3 key things everyone should know about pregnancy and fertility
We know that chronic disease rates are skyrocketing, but has it been on your radar that infertility rates are going up at alarming rates as well? Since the 1970s, the following statistics are emerging (credit to the WeNatal team for sharing these in a recent episode they did with Dhru Purohit):
1% increase in miscarriage rates per year
1% decline in sperm counts per year
1% decline is testosterone per year
1% decline in total fertility rate per year
Cumulatively, we’re looking at a 50-60% decline in total fertility rate, testosterone, and sperm counts, and a 50-60% increase in miscarriages and erectile dysfunction. Not ideal.
Symptoms and diseases are simply the way that cells express that their needs are being met (i.e., too few micronutrients), or that they are being overburdened with unhelpful factors (i.e., chronic stress hormones). These fertility statistics all represent that the cells of our body cannot cope with our modern environment.
To me, the infertility crisis is the most overt, dramatic signal that our modern environment is not working to meet our cells’ needs. The result? Our cells saying the following, very, very clearly:
“It is not safe to produce more humans. The environment is not conducive to further life.”
Our body is trying HARD to tell us that our environment is so mismatched to our cellular needs, that our bodies can’t continue to make new humans effectively.
Will we listen?
Or, will do what we’ve done with almost every other chronic illness: medicate and operate intensively, ignore the root causes, build industries around it, and then watch in shock while the rates keep going up (see: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s dementia, cancer, obesity). All these chronic diseases – and infertility – are largely rooted in the same thing: metabolic dysfunction from cells that are broken due to a toxic industrial world, where they can't make cellular energy appropriately, are therefore underpowered, and are therefore dysfunctional.
So with all that doom and gloom, what can we do about it?
A lot.
For starters, we can heal our metabolism and mitochondria. You can learn how through my podcasts, newsletter, website, and my upcoming book: Good Energy.
In this post, I want to share the 3 key things I learned about pregnancy and fertility when writing Good Energy. These are things everyone should know!
1. Oxidative stress is a key cause of several aspects of infertility, and taking antioxidants may help mitigate this.
Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of damaging free radicals and the ability of the body to counteract or detoxify their harmful effects through neutralization by antioxidants. Since our modern life is filled with oxidative stress triggers (e.g., environmental pollutants, inflammatory ultra-processed diets, sleep deprivation, physical and mental stress) we need to increase our antioxidant capacity and work to avoid triggers. We can increase our antioxidant capacity by eating antioxidants (colorful fruits and vegetables, spices, teas), expressing more antioxidant genes (i.e., cruciferous vegetable intake), and taking antioxidant supplements. A study in men found taking antioxidants had a 4-fold increase in both live birth rates and pregnancy rates.
For women, after ovulation, eggs undergo a rapid “aging” process and degradation as they make their way to the uterus through the Fallopian tube, with many changes occurring to mitochondrial activity and mitochondria structure. CoQ10, an antioxidant micronutrient which serves as a mitochondrial cofactor and improves mitochondrial function, significantly improves egg aging after ovulation through multiple complex mechanisms. It reduces levels of oxidative stress and DNA damage and inhibits cell death pathways, thereby preserving egg (oocyte) quality.
What I do: In addition to focusing on eating antioxidant rich foods (e.g. spices, teas, coffee, cocoa, berries, nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens etc.) I take WeNatal, the most comprehensive prenatal multivitamin on the market. In the formula for both men and women, there are antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, E, selenium, manganese, coenzyme Q10 and acetyl L-carnitine to protect specifically against oxidative stress. These nutrients can reduce the risk of pregnancy loss, pre-eclampsia, low birth weight and more. Given that our food is increasingly nutrient depleted due to the impact of industrial agriculture on soil quality, I believe in supplementation especially for men and women who are planning to conceive in the next few years.
2. Alcohol use pre-pregnancy for both men and women decreases all aspects of fertility, and child health. Avoiding alcohol has positive outcomes from preconception to child’s health.
I touched on this in my article on why I am moving away from alcohol, but the one of the wildest things I’ve learned as I’ve dived into the world of preconception optimization is that alcohol use before conception (in either parent - dad or mom!) is a major risk factor for all sorts of heartbreaking birth-related outcomes like infertility, miscarriage, heart defects, behavior problems in childhood, and more. We think of “fetal alcohol syndrome” being a result of drinking during pregnancy, but more research is showing that it might actually be related to epigenetic changes related to preconception drinking as well.
Here are some of the stats (Note: some of these studies are in MICE only, not humans):
Alcohol is “genotoxic,” meaning it affects DNA integrity. It also negatively impacts hormone health.
When drinking alcohol, an individual’s body experiences significant oxidative stress. Oxidative stress damages sperm DNA and egg quality.
Maternal alcohol consumption (Note: this study is in mice!) before pregnancy led to higher post-meal glucose levels during pregnancy in the mother and insulin resistance, large baby size (fetal macrosomia), reduced fertility rate, and oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction in maternal livers during pregnancy. Given our rising rates of infertility and gestational diabetes, this lends to the idea that preconception reduction in alcohol could be helpful
“The more a man drinks before providing sperm, the lower the chances of his partner becoming pregnant – in some cases, by almost 50%.
Sperm carry lots of epigenetic information - these are folding changes to the DNA that can change rapidly (whereas our genetic code cannot) and change the way genes are expressed, and which strongly influence fetal development and child health. Alcohol affects these epigenetics in a major way.
Semen from men who regularly consume alcohol impacts placenta development, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)-associated brain and facial defects, and even IVF outcomes
A father’s sperm are still negatively impacted after stopping, in the “withdrawal” process, so this means it could take a lot longer for sperm to return to normal after stopping drinking than one might think.
A recent study shows that paternal pre-conceptual alcohol consumption “may affect sperm function; cognitive and emotional responses in newborns, hyperactivity disorders, motor skill disruptions, hearing loss, endocrine, and immune alterations; reduced physical growth, placental disruptions, and metabolic alterations in offspring.” There is also another study that found that this promoted anxiety and depression in mice.
Pre-conception alcohol consumption alters “brain nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) synthesis and release.” These are the hormones that help neurons grow and wire properly.
What I do: Currently I’m taking a break from alcohol and have found myself feeling so much better - more even energy, better sleep, more creativity. When it comes to preconception, the data supports recommend that both partners to stop drinking at least several months before conception, ideally longer, to give the body time to make epigenetic modifications, have a few sperm life cycles (average of 74 days) and ovulations, and allow for the hormonal, nutrient, and neurologic systems to get back to a non-alcohol-impacted state of less oxidative stress.
3. Stress plays a major role in fertility. Reduce stress for yourself through boundaries.
In the words of the WeNatal Journal writer, Lillian Cohanzad: “Healthy women create healthy babies. Healthy women create healthy families. Healthy families create healthy societies.” If we want to have a healthy society, we need healthy women (unfortunately, we’re seeing the opposite trend in society, where women are outpacing men in the development of dementia, cardiometabolic diseases, autoimmune diseases, and mental illness). And a healthy woman is generally one who is not under an inordinate amount of stress or chronic overwhelm. I believe there is almost no greater return on investment in society than supporting a preconception woman, a pregnant woman, or a mother to have the capacity to be healthy and happy. And I firmly believe it is women who need to internalize and believe this fully before it comes to fruition in society.
If women don’t fiercely protect our own light and boundaries, why would we expect others to?
If we don’t believe that protecting our energy, health, and life force is critical for our own thriving and that of our families and communities, then it’s not going to be protected.
Unfortunately, our capitalistic Western society seems to be going in the opposite direction: heaping more and more expectations on women to be everything, all at once: mothers, financial earners, breadwinners, elder caregivers, homemakers, and so much more at the same time.
I grew up in what seemed like a very exciting period of time where people celebrated the idea that women can “DO IT ALL!” – and now I realize this may have been a trap. While women are certainly capable of doing nearly anything, we absolutely should not be celebrating the idea that a woman has higher value if she actually does it all… because that quickly leads to burnout. And when women collectively burnout, society goes into a tailspin. We’re seeing this right now in the infertility crisis: the environment of biochemical and psychological overwhelm for women appears to be associated with our catastrophic plummeting of fertility, and it makes sense: as stress hormones increase and toxic burdens increase, sex hormones get screwed up.
When we overtax the things that generate life in the world, they won’t be able to continue generating life - we’re seeing this with women and soil - our life givers, who have been squeezed by the industrial world, and are collapsing.
Here’s some of the data on stress and female fertility:
Women in the highest third of salivary stress hormones exhibited a 29% reduction in fertility compared with those in the lowest third, translating into a more than 2-fold increased risk of infertility among these women.
One study showed the following conclusion: “An inverse association was found between perceived higher workload and conceiving. The likelihood to deliver after fertility treatment was associated with less working hours.”
Women who perceive their job as more demanding were 40% less likely to conceive.
Actual workload – measured by full-time versus part-time job – was found among women who conceived to be associated with 70% less likelihood to successfully complete a pregnancy.
Research has suggested that women with a history of depressive symptoms are twice as likely to experience infertility
As women, I believe we need to be ruthless about setting boundaries to create freedom and space in our lives that give our cells the calm and capacity to make life.
No one is going to hand deliver this to women: it needs to start with women understanding and being empowered in their divine life-giving capacity and the power of their light. From that foundation, we know that when we protect our life force, we cab shine maximal light in the world. A body and mind under chronic stress, overwork, and sleep deprivation is going to be channeling precious biochemical resources towards defense and repair, and away from thriving and fertility.
We must all remember that trillions of dollars of industry benefit off of squeezing every ounce out of us: our professional productivity, our consumption of convenience products since we have so little time, the sickness that we develop from being overburdened, the profits generated from our sick kids, and more.
Let’s celebrate women saying no, asking for help, getting help, delegating, setting expectations, setting boundaries, and not being martyrs. We need to maintain our life force if we’re going to create NEW life.
What I do:
A lot. In my mind there is almost nothing as important as doing the personal work to be in a place of psychological freedom where you can set and hold boundaries to protect your life. First you have to believe in the power of your light. Some of the inquiries I’ve had to delve into include things like:
Who is actually benefiting from me having loose boundaries and over-giving?
Am I being asked to do “all of this” or do I just feel like I should? How I am I creating my own overwhelm by automatically buying into societal expectations?
Where does a short-term perceived gain from me overextending myself (i.e., giving everything to make others “happy”) actually lead to a worse outcome for everyone around me (ie, my burning out, getting depressed, resentful, angry, chronically ill, or dying early)?
Where am I overextending myself because I am buying into cultural perceptions of what’s expected from me rather than what actually is best for me and my family?
Where am I showing up because it's where the universe is truly calling me, versus what I think I should be doing based on others’ expectations?
Where in my life are my actions actually a result of me trying to appease a psychological wound that’s living inside of me (maybe from childhood, maybe from intergenerational trauma that lives in me as an epigenetic signature on my stress hormones), rather than acting out of a pure integrated foundation of abundance?
To get to the root of these questions and feel fully free to set and hold boundaries that protect me and my light (so I can shine MORE!) I’ve done a variety of things (all of which I outline in Chapter 9 of my book Good Energy, called Fearlessness: The Highest Level of Good Energy). The modalities I’ve gone deepest in including therapy, coaching, LOTS of reading (spiritual texts, poetry, psychology, and philosophy), writing, plant medicine (psilocybin), extensive time in the wilderness without technology (like, months at a time), lunar ceremonies, yoga, breath-work, meditation, brainspotting, quantum neuro reset therapy (QNRT), acupuncture, and more.
This might seem like a lot, but I think there is no greater return on investment than working towards self-realization, clearing our the “muck” within that drives our lives and thought patterns, and getting to the other side of limiting beliefs and maladaptive patterns that can run our entire lives.
Some people say this work is a lifelong journey, but I feel differently. I think you do the work and you can get to the “other side” in a sense, where you can then slow down the intensive work and get into maintenance mode.
When you do get to the other side, you KNOW it, because you don’t feel guilty about setting boundaries and taking care of yourself and have a cosmic certainty that your most important job is actually protecting YOUR light and creating spaciousness to “hear” the signals the universe is sending you.
So how does this relate to my fertility journey? While I certainly can’t point to any evidence that this will work (and I haven’t gotten pregnant yet, so take this all with a grain of salt!), I believe that freeing my physical and energetic body from the societal, intergenerational, and personal shackles of wounds and expectation and living into my divine, eternally connected, and limitless potential creates a biological reality in my body that is more conducive to creating new life.
This blog post was done in partnership with WeNatal. I believe WeNatal is the highest quality pre-natal supplement on the market and I take it every day. If you order WeNatal through my link, you’ll receive a free fish oil with subscription ($35 value).
