this repopulation crisis and how the birth rates have just been steadily declining since. I think it's the seventies. Um, or, okay, here we go. So it's, America's birth rate has been below the repopulation rate since 1971, but we've basically been on a decline since about the thirties. So it's, it really is a big deal. And even if you think about health wise, the people who. Our, in our actual country and the fact that people are so unhealthy. I heard on a podcast, I think it was probably on Culture Apothecary, that if we were to have another major war, like a World War right now, and there would be an, you know, if a draft was enacted and. We had to get people into the Army based on their current qualifications. For people who can be in the military in any form, we would not have healthy enough people to be in our militaries because there's just different chronic illnesses that people can't have. Eyesight is also a factor. There's just so many health challenges that we are going through as a country. That now make us more susceptible to attacks because we just don't have people who are fit enough to protect us. And like that alone is freaky, but

Speaker 2 42:00

we do have rednecks. Don't forget about the rednecks. We got those.

Speaker 42:07

Uh, it's, it really is like, just in general though, like a really crazy thing to think about because Yeah, like when you, when you talk to like. Random people, they're usually, they usually say like, oh, you know, the desire to be a parent has gone down. You know, people wanna focus more on their career, and so they don't want to have children until later. And so then they end up having less children. Or there's just this kind of. Societal breakdown of the family and, and there's just a greater emphasis on personal freedom and wanting to do your own thing and, and have a job and be able to travel freely. And I totally get that. And I was definitely a part of that population for a while where I'm like, I wanna put off being a parent so that way I can go and be free and do my own things and travel and get to do all this stuff. And. Yet there's something greater than just those things going on because that definitely impacts the birth rates and fertility and how many people are in the world, but not, not by such a large percentage from, you know, in, in a hundred years we have gone from about a hundred birth, birth per 1000 people to 10, and that is very scary.

Speaker 2 43:27

Yeah. It makes me kinda wonder, I'm like, and then, and then we have people who want to get pregnant and want to have many, many babies. Mm-hmm. And just can't, you know? Mm-hmm. And so there's so many things that have impacted it, like we've said before, like the food that we're eating, our general overall health. Um. It all impacts fertility and I think it's something that, it's truly a crisis here in America that we are facing now that um, yeah, we need to. Figure out how to come together and like reverse it really. Mm-hmm. Like, and I think a lot of these conversations in the health and wellness space are going to have a stronger impact on future fertility in general in America. Even if it comes down to like just changing the products that we have in our foods, like the ingredients in our foods. I think that in and of itself will be a big win. Or would be a big win if we're able to get some of that actually going. Um, and then it would just start the momentum from there that the more we talk about it, the more people are going to hear about it and the more people are going to be aware and okay with the changes that are happening. Which, speaking of did you know that apparently a few years ago, fruit Loops tried to take out all of the artificial colors in their cereal and they started using like natural colors, like beets mm-hmm. And uh, turmeric and things like that to color and people. Went off on them and got angry because they were quote unquote ruining their childhood for destroying the colors in fruit loops.

Speaker 45:24

That's really crazy. Because now I'm like, do it. Please do it.

Speaker 2 45:30

Right. And so they already tried it once and they got a total, a huge amount of backlash for it. And so then they went back to putting the colors in their food and I was like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 45:40

That is really crazy, huh? I, I think one thing though that, you know, west a price, this is, this has really been changing my whole view of things, and even just when I learn anything about food and nutrition, it's like, okay, yeah, change, change, the food dies in the food. You know, like, let's get stuff like titanium dioxide out of our foods, like let's stop dunking our chickens in chlorine and that stuff. But in general, I think what it really comes down to is. Stop, like we need to stop eating such processed foods in general. Like it doesn't matter what, how fruit loops are colored. If you're still eating Fruit Loops, it's still terrible for you because it still has sugar, it still has refined flour in it. There's nothing nutritious about Fruit loops. I mean, even the milk that people drink fruit loops in is probably also not very nutritious because it's probably skim milk and has no health benefits really to it at all. I mean. You're, you're missing out on so many of the benefits of milk if it's not whole milk, let alone like a whole grass fed milk, you know, from a cow that was raised in a beautiful pasture and has good nutrients going to that cow specifically. So it's, we've lost the whole point of it, you know, and I'm, I'm kind of at a part point of my own nutrition battle where. I'm like, yeah, it's great if you can go and take out the food dies from these things, but really our kids shouldn't even be eating it in the first place. Like it doesn't even matter. Like if there's food dies, just stop eating it. And we've honestly, we've stopped eating most cereal. We, funny enough, oh, by the way, I don't even think I mentioned this on our podcast yet, but we moved into our new house, which yay, we're so excited. But we've been unpacking boxes and boxes of all sorts of stuff, and. We came upon a box of all of our kind of like plastic containers that we would keep food in. So we had these really cool cereal containers. So that way you'd take your actual cereal from the boxes and you'd put'em in the plastic containers. Well, we only get cereal. I have an Amazon subscription where I get these, uh, two boxes of this one cereal that we really love. And when we're out of it, we're out of it. We don't get anymore until the next month that it comes. And. We, so we stopped eating cereal like a lot. And the boxes are not the family size. They're like the small boxes of cereal. So just the two of us, we end up going through it before the month is over. And so we usually have like a week or two before we have more cereal, but we're not going out and buying more.'cause I'm like, cereal's really just not healthy. There's nothing healthy about it, unfortunately. Um, but we used to eat so much cereal. We have like. I think it's like six bins of cereal things and Wes is like, what are we gonna do with these containers? Because we don't really eat cereal anymore. And it's just kind of a funny problem to have. Now.

Speaker 2 48:36

You could put rice or. Like quinoa in them,

Speaker 48:42

actually what we done

Speaker 2 48:43

very easily pour it into the measuring cup. Oh, I love that. We do,

Speaker 48:46

yeah, we, we have like our oats, we have like three different types of oats now and rice and Yeah, the things that are more pourable. Actually, I put walnuts in one of them because I love walnuts on so many things. But anyway, so we're coming up to the end of our episode. You know, obviously the declining birth rates is like a scary thing to think about oftentimes, especially if you have not even really jumped on your own journey towards, you know, starting a family and you don't know really where you're at when it comes to your fertility and all these things. The, the good news is there's a lot that we can be doing ahead of time to make ourselves healthier and to work on our bodies so that they are prepared. Or if you are going through a fertility journey or an infertility journey right now and you're looking for ways to improve your overall health and fertility, we are going to now take a transition into our series. Um, looking at. A lot of the major areas that impact our fertility the most and how we can be optimizing those areas to yeah, prepare ourselves for being pregnant and staying pregnant and having healthy babies, and having healthy pre pregnancies and everything. So we're, yeah. The next few episodes I'm really excited for, we're gonna hit it off first with nutrition because it does play the biggest. Role when it comes to our fertility. And so we'll, we'll take a deeper dive into, I know Christy and I talk about food and nutrition obviously all the time because it is so important. But we're gonna take a, a deeper look into how nutrition and our foods really do impact our fertility in general and the babies that we're having. And yeah. Then we'll look at other areas that, uh, we can just be improving from a toxin side. So. Then, you know this, what, what can we re, what can we be removing from our lives in order to impact our fertility? So we'll go through all of that in the next handful of episodes. And if you aren't subscribed to our podcast, be sure to subscribe. So you know when we come out with our next episode. But we do post new ones every Friday. And in our Facebook group, we have been. More consistent over there, and I've been posting a weekly challenge on the Mondays afterwards. So come join us over there and find the weekly challenge from that episode. And yeah, we'd love to hear what you guys are learning from each of these episodes. Chrissy, do you have anything else you'd like to say or would you like to sign us off?

Speaker 2 51:31

I will just sign us off right there. Just remember, guys, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. See you next time.