Latest / Finally Get Pregnant Naturally: Holistic Fertility Support To Conceive Naturally and Stay Pregnant After Miscarriage / #278 | These Fertility Clues Are Buried in Your Health History That Will Explain Why You Can’t Get Pregnant or Have Recurrent Miscarriage

Transcript

#278 | These Fertility Clues Are Buried in Your Health History That Will Explain Why You Can’t Get Pregnant or Have Recurrent Miscarriage · Finally Get Pregnant Naturally: Holistic Fertility Support To Conceive Naturally and Stay Pregnant After Miscarriage

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Katie: In this episode, you will discover the fertility clues hiding in your health history that explain why getting pregnant has been so much harder than it should be.
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Welcome to the Finally Get Pregnant Naturally podcast, the podcast helping women identify the real reasons you haven't conceived or stayed pregnant so you and your partner can finally grow the family of your dreams.
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I'm your host, Dr.
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Katie Wood.
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Let's dive in, shall we?
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Katie: Three things you'll gain from today's episode: why your fertility story didn't start when you began trying.
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Katie: It started years, even decades earlier.
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Katie: The specific clues in your health history that point directly to the root causes affecting your fertility and miscarriage risk today, and what to do with these clues so your past becomes the map to your answers instead of a
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Katie: mystery nobody connected.
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Katie: So let's talk about why your fertility story actually started long before you decided to start trying to conceive.
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Katie: When most women begin trying to conceive, they think of that as the starting line, right?
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Katie: Day one.
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Katie: But your fertility did not begin the month that you decide to start trying.
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Katie: It is the sum of everything your body has been through up to this point.
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Katie: Your hormones, your gut, your immune system, your nutrient status, your inflammation levels today are the result of a story that has been unfolding since you were born.
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Katie: And here is what never happens in a conventional fertility workup.
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Katie: Nobody sits down with you and actually reads that story.
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Katie: Nobody connects the dots between what happened to you at 5, 15, 22, at 30, and what your body is doing now.
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Katie: They run a snapshot of this moment and miss the entire arc that led you here.
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Katie: But your health history is full of clues, and honestly, some of these clues you've probably forgotten about, or you don't even consciously know about them.
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Katie: And when you've been told everything looks normal, those clues are often where the real answers have been hiding the whole time.
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Katie: So I want to walk you through some of the most common ones, but please note this is not an exhaustive list, and everyone has their own unique life story, okay?
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Katie: So as I go through these, I want you to think back and notice which ones are a part of your story.
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Katie: And what you can even do is take a piece of paper, draw a line, and you could just do like birth, age 10, age 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, whatever it is, and just go through and mark off
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Katie: things that are maybe coming through for you.
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Katie: So clue number one, you were put on birth control at a young age to fix a problem.
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Katie: If you were put on the pill as a teenager for painful periods, irregular cycles, acne, heavy bleeding, whatever it was, you were not actually fixing the problem.
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Katie: You were masking it.
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Katie: Those symptoms were your body telling you something about your hormones years ago, and birth control quieted the signal without ever addressing the cause.
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Katie: So when you came off of it to try to conceive, that underlying imbalance was often still there waiting, just no longer hidden, plus the negative effects of birth control layered on top.
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Katie: Clue number two, a history of antibiotics, or a lot of them.
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Katie: So whether you had recurrent ear infections as a kid, rounds of antibiotics for acne in your teens, repeated UTIs, each course did its job in the moment.
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Katie: But antibiotics do not only clear the target, they reshape your gut microbiome and your vaginal microbiome sometimes for years.
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Katie: And because those two microbiomes are directly tied to how you metabolize hormones And whether your body creates an environment an embryo can implant into, a heavy antibiotic history is a genuine fertility clue that is never asked about.
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Katie: And honestly, the way that you were born, whether it was naturally or via C-section, and whether you were breastfed or not, that is going to shape your microbiome as well.
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Katie: Clue number three, a past of restrictive eating or over-exercising.
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Katie: For a high-achieving woman, this one is common and rarely discussed.
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Katie: So whether it was a season or years of eating too little, training too hard, chasing a certain body, or simply being so busy that you under-fueled without realizing it.
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Katie: If you're a millennial like myself, who remembers the Special K diet or being influenced to eat everything that was low fat, right?
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Katie: Fat was so demonized, and for me, that was during my teenage years, right?
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Katie: Even if that is behind you now, those periods of time can leave a lasting imprint on your hormones, your thyroid, your nutrient stores, your nervous system, and your body's baseline sense of whether it's safe to reproduce.
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Katie: Your body keeps a record of the times it had to prioritize survival over fertility.
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Katie: Clue number four, digestive issues that you have had forever.
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Katie: This is a common one in my clients.
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Katie: Childhood stomach aches, a sensitive stomach your whole life, being told you have IBS and just to manage it, a long history of bloating or irregular digestion.
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Katie: These are not separate from your fertility.
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Katie: A gut that has been struggling for decades is a gut that has been affecting your estrogen metabolism, your nutrient absorption, and your inflammation this entire time.
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Katie: The fertility implant-- the fertility impact didn't start recently.
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Katie: It has been building.
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Katie: And even having certain infections like traveler's diarrhea can alter your gut terrain and microbiome.
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Katie: Clue number five, autoimmunity in yourself or your family.
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Katie: Whether it's a thyroid condition, Hashimoto's, a family history of autoimmune disease, even unexplained symptoms that come and go, autoimmune and inflammatory patterns in your family can put you at a higher risk of having it as well and have
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Katie: a direct, well-documented relationship with implantation and miscarriage risk.
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Katie: If this is anywhere in your history or your family's, it's a thread worth pulling, not dismissing or ignoring.
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Katie: Clue number six, trauma, big or small, that your body never got to release.
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Katie: So this is one that almost nobody connects to fertility, and I want to name it gently.
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Katie: Trauma does not have to be a single catastrophic event.
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Katie: It could be a loss A medical experience that frightened you, a childhood where you did not feel safe or seen.
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Katie: It can even be your birth experience when you were born.
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Katie: Years of high pressure where you were always bracing for the next thing.
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Katie: Even the trauma of this fertility journey itself.
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Katie: Your body keeps the score of all of it, and when your nervous system has been holding onto experiences it never got to fully process, it can stay in a chronic protective state, which keeps cortisol elevated, suppresses progesterone, and
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Katie: quietly signals to your body that it is not a safe time to reproduce.
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Katie: And this is not about blame.
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Katie: It's not about something being wrong with you.
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Katie: It's about honoring that what you have lived through lives in your body too, and that it's part of the picture that deserves care.
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Katie: And there are ways to release this type of trauma.
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Katie: So let's talk about how your history creates your map, because if you recognize yourself in even one or two of these, I know I certainly do I want you to reframe how you see them.
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Katie: They're not reasons to feel broken or behind.
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Katie: They're breadcrumbs.
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Katie: Your history is not working against you.
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Katie: It's just trying to tell you exactly where to look.
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Katie: If you've had a history of a lot of antibiotics, but you haven't looked at your gut yet, that's probably something I would take a look at.
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Katie: Because here's the thing, each of these clues point towards something real and addressable right now.
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Katie: The birth control history and the restrictive eating can point toward your current hormonal picture.
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Katie: The antibiotics point toward your gut and your microbiome.
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Katie: The lifelong digestion points towards your gut and inflammation.
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Katie: The autoimmunity port- points toward your immune and thyroid picture.
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Katie: And the trauma points towards your nervous system and your stress physiology, which sits underneath all of it.
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Katie: Your past is not vague.
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Katie: It's actually pretty specific, and it tells us precisely where in your body to look instead of guessing.
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Katie: This is exactly how I start with every client, and it is built into Decode Your Fertility.
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Katie: Because before we test anything, we read your history, because your history tells us what to look for and what functional testing is right for you to finally get answers.
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Katie: That's the difference between a random panel and a real investigation built around you.
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Katie: One looks at a moment in time.
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Katie: The other reads the whole arc of your story and finally connects the dots that have been there all along.
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Katie: And if you're ready to stop guessing and let your history and your functional test results lead you to answers, Decode Your Fertility is open right now, and the link is in the show notes.
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Katie: So to recap, your fertility did not begin the moment you started trying.
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Katie: It's the sum of your whole health history, and that history is full of clues a conventional workup never reads.
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Katie: Being put on birth control young, a heavy antibiotic history, a past of restrictive eating or over-exercising, lifelong digestive issues, autoimmunity in yourself or your family, and trauma your body never got to release are some of the most common.
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Katie: Each one points toward a specific addressable root cause.
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Katie: Your past is not working against you.
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Katie: It is the map to your answers.
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Katie: You just needed someone to finally read it with you.
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Katie: So I just wanna thank you so much for listening to this episode.
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Katie: I hope that this sparked some curiosity for you and that you are going to find a piece of paper, a pen or a pencil and start writing these things down and just really reflecting on them, okay?
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Katie: And there's no shame, no blame.
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Katie: It's just clues and information to really inform your best next steps.
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Katie: I hope you have a gorgeous day, and I'll see you on our next episode released every Tuesday and Thursday.
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Are you ready to finally discover why you haven't been able to get or stay pregnant?
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The Ultimate Fertility Blueprint is a quick, insightful quiz designed to reveal your overall capacity to conceive and help you discover potential root causes and areas to address to improve your fertility so you can finally get and stay pregnant.
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You'll find the link in the show notes.
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As a quick reminder and disclaimer, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.
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Always consult your doctor or healthcare provider before starting any new supplement or protocol, especially if you're actively trying to conceive or undergoing treatment.