Ep 357 5 Surprising Fertility Secrets That Could Change Everything!
In this solo episode, I’m sharing five surprising fertility secrets that most people don’t know, but should! These insights may completely shift how you view your reproductive health and help you uncover areas that could be holding you back.
From the surprising link between gum health and fertility, to the fact that you can bleed monthly without actually ovulating, to how seasons, light exposure, and immune balance all play a powerful role in conception, this episode is packed with practical tools and eye-opening science.
Whether you’re actively trying to conceive, planning ahead, or simply curious about the deeper connections between your body and fertility, these insights will empower you to take charge of your journey.
Key Takeaways:
Gum and dental health directly impact sperm quality, egg health, and time to conception.
You can have a regular period without actually ovulating, here’s how to truly confirm ovulation.
Fertility can vary with the seasons, with research showing higher conception rates in autumn and winter.
Light exposure and circadian rhythm play a major role in hormone balance and reproductive health.
Immune balance is critical for implantation, too much or too little activity can block pregnancy.
Disclaimer: The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any changes to your health or fertility care.
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# 357 solo (undedited)
Michelle: [00:00:00] Episode number 3 57 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Today I'm gonna be talking about five surprising fertility facts you may not have heard of. But before I get started, be sure to hit subscribe so that you can get notified for more future fertility boosting tips.
Michelle: Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.
Michelle: So today I am going to be covering five very surprising fertility facts that you may have never heard of. Most people, especially when they first start trying to conceive, start to realize that there's so much information that comes into play, and sometimes they find surprising factors that they never [00:01:00] even thought had anything to do with fertility.
Michelle: Today I'm gonna be covering. Five different fertility facts that I find as a fertility acupuncturist and coach that many of the people that I work with have never heard of before. So fertility fact number one, the state of your dental health can affect fertility in both men and women. So this might come as a huge surprise.
Michelle: And I remember when I even started learning a lot more about fertility. When I decided to specialize in it about 10 years ago, I was very surprised when I first heard this. I knew that dental health was really important for inflammation overall, and I didn't realize at the time as I was starting to learn more about fertility, how impactful and important it is to keep the inflammation low when trying to conceive.
Michelle: So research has shown that women with periodontal disease. Which is advanced gum inflammation took an average of seven months to [00:02:00] conceive compared to women. That took five months that didn't have gum disease. For men, the evidence is compelling. Studies have linked gum disease to reduced sperm motility, abnormal morphology, and higher rates in sperm, DNA fragmentation, all of which cause lower chances of conception and also contribute to miscarriages.
Michelle: And this comes down to the fact that gum disease can impact. Systemic inflammation, so it starts in the mouth, but then it travels and impacts systemic inflammation in the body. This can increase oxidative stress and can impact reproductive tissues, so it's really important to take care of your dental health and floss daily.
Michelle: That makes a huge difference. I remember when I was in college. A long time ago, and I flossed once in a while, maybe a couple times a week, but I never really made it a habit and I paid for it. I had root canals. I ended up with a lot of dental work, [00:03:00] and then as soon as I realized how important it was and that I didn't wanna spend the money and go through all of that, I started flossing every single day.
Michelle: There's not a night that I go without flossing, and ever since then, which is over 20 years ago. I have never had any kind of dental issues, so flossing is huge. It's really, really important. I personally like to use Toms of Maine 'cause they're a really good clean product, but flossing is really important.
Michelle: And then also having regular dental checkups, making sure that. Your dentist takes a look at your teeth, sees if there's anything going on, because if there's any issue with your teeth, it can cause more inflammation. So making sure you are on top of that, and usually with those routine visits, you'll usually get a deeper clean being on top of your vitamin D, which is so important.
Michelle: And that of course also impacts fertility health. And you can consider using NIM products. It's an herb in Ayurvedic medicine that has been shown to help a lot with [00:04:00] skin and also gum health. So you can find toothpaste that have nim, and then you can also use mouthwash that has nim. I would not use mouthwash that is too strong or too antiseptic because that can throw off your oral microbiome.
Michelle: Which is also really important for dental health. So that is the first surprising fertility fact and fertility fact number two is very surprising for a lot of people that are first trying to conceive or first going through this journey. So you can get monthly bleeds and still not ovulate. So you can get what seems to be a regular menstrual cycle where you get your period every month.
Michelle: But that doesn't necessarily mean. You are ovulating, you actually have to check and confirm that ovulation happened. So typically in a normal cycle, ovulation triggers progesterone production. And this is because what happens during ovulation is women have lots of [00:05:00] follicles in their ovaries. And then when FSH increases in their follicular phase, which is really the phase from the period until ovulation.
Michelle: What happens is FSH will help one specific follicle grow the most, and that one follicle that ends up taking the most of the FSH and grows the most typically will be the one that ovulates. So the follicle contains the egg inside and when the. Egg shoots out. The remaining of the follicle is called the corpus lutetium.
Michelle: The corpus lutetium, which actually fun fact means yellow body, and that yellow is betacarotene, is what produces progesterone. And progesterone rises, and that's one of the ways that people can check to see if they actually did in fact ovulate. And then the uterine lining increases. In the second half, which is the luteal phase.
Michelle: And if there's no pregnancy, then the lining of the uterus sheds and that becomes the monthly bleed. However, with [00:06:00] anovulatory, which means no ovulation cycles, the uterine line can still increase with estrogen, which is. A hormone that increases in the follicular phase of the cycle. Once that buildup increases and becomes unstable, then the woman sheds.
Michelle: So even though she didn't ovulate, she still got a period. So common reasons for this could be anything from hormone imbalances, maybe even having estrogen dominance, which can happen from getting exposure to a. Endocrine disruptors or not being able to detoxify estrogen efficiently through the body.
Michelle: Other causes are things like PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, or thyroid imbalances, which really has a huge impact on ovulation. High stress can do this too. Extreme exercise or undereating her menopause, which is the time before menopause. Where your body is slowly shifting from having [00:07:00] cycles to not having cycles or any type of sudden weight change.
Michelle: And typically what happens is when women first try to start conceiving or couples are starting to work on it. They look at their cycles and one of the first things they do is they buy something called LH six or pks. And what that does is it measures the luteinizing hormone. So the luteinizing hormone is a hormone that is released from the pituitary gland when the body is trying to signal ovulation.
Michelle: So what that does is it signals the ovaries. To ovulate, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they responded. So it could be very confusing because people think that if they got a positive OPK or a positive LH surge, that that means that they actually ovulated. And that doesn't necessarily mean it. Now, it would be.
Michelle: Great information. If the person did in fact know they have Atory cycles. In that case, O PKS could be great. However, in order to truly confirm that you would need things like [00:08:00] either Aira device or checking your BBT charting or something like temp drop, and I can share a couple of resources in the description of this episode.
Michelle: Another thing that some women do is when they first go to an REI or fertility doctor, they will do a test. For both. They're day two, three of their periods, and that checks lots of different hormones like FSH, and then what they'll do is they'll actually have them come back after midpoint of their cycle around day 21 to check their progesterone.
Michelle: But this is a, a baseline that happens once. And doing the other tests that I mentioned is something that you can do monthly so that if things are a little off, you can shift things with your lifestyle and measure it. And see if those changes in your lifestyle are actually having an effect on your cycle.
Michelle: So those are a couple of tips that you can do, but just keep in mind that it is really important if you are actively trying to conceive that you really check your [00:09:00] cycle and understand and confirm if your body actually did in fact, ovulate. So onto the third fertility, surprising fact, and that is fertility actually varies with seasons.
Michelle: I know this sounds really crazy, but research shows that there are certain seasons that impact conception. So one study in reproductive biology and endocrinology. Found that embryo quality was higher in the autumn and winter compared to spring and summer. So there's different ideas and thoughts, and one of them could be maybe people got a little bit more vitamin D in the summer and then it impacted since it takes about three months for ex symmetry and shift, maybe it impacted by the time they actually did retrieve.
Michelle: Which is about three months. Or it could be also melatonin increasing with the shorter days, which acts as an antioxidant for the eggs and can increase egg quality. But it's also been shown that [00:10:00] conception rates in general increase around autumn and winter, which I find is just really, really, really fascinating.
Michelle: And I had a patient a long time ago. Who had one daughter and she would get pregnant, but then miscarry many different times and was trying to conceive for a very long time, years. And what she found was she would always conceive around November, around that time and fall. And so one point when we started working together, she told me she didn't wanna try to conceive around that time because she was so devastated by the losses that she was afraid.
Michelle: To conceive again during that time of the year because she thought that if she would conceive around that time of the year, it would fail. So at one point, after we've worked together for a while, I encouraged her, why don't you just still do it? Because it seems to be that that's the time that you conceive.
Michelle: She ended up with a full term healthy pregnancy, but I thought it was just so interesting that she kept conceiving around that same time that the [00:11:00] research shows conception gets higher. So I'm not sure if it is the vitamin D in the summer or the melatonin during the time where the days get shorter.
Michelle: Research doesn't really know exactly what it is, but for whatever reason, that is a very interesting time. People tend to conceive. And could it be the betacarotene that supports the corpus lium from all the holiday meals? Who knows? But it is a very surprising fact. So the next surprising fact, fact number four is that excessive or poor light can interfere with fertility.
Michelle: So our 24 hour clock, which is our circadian rhythm, is very much impacted by light. So this is why we get jet lagged. When we move from one time zone to another time zone. Our bodies feel off because they're not used to us being exposed to light at those certain times. And the light is really what anchors our internal clock.
Michelle: So the way I like to describe [00:12:00] it is that if you're a 24 hour clock. Is off, it's going to impact for women 30 day clock or the 29.5 day clock, which is considered the infra dian rhythm. So the 24 hour is the circadian rhythm and the 29.5 which follows the moon cycle is the infra clock. And if you look at a clock and the second hand.
Michelle: Is off and it's not working correctly, that second hand is going to impact the hour hand. So even though the hour hand is just doing its thing, the second hand is impacting it because it's all part of one complete whole. So research has shown that people who have conditions like PCOS, which has symptoms of irregular periods, also have a link to disrupted circadian rhythms.
Michelle: Not only that, the light in general impacts our ability to sleep. So if we get good early morning sun, that can actually impact our night melatonin. [00:13:00] Also getting early morning sun can increase cellular melatonin, which acts like an antioxidant for the eggs. And egg quality. And this can also help with sperm quality as well.
Michelle: For men, one of the biggest issues is screen time because screens have blue light. So one of the ways to protect from that later at night when your body is going to get confused by that blue light and think it's daytime and that will keep you up longer. And so that kind of disruption will impact your 24 hour day cycle.
Michelle: So one of the ways to get around it is. Either have your devices for night mode, and what they do is they, they'll start looking more yellow because the blue light aspect of the screen gets taken out, and that helps your eyes distinguish that it's not daytime by the confusion of looking at a blue light.
Michelle: Another thing you can do if you really can't avoid it, or you're watching TV and there's certain things that you can't really shift or change. Is get something called blue light blockers, and those are glasses that are not [00:14:00] prescription, and all they do is have a little bit of a yellow tint so that they can block the blue light from coming into your eyes.
Michelle: And you can also ease yourself in the evening by dimming the lights and not having it so bright. So really overall. Really anchoring it in the morning and getting early morning sun, and during that time the UV light is a lot lower, so it's not as dangerous, and it can also be very supportive to anchoring your circadian rhythm.
Michelle: So surprising fertility. Fact number five is that your body's immune balance is key to successful implantation. So, as you may know if you are on the fertility journey, is that fertility is not just about the egg and sperm meeting. There are so many other factors that contribute to a healthy pregnancy overall, and one of them is creating a really healthy environment and your uterine lining that is able to support healthy implantation.
Michelle: So keep this in mind, and this is a [00:15:00] really interesting thing that I found again when I first started learning about this, is that the body of a woman perceives sperm as a foreign entity, and therefore it can also perceive a fertilized. Embryo as a foreign entity. So in many cases, if a woman's immune system is too heightened, it can cause a inflammation in the uterine lining, but it can also cause her body's immune system to be too high for the embryo to be tolerated by the body.
Michelle: So when I mention immune system. And balance. It's important for it not to be too high, but it's also important for it not to be too low. So many things that can be done about this and uh, one of the things that people can look into is a great, it's called ferus. And what that does is it actually looks at the microbiome of the uterus with period blood.
Michelle: And it's an amazing test because it can give us a lot of information and it's something that you can do at home, and [00:16:00] I will link that in the show notes. And you can also speak to your fertility doctor to see what kind of tests you can do to make sure that there's no inflammation. I've spoken to way too many women that have been on this journey for years have gone through many IVF transfers that have failed, and finally, way later, their uterus lining was tested and they found out that they had.
Michelle: Some kind of infection. They needed to do a dose of antibiotics. So it's really, really sad to see so many years go by and so many failed transfers happen without any proper testing because as soon as you test, you can see what it is. You can treat it. And then transfers or even natural pregnancies can happen.
Michelle: I recently had a patient who had endometritis and it was left unchecked until one of her doctors actually checked and found out that she did in fact have something that was totally missed for many years. And she finally treated it, went through a [00:17:00] course of antibiotics. We worked on different supplements, and then she just had a transfer that was her first successful transfer and she's pregnant right now.
Michelle: So that's just one example of how something can be seemingly so easy to fix, but missed for many years. So it's important to really understand what is happening with the immune system. And so another thing that I wanted to mention. Which is kind of interesting, not a lot of people know, is that one of the reasons why having sex outside of the fertile window in the luteal phases is so good, besides the fact that it takes away the pressure of having to have sex during the time of the fertile window.
Michelle: It also helps your immune system. So for a woman, more chances of her body coming into contact with this. Sperm. The immune system actually lowers naturally, and this is a natural process that happens in sexually active women, is that their immune system will naturally lower so that it's able to receive new life.
Michelle: And not only that, you're getting more [00:18:00] blood flow, increasing oxytocin, doing all the good things. So it is important to have sex during the luteal phase, even though it's not a fertile time in order to improve the chances for conception. So that concludes the five Surprising Fertility Facts that you may have never heard of, and this just shows that reproductive health really is a reflection of so much more than just fertility.
Michelle: And this is why you really need to look at the body as a whole. And if you need support in this journey to uncover what's happening and what you can do without the overwhelm. I have you covered. You could check out my link in the show notes. And go on michelle orbit.com/the-wholesome-fertility-journey to find out more.
Michelle: So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope this information was interesting and inspired you to look [00:19:00] into other ways to boost your chances of conceiving. Sending you all so much love, and I'll see you next time.