Giving Birth After 35 with Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

This week on The Less Stressed Life,  I’m thrilled to welcome back Lisa Hendrickson-Jack, host of the Fertility Friday podcast and author of The Fifth Vital Sign and co-author of Real Food for Fertility. Lisa brings her expertise as a fertility awareness educator to discuss a topic on many women’s minds: advanced maternal age.

In this episode, we unpack what it really means to be 35+ and trying to conceive. Lisa explains how fertility evolves with age, why terms like “geriatric pregnancy” can feel discouraging, and how to take actionable steps to support your body and improve your chances of conception.

We also cover practical strategies for optimizing fertility, from tracking your menstrual cycle to improving egg and sperm quality through nourishment and lifestyle changes. Plus, Lisa highlights the critical role your partner plays in the process.

Check out Lisa's other episode #203 Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Why your menstrual cycle is your fifth vital sign
• How fertility changes after 35 and what you can do about it
• Egg quality vs. egg quantity: Why both matter
• Simple ways to nourish your body for conception and pregnancy
• The surprising role your partner’s health plays in fertility
• How to balance conventional fertility advice with holistic practices

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ABOUT GUEST:
Lisa Hendrickson-Jack is a certied Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner who trains women’s health practitioners to use their menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices. She is the founder of the Fertility Awareness Mastery MentorshipTM program. She is the author of three bestselling books The Fifth Vital Sign, the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Workbook, and her most recent book Real Food For Fertility, which she co-authored with Lily Nichols RDN. Lisa works tirelessly to debunk the myth that regular ovulation is only important when you want children by recognizing the menstrual cycle as a vital sign. Drawing heavily from the current scientific literature, Lisa presents an evidence-based approach to help women connect to their fifth vital sign by uncovering the connection between the menstrual cycle, fertility, and overall health. With well over 4 million downloads, her podcast, Fertility Friday, is the #1 source for information about fertility awareness and menstrual cycle health.

Check out Lisa's FREEBIES here: https://www.fertility-friday.com/freebies

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://fertilityfriday.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fertilityfriday/

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: ****https://www.christabiegler.com/links

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY:

• Over restriction is dead
• Whole food is soul food and fed is best
• Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
• You don’t have to figure it out alone
• Do your best and leave the rest

SPONSOR:  
Thanks to Jigsaw Health for sponsoring this episode! Try their MagSoothe or MagSRT for better sleep and less stress. From now until Dec 1, use code LESSSTRESSED15 at JigsawHealth.com for 15% off!

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: We really have to go back to, from my perspective, looking at your cycle. As that proxy as a woman, one of the great things that all of us have this menstrual cycle, and it's unique to all of us.

[00:00:10] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It's a real time measure of what's going on. 

[00:00:13] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stressed life. On this show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:00:43] Christa Biegler, RD: One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

[00:01:00] Christa Biegler, RD: Today on The Less Stressed Life, we welcome back Lisa Hendrickson Jack, who was last here in episode 203 and now we're 300 and something, so a couple of years ago. She's a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner who trains women's health practitioners to use their menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices.

[00:01:20] Christa Biegler, RD: She's also the founder of the Fertility Awareness Mastery Mentorship Program. And the author of three best selling books, The Fifth Vital Sign, the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Workbook, and her most recent book, Real Food for Fertility, which she co authored with Lily Nichols. Lisa works tirelessly to debunk the myth that regular ovulation is the only important thing when you want children by recognizing the menstrual cycle as a vital sign.

[00:01:44] Christa Biegler, RD: And she draws heavily from current scientific literature, presenting evidence based approach to help women connect their fifth vital sign by uncovering the connection between their menstrual cycle, fertility, and overall health. She also is the Podcast host of Fertility Friday, which is a epic success, the number one source for fertility awareness and menstrual cycle health.

[00:02:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Welcome back, Lisa. 

[00:02:05] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you so much for having me. It's like the older that you get, the longer the bio. 

[00:02:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, I know. I did not even try to hash it out. Today, sometimes I get them because it says, please include a brief bio. And I get like a two page bio. And I was like, all right, we'll work on this one. But no, this was great.

[00:02:21] Christa Biegler, RD: And let's celebrate all those accomplishments today. Fantastic. It's crazy to look back on. Good. Okay. So good to have you back. Today we're talking about a topic that I feel is common because I am not. having children, but I'm advanced maternal age. I am over 35. And so I have friends that are the same age that are having babies.

[00:02:41] Christa Biegler, RD: And so something that comes up in conversation with colleagues, because some of my friends are colleagues as well, is just that they really were not prepared how they would feel by being called trans. advanced maternal age during their pregnancy. And so when I was talking to our mutual friend, Lily, recently, I thought, let us bring some conversation to this.

[00:03:02] Christa Biegler, RD: So let's talk about advanced maternal age. Are you also, I'm guessing you're also advanced maternal age now. 

[00:03:09] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I am. 

[00:03:10] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I am. 

[00:03:10] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I am. I am 41. This year, I'll be 42 in actually in 31 days. All right. I will be 42. I also have a two year old. 

[00:03:23] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:03:23] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Okay. You've done this. During advanced maternal age. I also have a 11, soon to be 12 year old and a nine year old. 

[00:03:31] Christa Biegler, RD: Perfect.

[00:03:31] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. You can give us how this was. I'm going to guess. Okay. Okay. I know for a fact that all of your work around fertility has been pretty prolific probably this last decade, really between your second child and your third child. Was it for you? How was being, or was this not an issue for you because you were in this space and you knew you'd be, like, did, were you bothered by this whatsoever?

[00:03:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Just asking. 

[00:03:53] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So for me personally, my experiences I've realized with pregnancy and birth are quite different. So for example, I had all three of my babies in my house. And so whenever I speak to somebody who interact, and that means I had midwives, Like I have a GP, but the care is transferred once you.

[00:04:15] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Become pregnant and you're past a certain little while. So my experience has been very different, I think, because whenever I speak to somebody who has had the pleasure of birthing in the medical system, their experiences are very different to mine. So I didn't have a lot of that type of stuff going on.

[00:04:34] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: One other thing to consider is when I had baby number Three. I had already had two babies before that. So it is a little bit different when you're at that age and it's not your first baby. Whenever it's your first baby, you're going through it for the first time. You're really, I think naturally a little bit more nervous, a little bit more susceptible to all the things that they're gonna say because you haven't done it before and you might not necessarily feel confident and whatever.

[00:05:03] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: As you might feel confident to a certain point, but you're not necessarily as confident in your decisions because you haven't done it before. So you're still, I remember as a new mom, when I had my eldest son feeling like I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn't always as confident about that.

[00:05:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I, like I felt like I had to justify 

[00:05:20] Christa Biegler, RD: things. 

[00:05:20] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so there's a lot of different factors where my experience wouldn't. 

[00:05:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Translate. 

[00:05:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Be the 

[00:05:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: same, but by baby number three no holds barred. 

[00:05:30] Christa Biegler, RD: Exactly. Also in your 30s, I feel, I think we just generally do get wiser, so we'll define really quickly.

[00:05:37] Christa Biegler, RD: I think if people are listening to this, we know, what is advanced maternal age and why is this significant? If at all. 

[00:05:44] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah. Generally speaking, if you are in that lovely age category of 35 and older you're put in there because there's what I find fascinating from my perspective in the work that I do when we're focused on the menstrual cycle and the fertility aspect, less so the pregnancy aspect is that there's so much emphasis placed on avoiding pregnancy when you're young.

[00:06:07] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: There's so much. misinformation, I would call it, around the menstrual cycle. We just are not taught anything. So most of the women that I know, we spend our late teens, early twenties, mid twenties, avoiding pregnancy like the plague. This is just the societal norm. And we're so scared of getting pregnant just on a whim, because we're taught that it can happen just so easily that very little, if any thought is given to the fact that we will it.

[00:06:34] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: get older. And the part of the conversation that's missing is that our fertility changes with age. So when you get into that older category, of course, there are some increased risks associated, miscarriage rates are higher, pregnancy complications are higher. There's a lot of different changes that occur.

[00:06:53] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: From an egg and sperm quality standpoint, there's lots of research to show that egg and sperm quality declines with age In both men and women, it's not just women, although it's presented that way. Even though men are fertile from puberty forwards, there is a distinct change in the quality of sperm as men get older.

[00:07:10] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: We're more susceptible to oxidative stress, oxidative damage. So we do know that there are these issues associated. However, For example, the work that Lily and I do in this space with fertility, even within those age categories, there's still a lot of opportunity to optimize. So you're not going to make, like for me, I'm 41.

[00:07:30] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I'm not going to create a situation where my eggs are the same as they were when they were 20, but I can certainly what was happening. And so from my personal experience of conception, given that I'm in this space and I do the things, I don't just talk about the things, I do the things to improve support fertility.

[00:07:47] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And I've been doing them and my partner as well was actively doing those things. That was one of the reasons also why my experience might've been a little bit different. 

[00:07:55] Christa Biegler, RD: For sure. And there's a lot to say about this. You just covered a ton. You just covered a ton, which was that. Yeah.

[00:08:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Risk it all up. And we might not be able to answer this because your experience recently having your two year old, you did not go through the medical system. I did not have, I had kids when I was young, I just did. So I did not go through this over 35 either. And I don't know how in general women are treated differently when they go through the medical system over age 35.

[00:08:20] Christa Biegler, RD: If you have any insight on that, feel free to insert it now. If not, that's okay. I'll move on. 

[00:08:25] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, I can't say that I do. I think. other than the things that women are told. So when I'm working with clients one of the kind of parts where this came up in real food for fertility was in our ag quality chapter, because I decided we were going to have a throw down on AMH and this long conversation.

[00:08:43] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so Lily and I were in this conversation and she's is this a little bit too much? Like, why are we going on about this? Cause I really went into a ton of details so that we could really explain what AMH is. You know what it actually is it's something that is in both male and females and all the things, right?

[00:08:59] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But the reason that I wanted to focus on that was because this is one of the issues more in the fertility space. So in the fertility space, when you're in that age category and you start doing various types of testing, as we get older, is well known that AMH levels decline and things like that.

[00:09:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I've had clients who were told if their AMH was low categorically that they will never get pregnant. I've been told that they're going into early menopause. And when we look at what the research actually has to say is that although AMH is an indirect marker for fertility for ovarian reserve, it actually is not.

[00:09:40] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: known to be in the research, it doesn't show that it is a good predictor of natural conception. So that's something where when you get into these age categories and you're doing testing, A lot of women would be experiencing a lot of discouraging things, and so it's something that you said earlier, which is, what are they being told by their healthcare professionals?

[00:10:02] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so my experience has just been less so in the pregnancy space, but in the fertility space, where women are being told these discouraging things, these wide sweeping statements, oh, if your AMH is low, then you're not going to be able to have kids, and maybe it's low, they'll say it's fixed.

[00:10:18] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It can't change, and so they'll say all these things, but it's not, it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation because, for example, what the research does show pretty consistently is, for example, with the AMH, anti malarian hormone levels what happens is as you start your menstrual cycle, you can picture a little cohort of eggs developing, and as you then go into that cycle, eventually one of those eggs is chosen and that's the egg that ovulates.

[00:10:48] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So when we're in our younger ages, that little cohort of eggs that's developing is larger. And so it's those developing eggs that are kicking out the AMH. So the AMH levels that they're measuring are a representation of how large this little cohort of eggs is. And that is thought to be that kind of proxy for the overall reserve.

[00:11:08] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Because there is this semi linear kind of, as you're younger, it's higher, and or, and as you get older, it gets lower. So there is this kind of linear relationship there, but it's, the interesting thing is that it's not 100 percent in every situation, it's exactly going down. So for example if a woman has endometriosis, her AMH levels may be lower.

[00:11:29] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But if a woman has PCOS, which is characterized by having multiple developing follicles, her AMH levels would be higher. So although there is this kind of general trend, it's not just this perfect, it would be great if it was that simple 

[00:11:44] Christa Biegler, RD: rarely, but it's not. 

[00:11:48] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So then what happens as we get older, we have this smaller cohort, the AMH levels are lower.

[00:11:54] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So what AMH is really good at. Predicting is how well you are going to respond to IVF stimulation. So if that AMH number is low, it means that little cohort is small. So then logically it does actually make sense that if they were to do a stimulation, you would be less likely to have a large yield.

[00:12:15] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And in the inverse example of PCOS, where they're known to have a higher AMH because of the increased number of follicles, they're more prone to overstimulation. So there is this in the research, this connection there, but what happens is that is carried over into telling women that they're not gonna be able to get pregnant.

[00:12:34] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And when you look at the research, there are women who conceive with undetectable AMH levels. Now, obviously we don't just throw it out. If it's low, it does indicate that we should be focusing on improving egg quality. There are actually ways to improve AMH levels within your age cohort. So again, we're not going to have the AMH levels of a 20 year old if we're at 40, but within our.

[00:12:54] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: cohort, there's a significant variation in terms of how much we can have. And so that would be one of the top things that kind of comes to mind. There's a lot, there's others, right? If you're pregnant, just being told that it's a geriatric pregnancy and being told all this stuff. So there's a lot of things that women are told, but I would say as, as far as the aging conversation and fertility, that's one of the big things.

[00:13:15] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And when I've worked with clients who are in these situations, it just really can get in their heads. Doctors have so much power and we've heard of the placebo effect, but have you heard of the nocebo effect where if a doctor says you're going to die in six months, like a certain percentage of people will literally die six months to the day because that's how much power they have.

[00:13:34] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So it's really concerning when we have women who are not necessarily educated about these things being told these things by their practitioners without the full context of what's really going on. 

[00:13:43] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. All right, I think the conversation is a bit layered. It's really what is in the overall nucleus or the ball of fertility?

[00:13:50] Christa Biegler, RD: It's lots of things. There's lots of episodes here on that already. Some things that might impact fertility in general, I'll just list some things, and you can list some things, and then let's look at what the peel is on the outside with over 35. Things that impact fertility are going to be everything that might affect hormones, technically.

[00:14:10] Christa Biegler, RD: Toxic burden how is your menstrual cycle in general, and that hormone production. That's all impacted by toxic burden, gut health, stress. nutrients, blood sugar, which if you would bring up, you know, you just mentioned PCOS, some of those same things, a little more emphasis on certain things would come up for me.

[00:14:28] Christa Biegler, RD: There's certain things that would, I would think, okay, this and this for PCOS plus all the other stuff, or if it was endo, okay, this and this plus all the other stuff. And so with general fertility, want what we want. spend a ton of time on is, in general there's a lot of things, right? But as we age, what becomes more important?

[00:14:45] Christa Biegler, RD: And I wonder if we want to talk a little bit about egg quality, which is important regardless. Egg qualities are important regardless, but then because egg quality might decline with age, how does it become more important? Do the nutrients for that just in general go up with age? How is AMH impact?

[00:15:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Is there something with AMH that we want to. In fact, basically, what's the layer outside of the things that you're already doing for fertility? What is the lens when you are over 35 that you want to consider? What are the special things that you want to consider over 35? 

[00:15:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, there was a lot in that question.

[00:15:19] Christa Biegler, RD: I know. 

[00:15:20] Christa Biegler, RD: So a while back my college aged daughter shared with me that she was tossing and turning and waking up several times per night after a period of stress. We started her on magnesium and her sleep immediately improved. I personally think magnesium should be your first thing to try if you're having trouble sleeping or staying asleep, especially tossing and turning, and it's a no brainer if you have any restless leg issues.

[00:15:45] Christa Biegler, RD: The thing about magnesium is that there's a lot of types of magnesium that will give you symptomatic relief, but I like to steer my clients and loved ones to a more absorbable form of magnesium, because most big box magnesium is magcitrate, and that will push bowels, but it can be damaging to your teeth if it's used daily and it's not the most Rather, Jigsaw Health makes one of my favorite great tasting magnesium powders called MagSue that has magnesium glycinate, my favorite calming and absorbable type of magnesium. It's available in both a great tasting powder and to go packets, and they also make a product that's great for slow release, especially if you have restless legs, called MagSRT.

[00:16:26] Christa Biegler, RD: So, If you are not falling asleep easily or if you have disrupted sleep, you can try at least 200 milligrams of great magnesium like MagSoothe or MagSRT, especially if you have restless legs. It works better to take this at least 20 minutes before you go to bed to allow it to kick in and you can get a on All of Jigsaw's amazing products, including MagSooth at Jigsaw Health with the code LESSSTRESS10.

[00:16:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Now you can use LESSSTRESS10 as many times as you want with every order at Jigsaw Health, which is honestly pretty unheard of with coupon codes. So enjoy the magnesium from Jigsaw with my code LESSSTRESS10.

[00:17:06] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I'll see if I can break down piece by piece and then remind me what I've forgotten. But with the AMH, just to speak to that, what's interesting about the ovarian reserve parameters in general is that they don't necessarily speak to quality. Because there as a proxy for the reserve, so they're trying to tell us the quantity, how many you have left theoretically, how many years you have left theoretically, and that's why they use weaponized against women you won't be able to have kids or you're going to go into menopause.

[00:17:34] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But ironically, it doesn't really give us as much of an insight into the quality itself. So when we're looking at a quality. It's important to know that when it comes to fertility in the research, the age of the woman is one of the most significant, if not the most significant factors from that research perspective in terms of, when we look at IVF research, for example, it's the age of the egg, not even the woman.

[00:18:01] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So that will determine. So those are some of the scary stats that can feel very discouraging. I'm not here to provide discouragement. I think that it's helpful to understand that as women, we have an end date and there is a variety of ways that people talk about this. So there's a lot of practitioners that put a very positive spin on it because there, it is possible to conceive even into that kind of later maternal age.

[00:18:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But I think. I always put some guardrails around it because more so because I want to draw attention to the fact that we don't talk about this. I want to draw attention to the fact that we should be thinking that there is an end date and we should be acting accordingly. So as we get older, the question of what we should be focusing on I think that it does.

[00:18:46] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So when you're in your 20s, egg quality is always important, and we always want to focus on consuming, very nutrient dense foods that are going to support that to support hormonal health and things like that. But I do think that when we get into that age range, we also have to consider that our partners are also in that age range.

[00:19:03] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So there was an interesting study that I was looking at, when I was writing that chapter, and it talks about how our eggs. They're amazing. And they have the ability to repair some degree of sperm DNA damage. So 

[00:19:19] Christa Biegler, RD: we're really getting in here, aren't we? 

[00:19:21] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah. 

[00:19:22] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I'll get to the point of how this relates to age, human males, human sperm is notoriously poor quality.

[00:19:29] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So in the animal kingdom. So if they're looking at like elephants and Reus monkeys or whatever, like human males have notoriously poor DNA, like sperm quality in terms of that. So even when we're looking at what would be optimal numbers, the optimal numbers are, like 12 percent normal morphology or higher, 12%, like 12.

[00:19:48] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So that means like the vast majority of sperm that men produce are, have morphological issues and things like that. So there's research that shows that our eggs have some degree of capacity to repair some of their DNA damage. So when sperm meets egg and they come in there. We have this capacity, but it's highly dependent on our age.

[00:20:09] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So when they do these studies, it's like younger women with older men will still, there'll be a reduction overall fertility, because again, I'm calling the men out, for the fact that their sperm changes with age, but they're able to compensate for it. So there'll be higher. Pregnancy rates in the younger women and then as we get older, some of that capacity isn't there because of the age.

[00:20:30] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So what we want to focus on then are things like whenever you look at the egg and the sperm quality conversation, we're looking at. antioxidants. We're looking at nutrients that reduce some of the oxidative damage. And the best way to describe oxidative damage is peel a banana and put on the counter.

[00:20:47] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And what happens? It turns brown. And so this is something where we're more susceptible to this as we get older. That's not the only piece of it, but the antioxidant conversation is a big piece of this. quantity versus quality conversation. As we get older, we just have to focus more on that.

[00:21:03] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So more of those efforts. If someone's looking to optimize their fertility, more of those efforts, we want to make sure that we're focusing on the nutrient density even more so we want to make sure that we are preparing our bodies for pregnancy. One consideration that I think again, we should consider is you mentioned, you said I had my kids young.

[00:21:22] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I didn't have this experience. And when you Women are waiting because this is what's happening in our culture. We wait until everything's right until the job, the partner, all the things. So we're often starting, whether it's in our early thirties, mid thirties, whatever. So if you're starting there, then it's we're trying to bang them out.

[00:21:38] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So you're trying to have, not just one child, but multiple children. So I think it's of particular importance that we really focus on that nutrient density because it's not really part of the conversation either. We don't really talk about the aging part. But we don't really talk about the mom and how depleting nutrient wise having children and breastfeeding is. 

[00:22:00] Christa Biegler, RD: I agree. 

[00:22:01] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah. And you don't really know until you've done it, how depleting it is. 

[00:22:05] Christa Biegler, RD: No, totally. So often people come in and I can't tell you how often it is the conversation is, Oh, after I had children, then this happened. I was like that was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

[00:22:14] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'll just clarify, just so we can check that box. Nothing was perfect when I was having children. As we do and everyone's got their personal reasons. I'll just acknowledge nothing was perfect at any time. I don't know if there's ever a perfect time, but 

[00:22:27] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: nothing was

[00:22:28] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: perfect with me either.

[00:22:29] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah. 

[00:22:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Nothing's perfect. The end. So here we are in our thirties wanting to get pregnant. And to your point, our stress has accumulated over time. And when stress accumulates over time, the bottom line to me is that nutrients are depleted. And this just goes opposite. And it's I tell people all the time, if you know you're in a stressful season, the worst thing you can do is think that you don't have that problem.

[00:22:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Like no awareness around it. That would be the worst thing because then you can't do anything about it. So have more awareness around that so you can actually do something. Because you can support yourself. I will be very honest. This last month has been hard on my adrenals. They were like sad and crying.

[00:23:07] Christa Biegler, RD: They were like, hey. Actually, if you could just stay home this weekend, cancel something, that would be great. That would be amazing. And what I did was I listened and I gave them a lot of freaking support because I had a, just a busy, even the good stress can be stressful, right? So I'll just acknowledge these things because the smarter you are, the more we tend to justify things.

[00:23:27] Christa Biegler, RD: As you hear me literally doing right now almost, right? But I was giving myself lots of support and that, by the way, that adrenal support is the similar things to what your mitochondria need and. in your egg quality. So it's very similar. But the point is, and I always use Christmas season and here we are coming into the holiday season.

[00:23:42] Christa Biegler, RD: I always say as a mom, that is a busy, stressful time so often. And that is a time I should support myself further. Okay. So I support myself more. The reason I want to have this conversation is because the questions, when you get to this point in time, get more complicated. Cause I think in general, when we look at the way traditional conventional fertility is.

[00:24:02] Christa Biegler, RD: We go about that in the world. There's a lot of fertility treatments. There's a lot of minutiae. And when we're looking at integrative medicine and nutrition and basic physiology, is what I would like to actually say, basic physiology, the question is, some of these same truths just apply. right?

[00:24:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Like you've just got to really support all the nutrients that could be depleted from your years of stress. You don't have the same mitochondria. That's literally the difference between as we age is like we tend to lose mitochondria. We tend to lose mitochondria function under medications, stressors, lots and lots of things.

[00:24:35] Christa Biegler, RD: That's going to be, I would say, Number one, right? That's number one is like the things that support egg quality, which are mitochondrial things are going to be number one. And so we'll just like, because I think people come in and say what I think the variety of questions could be like, what should I take?

[00:24:50] Christa Biegler, RD: How can I do this? Like we're trying to achieve and check a box. And the answer is still the same. It just has a slightly different lens on it, right? Oh, it's actually just more important, but you don't even realize how depleted you might be. And I wonder I think this is bringing up the question of, for me, I have some testing, but it's non conventional testing.

[00:25:10] Christa Biegler, RD: What do you think women can do to get an assessment of their depletion status or their nutrient status or perhaps their egg quality status, to use different words. How can someone know how much work to do? 

[00:25:24] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Oh, that's such an interesting question. I do think basic nutrient panels, I think, from a testing standpoint, doing hormonal testing can give you a huge insight.

[00:25:33] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Now, I'm a bit biased because in the work that I do, I use the menstrual cycle as a biomarker. Yeah. And you hit on something that's also really important that you start to see. So for women who track their menstrual cycles and who track it over time, there are certain things that you will see.

[00:25:51] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And of course, it's also reflected in the research that as we get older, as we get into that more of the pre menopause, so more like the early forties, like the 10 years before our last menstruation, so the average age of menopause is about 51. And so as we are in that, 35 and up early 40s stage, what's happening is a wind down, a natural wind down of our menstruating years.

[00:26:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so we start to see that reflected in our menstrual cycles. One of the things that women may notice is that the average cycle length goes down. So if you track 12 cycles in a year, they're not always going to be the same date and there'll be an average. And so when you're younger, maybe you have the occasional cycle that's a little bit longer, a little bit shorter, but overall that average is somewhere around 29 days.

[00:26:38] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: As we get into that 10 years leading up to our last period, That average starts to creep down. It might be more like 27, 26 days. So you start having earlier ovulations. You start having cycles that are a little bit shorter. And one of the big things that. I think all women need to know in this stage is that we can't get away with the same stuff we used to in our 20s.

[00:27:01] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So in your 20s, I don't know, my 20s were not that exciting. I went to, university, did my thing, but I used to stay up all day and then go out and party and do all this stuff and I could do it and I would be tired the next day, but I could still function and you just do all this stuff.

[00:27:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I could eat, all the sweets and I would, just all the things. You could drink coffee a lot, didn't really do much. But what I find is that as you get into these later ages, especially when you are looking at the menstrual cycle in a very specific way and you're able to identify the length of your luteal phase, which is a representation of your progesterone levels.

[00:27:37] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: You're able to take a look at it in a more systematized way. You'll see that you can't sustain what you used to. So I think one of the particular Aspects of just being in this age group is that we have to start listening to our bodies. Like you said, you knew you didn't feel well, you knew that you were pushing your adrenals to the limit and you decided to take a break.

[00:28:00] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That comes from a lot of self awareness on your part. Not everyone has been forced to learn that. So I think one of the challenges from, again, from my perspective, I'm coming from the charting and looking at that when you chart your cycles, you start to see it. If I drink coffee, like three cups of coffee every single day, if I skip breakfast, if I work out a lot, like if I don't go to bed on time, if I do all these things, if I don't get a protein if I don't get my macros and my micros, in, then I will start to see that in my cycle.

[00:28:27] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I'll see it reflected in higher PMS levels, shorter luteal phase less energy, all of these different things that will just scream hormonal imbalance because I'm not balanced. And if you were doing that and coasting and getting by, then that's what you're At some point in your entrance into this pre menopause time, you're going to start to like your body's going to start like, it's almost like you think it's malfunctioning, but it's not malfunctioning.

[00:28:49] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Your body's trying to communicate to you. It's trying to tell you to settle down. It's trying to tell you to relax. So when we add that to the fertility conversation, I think to go back to your question about let's look at those layers and what is it that we have to do. We have to be a lot more kind to ourselves and we have to really get back to those basics that we all know we should be doing but don't.

[00:29:08] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Like we really have to get back to getting enough sleep. We really have to get back to eating nutritious meals, making time for breakfast, not skipping meals. We really have to go back to, from my perspective, looking at your cycle. As that proxy as a woman, one of the great things that all of us have this menstrual cycle, and it's unique to all of us.

[00:29:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It's a real time measure of what's going on. So if your luteal phase is seven days, if you spot five days before your period every month, if you have raging PMS, if you have these things that are just totally out of control and getting worse, that is your body telling you that whatever you're doing isn't working and we need to switch it up.

[00:29:42] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so when we add that to the fertility conversation, one of the things that Lily and I said at the beginning of Real Food for Fertility is a healthy menstrual cycle sets the stage for optimal fertility, and it really does. And I know we could jump to all the different types of testing.

[00:29:56] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I feel like they work together. I think in my world, the menstrual cycle tells us where to look because it's Oh, wow, look at that. Okay, look at this. We should test these things. And then the testing confirms what our suspicions were. And then it motivates the woman who got the test to Oh my gosh, I didn't realize my levels were so low.

[00:30:14] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And then through this process, we're able to get the motivation to switch it up. 

[00:30:18] Christa Biegler, RD: Perfect. It's like the menstrual cycle is the quiz you already had built in, to your body that like gives you the awareness to confirm that. So I love what you just said, which is understanding your menstrual cycle tells you where to look.

[00:30:31] Christa Biegler, RD: Then you could test to confirm. Maybe you don't even need to test to confirm, but we test to validate often, right? Because that motivates the woman. 

[00:30:39] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes, because you can, in your field as well, you would be working with someone from time to time and you have a suspicion that X, Y, Z. You see a woman, she's had, three children and she has all the signs of various nutrient deficiencies.

[00:30:51] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: You don't necessarily need the test is important to find out specifically which nutrients and to what degree she's deficient in so that you know exactly how to act right. But it's not necessary to tell you that she has them. 

[00:31:02] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay. Then let us start. You've just peeled back the layers and it's if you don't have a good healthy menstrual cycle, this is your first, this is your first clue, right?

[00:31:11] Christa Biegler, RD: If you want to know what's going on inside your body, look outside your body first. I'd love to ask you the point of this episode is really to help a person over 35 reigning that there are more opportunities, honestly, than the ones that they're presenting maybe to their doctor with after a couple failed months or maybe multiple failed months of trying to conceive.

[00:31:32] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm not sure how often it is considered to track the menstrual cycle. I've heard some very funny things over the years of testing and different things that people have done. If someone was tracking their cycle for the first time or there were some red flags. What would be some red flags?

[00:31:49] Christa Biegler, RD: You've mentioned some already. But what would be some things that would say, this could be a cause of some issues with fertility that, that. Outwardly, besides the things that everyone is familiar with, maybe, and those are fine as well because what can be common is not normal, right?

[00:32:04] Christa Biegler, RD: And so if someone has breast tenderness or moodiness before their cycle, even though that can be a sign of higher estrogen, which might mean lower progesterone, which might mean impact fertility for sure, right? Not, people might not know what that might mean. Or maybe even instead, what are some things that you see popping up all the time in menstrual cycles that people need awareness shined on?

[00:32:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So there's the health piece, which I will get to. I think it's like the public service announcement. So first and foremost if you're trying to conceive, we need to get the timing right. And there's so much like random stuff out there that is said that is totally wrong. 

[00:32:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes, that is your job 

[00:32:44] Christa Biegler, RD: to debunk this.

[00:32:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Thank you. for doing this act of service. You didn't know you were going to have to do your entire. 

[00:32:51] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes. 

[00:32:51] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you for coming to my TED talk, everybody. We are going to start it now. But basically that's a huge thing. So timing is not. Obviously, the only factor because there are a lot of factors that contribute to fertility challenges.

[00:33:03] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But what I will say is that without accurate timing, you don't have a chance. So these are some of those basic things that people don't know. A lot of women find out when they start trying and it's not happening because they were told that it would just happen, right? So the first thing to know is that when you're tracking your cycle, I know there's a lot of different opinions out there.

[00:33:21] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But from my perspective, the most basic thing If you're going to take one thing away from this conversation, if you're trying to get pregnant and you're tracking your cycle, learn about cervical fluid, learn about cervical mucus. So it can look like the creamy white hand lotion. It can look like the clear, stretchy raw egg whites.

[00:33:38] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And it can, sometimes you don't necessarily have a large quantity of it, but you would notice whether it's you go to the bathroom and you wipe and it's super slippery those couple of days a month, or you feel it in your underwear. Like it feels wet for a couple days. However, you're noticing it, notice it.

[00:33:53] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And when you see that, or feel it, or experience it, that's when you want to have sex. And I don't care if that's on day 2, day 6 of your cycle, I don't care if it's on day 25. As long as it's leading up to ovulation, like you haven't ovulated yet, and if you don't know how to tell when you're ovulating, that's another that's another thing.

[00:34:11] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Like step two, figure this out, but this is really important. And the reason that it's important is because a lot of, there's studies that show, there was an interesting study that I was talking about on my podcast a little while ago, where they actually studied women's perception of how well they understood their cycle.

[00:34:26] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And women overwhelmingly, overestimated how much they knew about the cycle. But we're trained to think that ovulation happens on day 14. There's a lot of women trying to conceive who are having sex on day 14 or around day 14, because that's what they were told to do. And that could have nothing to do with when they actually ovulate.

[00:34:44] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Some women are ovulating on day 11 or 12. And if that's happening, and you're having sex on day 14, you could literally be missing the window every time. And some women might, have a delayed ovulation. And either way, it's important to be aware of those things. So first and foremost, I would say that this very practical thing, it's not everything, but without it, you don't have, you can't have success if you're like, One of the myths about using fertility awareness as a birth control method is that it is ineffective.

[00:35:11] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But there are women who are accidentally using it as birth control by not having sex in their window. Because it actually is an effective birth control method because you can only get pregnant from sex that happens during the six day window. window, basically the five days leading up to your ovulation and ovulation day.

[00:35:28] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Those are the days that we make the cervical fluid that keeps the sperm alive for up to five days. So if you've heard that sperm can live in your body for five days, it's during that window of time that it can happen. That's it. And I could think about things that my clients have been told.

[00:35:40] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I had a client who told me that her doctor told her to have sex five times a day. And I was like, Huh? Huh? That was, yeah, but, and then she was, she tried because doctors have so much weight, right? And she was like, man, it was so tiring, but that's not necessary. That's is that even going to improve?

[00:35:56] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Like I, I went into frequency and timing of sex in the book and I looked at what the research had to say and I found some really interesting studies because I really wanted to debug that because, like it's not just have as much sex as possible. That's not necessarily the best strategy.

[00:36:08] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And then there's other doctors who will say. We'll just have sex between days, this and this, or have sex every other day, like for the rest of your life. And so it's helpful to just know about the timing piece. I can go into more if you want, but that's the first piece in terms of the menstrual cycle what to look for and signs that there could be an issue.

[00:36:25] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I think it is important to just be aware. One of the things I'm sure that you've talked about on the show as well as like painful periods, as it's so common, so many women experience it, we're to the point where we think it's normal, and it's to the point where when I say, I've had many times where I'm interviewed and I talk about although it's common, I wouldn't call it optimal.

[00:36:43] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And even if you have to use an Advil a couple of times, I would still say that is not optimal. And I had people push back and they're like, what do you mean? If I just have to take one Advil, that's totally fine. And I'm like but if a man had pain in his penis every day, Month, and he had to take an Advil, we would not be saying that it was fine.

[00:36:59] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So we should be Understanding that it's very common, but also looking at the deeper part of it So the reason that I point that out is because there are some women who have extremely painful periods Who have also pain outside of their you know? period window who have pain with sex or pain with urination or pain with bowel movements and Those can be huge flags for, endometriosis.

[00:37:22] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Not all women who have endometriosis have symptoms. Some, for some it's silent, but that's something that we should be aware of because one of the most common ways women discover this diagnosis is through fertility challenges. When they're not conceiving and they call it unexplained fertility and they finally do a search to see if there could be something else wrong.

[00:37:41] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Abnormal bleeding. So we, I always say period should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It should be like a sentence, and then it should be over. So when we're seeing bleeding happening throughout the cycle, there's a lot of things that could, be a sign of. So it is important if you are having consistent regular bleeding to eventually get an ultrasound, have that checked out, like outside of your period.

[00:38:00] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: But even just something as common as hormonal imbalances or low progesterone or things like that. If your luteal phase is too short, so the luteal phase is simply that period of time between ovulation and your next period, it should be ideally 12 to 14 days. That's something that cycle tracking picks up.

[00:38:16] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: The progesterone issues are become pretty apparent when you start tracking. So those are some of the most common kind of, Parts of the conversation that come to light when you start tracking you start looking at oh wait I ovulated and I got my period seven days later. That's it.

[00:38:30] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That's a pretty big flag If your periods are super light So I don't sometimes it's hard to talk about the period stuff because it freaks everybody out It's a some women do have periods on the lighter side within the normal range and that's this they've always had lighter periods It's fine but if you're barely bleeding you barely feel a pad you can get away with panty liners like twice or whatever during that window.

[00:38:50] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: If you use a cup, if you were to add up all the days of your period and you don't even fill it once stuff like that, if you're super, super active, that tends to go in line with like barely any cervical mucus, super, super active not eating enough and low hormones and, stuff like that.

[00:39:05] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I feel like I've meandered around a little bit with your question, but those are some of the things that come to mind. And of course there's more. Serious issues, but knowing what a normal cycle should look like. and being aware of that. So a normal cycle on average is about 29 days. As I mentioned, you'd have your period.

[00:39:25] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Periods should last between about three to seven days. Average is about five days. Starts moderate to heavy and then gradually tapers off. And like I said, beginning, middle and end, and then it's over. That would be considered to be normal. And then Once your period is over, you enter into the pre ovulatory phase.

[00:39:41] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so if your cycle is to be on average about 29 days, you would have to expect that ovulation to take place between about days 10 and 22. So that's something to consider as well, because if the ovulation is happening, 29, 30 days, and you're getting into that long irregular cycle scenario, then that's a flag as well, as you mentioned, potentially PCOS, potentially insulin resistance, It's just the metabolic issues that could be contributing to that.

[00:40:10] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Then once you get into that preovulatory phase, we would expect to see cervical fluid. So in a healthy cycle, you would actually see it for about two to seven days. And ideally on at least one day, we'd see the clear, stretchy fluid. At least a few times on that day, and then you would ovulate, you can't have a healthy cycle without ovulation.

[00:40:29] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And once you ovulate, if you're tracking your cycle, if you're tracking temperature, for example, the temperature is going to rise and stay high. If you're tracking mucus, the mucus is going to ideally dry up or be significantly less after ovulation to because that's what progesterone does. It suppresses the mucus production 

[00:40:45] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: counters the estrogen. And then you would have about two weeks before your next period. And then, and during that two weeks, even though it's really normal to have some mood changes and things, energy changes, that's totally normal. If we're having like moderate to severe PMS symptoms, if you're having like bouts of depression all the bad symptoms that are unbearable, sharp, weak, whatever people call it, those are all signs that the hormones are not optimal.

[00:41:13] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And what you were saying about having the opportunity to improve things. The good news is that the first step is identifying what's going on, but there is ample opportunity to improve a lot of those habits, dietary choices, whether it's supplement routine, whether it's just managing our stress, focusing on getting enough sleep cutting the coffee, stop skipping breakfast, whatever you need to do, you can really see improvements quite quickly.

[00:41:39] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And these are not things that women are being told by their practitioners. I think there's a lot of opportunity for. 

[00:41:44] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, 

[00:41:46] Christa Biegler, RD: before you worry about exactly what's wrong, if everyone could become more aware of stress opportunities and nourishment and do those things, you actually rattled off several for yourself, sleep and protein and I'll just say getting, I don't know what else you said, but just, Having a stable blood sugar throughout the day.

[00:42:05] Christa Biegler, RD: I'll offer that. There are so many, you think cleaning up your environment, all of those things are going to support your fertility and then you can get a little bit deeper. I want to go back to, thank you also for the visuals around how much blood is too light. That's always just helpful for all of us to hear and to remember, because without quantitative, they're like this many milliliters, like as if someone's going to go measure that.

[00:42:26] Christa Biegler, RD: And it is really deceiving. You don't always, It's deceiving, right? And people only know their own experience quite often. I want to, just before we pass by this, you mentioned if people are super active then we tend to see several issues. Could we also boil that down to ultimately there's not usually enough nourishment there, so that creates a lot of symptoms.

[00:42:46] Christa Biegler, RD: But 

[00:42:47] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: yeah, 

[00:42:48] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: absolutely. I see this a lot. So I go to broad stereotypes. What I observe is that stereotypically gender stereotypes here, men, when they work out, they're typically trying to bulk up, right? They want to build muscle and etc. So they tend to eat more. They tend to focus on eating more protein and all this stuff.

[00:43:04] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Generally speaking, of course, and women tend to want to lean up. We want to lose weight. We want to slim down, want to tone up all the things. And I think that it just doesn't occur to women to eat more. It just doesn't occur to them that this would even be a thing. So I see a lot of women who unintentionally under eat.

[00:43:21] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: They're not. Doing it on purpose. Some of them might be if they're really watching their calories and stuff, but I think a lot of women just unintentionally just don't even think about the fact that if you all of a sudden start lifting and start even just the walking, because I used to be long time ago, when I was in high school, I did all these sports, I did ballet, I did basketball and volleyball, and they made us run cross country and I did track, right?

[00:43:43] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Not all at the same time, but still we did that stuff. And I remember in my early twenties, like learning that walking was exercise because I had this idea in my mind that unless I was dying half dead on the court or, running around and like totally sweating my face off that it wasn't even exercise, and I'm not alone in this. I'm not. And so I've had this conversation with many clients where it's oh, all I do is walk my dog. But like you live in Colorado and like you walk your dog up a mountain and down and it takes an hour and a half every day. So actually yes, it is exercise. And when you engage even in that.

[00:44:14] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: basic level of exercise, your dietary consumption of food, particularly like protein, fat, carbohydrates, and appropriate proportions has a direct impact on what's going to happen in your menstrual cycle. So again, this is what I do all day long. And so I'm at the point now where with, in that context of what's happening with the client and looking at their menstrual cycle, I can, tell you if you're eating enough based on how the cycles look because that's how dramatic of an effect it can have.

[00:44:47] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So again, this is an incredible opportunity because we really underestimate. I think a lot of women because of the way our medical system is we think that it has to be so complicated that we need to have a barrage of hormonal tests and we have to have this big encyclopedia of all these terms. When really what you need to do is, if you're.

[00:45:07] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: exercise. If you're active, we have to learn about how much we need to eat. And even women who have a background in nutrition, who are teaching others, like who are experts in this, we have to look at our own menstrual cycles. To make sure we're on track because everyone can know everything and do everything and whatever and say all the things and I'm eating perfect and everything's great but what I always say is what is your menstrual cycle say?

[00:45:32] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Because you can say whatever you want, but ultimately it's either your menstrual cycles in those normal parameters or it's not, it's not punitive, it's just information. And this is one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about the menstrual cycle as a piece of it because it cuts through all the fluff.

[00:45:45] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And it even cuts through my fluff. I can have my opinions too, but it doesn't matter. What matters is what we see in the cycle. So getting back to that food aspect of it, we really need to aim for more protein. We need to really think about that. And in a practical way, it's like looking at your breakfast.

[00:46:02] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That's the first thing, right? I'm sure you talk about this all the time, but how many women are still eating, oatmeal for breakfast. And even if we throw in some I don't know, like some seeds or whatever, or throw in a little protein. It probably isn't enough if you're working out three to five times a week, we really have to start looking at that.

[00:46:22] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And I could talk about that all day, but 

[00:46:24] Christa Biegler, RD: it'll make 

[00:46:25] Christa Biegler, RD: you snacky and it's 

[00:46:28] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: absolutely, 

[00:46:30] Christa Biegler, RD: it's wild. 

[00:46:31] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Introducing protein. And fat is life changing because not only does it stabilize your blood sugar, but like you're a happier human being because you don't always have to run for a snack.

[00:46:41] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Like you can actually eat. And feel good for several hours until the next meal. 

[00:46:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Yes. If you're wondering about your fertility, here we are, throwing it back to the basics. You said it best when you said, the things we all know we should be doing, but not everyone is doing it. So we all have to have a check or an assessment of these basic things.

[00:46:59] Christa Biegler, RD: And you can make your own assessment on this. Some expert doesn't have to tell you. There's a lot of basics here. Before we start to wrap up, when we think about advanced maternal age, you had a little tangent on AMH, we talked a little bit about egg quality, which is a lot of mitochondrial nutrients CoQ10 maybe some cell membranes support vitamin E, et cetera, just giving lip service to like, there are nutrients that really support mitochondrial health.

[00:47:24] Christa Biegler, RD: And then If you start to assess your menstrual cycle, you'll be able to tell a lot. What else would you want to tell a woman at advanced maternal age? What other opportunities, are there any other opportunities that you think she needs to be aware of, if the only information she's getting is from conventional fertility treatment centers?

[00:47:42] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: You touched on a lot of key nutrients. Lily and I in Real Food for Fertility focus on the concept of, ancestral nutrition. And one of the questions that's really interesting to consider is what did people do before vitamins? Vitamins were not a thing 200 years ago. So what did people do to have healthy children?

[00:47:58] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And when you're inspired by what these traditional cultures would include in their meals, without having the opportunity to go to Whole Foods and buy all the things, they were including some of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. Obviously, liver and organ meats, talk about that all the time. So coenzyme Q10 is obviously a very well studied nutrient to support mitochondrial health.

[00:48:18] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And it shows amazing promise for both egg and sperm quality, like huge results. It's really fascinating. And if we were to try to find it in food, and I'm not saying prioritize one over the other. I'm just, Providing this as information because I think it's interesting, but liver and heart have really high concentrations of coenzyme q10 and Liver also has high concentrations of all the things we need to make babies like vitamin a B vitamins folate B12 iron is as a mom you need to have your iron stores in check or you won't be able to function You know, your brain won't work, your thyroid won't even work if your iron isn't in check, right?

[00:48:56] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So there's a lot of opportunity in terms of incorporating nutrient dense foods. Fish and seafood, if you can source high quality, the omega 3 fatty acids for both egg and sperm quality are so essential. Getting sufficient vitamin D is essential. Of course, paired with vitamin A, vitamin K2, magnesium for optimal absorption, but ensuring that you sort that out when you look at the fertility research, there's just so much research about vitamin D and the link to fertility, whether it be menstrual cycle length, whether it be even period pain, there's just so much, there's just so much information out there about these nutrients.

[00:49:31] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: That would be, I'm just, it's like tip of the iceberg, but those would be a few things to really look at. One other thing that I always touch on whenever I have a chance is the sperm quality conversation. I've been dropping it in here and there. 

[00:49:46] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I mentioned that study that showed that the younger women, they had a greater ability to Their eggs had a greater capacity to repair the sperm DNA damage.

[00:49:54] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And as we got older, like the older women, their eggs had less of the capacity. So that means that your partner has to step up. So I always joke, and it's not like this don't get mad at me, but it's like my female clients, I only have female clients, but my female clients. Or like doing backflips and somersaults and like giving up all the food that they loved and taking every supplement like they're doing all the things and then stereotypically the guys like on the couch drinking beer and like having chips Obviously, that's not accurate But I share that joke just to call it out because it's time and in this world That we're living in at this time.

[00:50:30] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: You mentioned so many of the factors the stress the anxiety The toxin exposure, the increase in metabolic health issues because of the insulin problems and eating all the bad food and all the things. So we have a lot of things stacked against us. The elephant in the room is the fact that over the past 70 years male sperm counts have been going down.

[00:50:50] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Down down to the point that it's terrifying if you actually get into the research. Like our fertility, 

[00:50:55] Christa Biegler, RD: We're gonna be extinct, right? 

[00:50:57] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It's actually terrifying. So there's no man alive that's so healthy. I don't care if your partner looks like he came out of GQ magazine and he works out all the time.

[00:51:06] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: There's no man out there that's so healthy that he can't incorporate, whether it's vitamins, whether it's, beef liver, whether it's some sort of nutritional component to it. And especially as we get older, it is essential to bring our partners into the conversation. It is absolutely essential. that was like one of the biggest takeaways, it's when we're in our kind of mid thirties and beyond, it is absolutely essential to bring our partners on board because we're already doing the things.

[00:51:37] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And they need to be doing the things to increase your chances of conception, because going back to that research study, our eggs at that age are less able to overcome their issues. So they need to pull up their socks and do their thing so that we can make healthier children. And one of the things that like Lily found this research about the placenta and how his sperm quality and the quality of his sperm and the quality of his sperm DNA is incorporated into the placental development.

[00:52:07] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so if his sperm quality is not optimal, then it can have a negative effect on the development of the placenta, which can increase your risk of pregnancy complications. And there's plenty of research to show that his sperm quality can have a direct effect on your child's chance of getting certain childhood illnesses.

[00:52:25] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So if you needed motivation to talk to your partner. There it is. And if you need some help of what to say, we wrote a ridiculously long chapter with over 200 citations and in an approachable way to call him out in the most gentle, loving way possible. 

[00:52:42] Christa Biegler, RD: I love it. I was going to say if your partner is ready to pull up their socks to quote Lisa, which is the, I'm just going to giggle about that statement for a while.

[00:52:50] Christa Biegler, RD: There's that chapter. Antioxidants are huge. And then some of the things that we are going to like stereotype, right? Do decline sperm quality, right? And then of course, like all the stuff we already talked about that was related to women and hormones is also affecting them. Someone I'll reference this really lightly.

[00:53:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Someone told me the other day that they went and got these big lab panels done for her 40th birthday with her husband. And she's and his. We're terrible. So it was a wake up call. And I was like, that's such a great idea. I don't think my husband's are going to be horrific, but his 40th birthday is coming up.

[00:53:21] Christa Biegler, RD: This is not what he requested, but I think it sounds like a fun day for us to go do some. 

[00:53:25] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Cause unlike women, men don't have their monthly menstrual cycle to tell them how they're doing. They don't get the same level of feedback. And so what I think, again, putting it into positive terms. It is a really great opportunity.

[00:53:40] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: With fertility challenges, there are a few things that are as it's easily testable. I put that in Your quotes because some men are not going to test their sperm right but most men seem to be open to this conversation interested in what's going on shocked when they learn about all the things that could have a negative impact and I'm genuinely surprised at how people important their contribution is.

[00:54:04] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So I think there's a ton of opportunity there. If anything, my work in the field of fertility awareness has increased my love of men because most of them come around. They're not necessarily going to do everything on your list because your list is probably about 20 items too long, but they will do the most important things, or at least some of those things.

[00:54:22] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I, most of my clients, their partners are willing to do something. And so this is again, really encouraging. It is a good opportunity because for example, if your partner was willing to do a sperm test to see where he's starting from. And then he was willing to incorporate some changes and do some things and take some supplements to, do his part within four to six months, a retest can be very encouraging because we don't get the same thing with eggs, like they can't take out our eggs and tell us how many there are and like all the stuff.

[00:54:52] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: So it is one of those aspects of fertility that I think can be really encouraging because you can actually see numbers, data. And you can see that numbers, those numbers and data improve and it also makes it so that it's not just you doing all of it, feeling like you're alone in this and blaming yourself for everything.

[00:55:09] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: It really highlights the fact that both of you are in this together. 

[00:55:13] Christa Biegler, RD: For sure. Lisa, where can people find you online? 

[00:55:17] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you so much for having me, by the way, and all the fun questions. This was super fun. So a couple places, my podcast, Fertility Friday, so I think now you have to type Fertility Friday podcast, because there's like another Fertility Friday, but they're not me, so it's going to be very obvious if you don't find me.

[00:55:31] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: You can find me on Instagram at Fertility Friday. That's where I like to hang out. If you want to learn more about my books, you can head over to realfoodforfertility. com, get, grab the first chapter of that book. My website is fertilityfriday. com. So lots of places you can find me. 

[00:55:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:55:48] Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thanks so much.