Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Can Detox Reverse Infertility? Clearing the Way for Conception, Naturally with Deidre Bloomquist

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Can Detox Reverse Infertility? Clearing the Way for Conception, Naturally with Deidre Bloomquist · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  Welcome back. I'm sure you've probably heard me talk about the toxic soup we live in in this
• 0:08
  modern society, but we haven't actually died that deep into solutions. So I'm very excited in this
• 0:16
  new episode of Everyday Ancestral to be introducing you to my next guest, Deirdre Bloomquist.
• 0:23
  She's a functional nutritionist who founded always growing wellness, a virtual practice that serves
• 0:28
  clients across the US. She's a functional nutritional therapy practitioner and a master
• 0:33
  restorative wellness practitioner who leads a team of practitioners that work with women to resolve
• 0:37
  a wide range of digestive issues and hormone imbalances as well as a dedicated pediatric practice.
• 0:44
  She specializes in reversing infertility by restoring health through reducing toxicity.
• 0:50
  Deirdre's also a published author. She authored the book, toxic infertility, detoxification solutions
• 0:58
  to improve natural fertility. So we are talking about getting pregnant and your children. So please
• 1:06
  enjoy my next guest, Deirdre Bloomquist. I'm your host, James Berry, and welcome to Everyday Ancestral.
• 1:13
  One of the biggest kind of elephants in the room is that we live in a toxic soup. We live in a
• 1:19
  society in an environment that is so much more toxic than it was ancestrally. You could kind of
• 1:25
  question, well, do the ancestral concepts even apply to modern society because of how toxic it is?
• 1:33
  How would you answer that question? I think it does still apply. I think one of the big things that
• 1:39
  we're always talking with clients about is like how do we actually get back to nature and what
• 1:43
  nature really intended for us and the way that our bodies are inherently designed to work
• 1:48
  and protect us. And so even knowing that there are so many toxins that all of us are exposed to
• 1:52
  on a daily basis, some of those are within our control and some of them aren't within our control.
• 1:57
  There's so much that we can do when we understand truly how the human body works and how it's
• 2:04
  trying to keep us safe so that we can support those mechanisms over time. The thing though, I get caught
• 2:09
  up on. You hear about, you know, people are focusing on the science or they isolate their
• 2:16
  perspective. Like I only want to focus on sleep and light or something like that, right? But
• 2:22
  it's an impossible to truly like factor one modality that applies within every situation because
• 2:32
  no one can test for all the toxic elements that each person is dealing with collectively.
• 2:39
  Usually you hear people are like, okay, I just want to focus on lead or I just want to focus on
• 2:43
  glyphosate. It's like, but no, who's focusing on both because they're all happening at the same
• 2:48
  time? Yeah, absolutely. And there's no way to truly know all the things we're being exposed to.
• 2:52
  There's over 80,000 different chemicals that are man-made that we're being exposed to and that
• 2:57
  doesn't even begin to touch the heavy metals or mold or the things that we just don't realize are
• 3:02
  harming us yet and are toxic in our bodies. There's so many factors for this.
• 3:07
  So how does someone navigate that though? Because I sometimes just, I mean, I've been in the industry
• 3:11
  20 years and yet I still get kind of like stifled. I'm just like, I don't know what to do because
• 3:16
  they're saying one thing, but I know that that's not true and it's such a grayer area than in
• 3:23
  the industry or even influencers want to really admit. Yeah, absolutely. The way that I think about it
• 3:31
  is we have to control the controllables. There's some things that we can control and there's
• 3:35
  some things that we can't. And so even if you were to live in a bubble and be thinking about
• 3:40
  everything in your home, there's still going to be things that you are going to be exposed to
• 3:44
  from a toxin perspective. So if there are things you can do, I'd be thinking about the big things.
• 3:50
  What are we drinking? What type of water are we consuming on a regular basis? How are we bathing
• 3:55
  in water? And what type of toxins are primarily going to be found in water sources knowing that water
• 4:00
  is actually one of the primary sources where we're getting exposed to toxins on a regular basis.
• 4:05
  But then also things like air quality in our homes, in our offices, wherever we're spending
• 4:10
  a majority of our time. And then the quality of the foods that we're eating. And if you take a look
• 4:15
  at just those three pillars of water, air, and food, that's going to take down toxin burden in a
• 4:21
  very significant way. And then from there, of course, if you do have health issues or things that
• 4:26
  are lingering or symptoms that you feel like, maybe these are normal for the general public,
• 4:30
  but I don't want them to be normal for me. That's when it really makes sense to look at specific
• 4:34
  toxin burden in those categories of metals and mold and chemicals and how they might be impacting
• 4:40
  your body and how, honestly, your unique body is really able to detox those things because everybody's
• 4:45
  different, even if we're all exposed to the exact same things. That's such a good point. There's one
• 4:51
  element of, okay, what are the toxins in our environment? But the other is what is our body processing
• 4:58
  of those toxins? Yeah, that's such a good point. Let's dive into those three points. Let's
• 5:03
  provide some solutions for people focusing. Let's start with water. It's so interesting. I'm old
• 5:10
  enough to remember when bottled water came out. Like I distinctly remember, I remember growing up
• 5:16
  drinking from the faucet, you know, when we're traveling and we just stopped anywhere and if you
• 5:20
  saw a faucet, you drank, it could have been the most rusty like, like, caked over faucet and we
• 5:26
  didn't know to think about it. We just like, oh, I'm thirsty. Water is water. Let me drink this.
• 5:32
  But clearly, that is not the world we live in now. So let's dive into water.
• 5:37
  So water in the fertility side of my practice, I often refer to as infertility water because there
• 5:42
  are so many different things that are in our water sources when I'm thinking about tap water,
• 5:47
  in particular, that are impacting our overall health. So we know that there are heavy metals
• 5:52
  that come in our water sources. A lot of this has to do with the way that water is purified where
• 5:57
  metals are ultimately not removed in the purification process. But we also know that there's a lot of
• 6:03
  industrial chemicals as far as agricultural runoff that comes into tap water, essentially
• 6:09
  seeps into the ground, goes into the water and it's just not being removed. But we also know that
• 6:13
  there's a lot of pharmaceutical drugs that are found in tap water. So things like antidepressants
• 6:19
  and NSAIDs. But in my space, we're really thinking about the fact that there's hormonal burst
• 6:24
  control in tap water. But there are also medications like Plan B in tap water where women are taking
• 6:30
  this. It gets excreted through the urinary tract and then put down the toilet and purification
• 6:36
  isn't taking these things out of the water. And so we're consuming these things on our regular basis,
• 6:40
  which means that we might have these impacts to our overall health that are completely unintended
• 6:46
  just by drinking tap water. Wow. So you could be drinking tap water and actually be getting the
• 6:52
  pharmaceutical that's trying to support you in aborting a child, basically. Exactly. Oh my gosh,
• 6:58
  that is crazy. Yeah. And most people just don't realize this because we don't think about the fact
• 7:03
  of like how we excrete this as humans and then it goes into the water source. I think there's this
• 7:07
  misconception that when we're thinking about the way that water is purified by our local municipalities,
• 7:12
  that they're taking everything out of the water. But that's truly not the case when you look at what
• 7:16
  they actually do to the water. Yeah. Well, I was just reading about fluoride as well, which I'd
• 7:21
  known about it for a long time. But this article is specifically, folks,
• 7:25
  you know, how when they go to add it, they say they're only adding so much, but it's really hard
• 7:31
  to control. So they're most likely adding too much. And so even even when we're adding things to the
• 7:36
  water, it's uncontrollable, let alone the things that are in there that we're not filtering out.
• 7:42
  So is the solution to not even use filtered tap water or what does someone do? Yeah. Well,
• 7:50
  and you know, I think a lot of us do understand that we don't want to be drinking tap water maybe
• 7:53
  directly out of the tap. And so most of us have it going through some type of carbon filtration
• 7:57
  system, whether that's a pitcher that we're using and putting water into like the old bread of
• 8:02
  filters that were really popular for a long time, or even it going through the filtration system
• 8:07
  in a refrigerator where we have it like at the tap. And carbon filtration is going to be removing
• 8:13
  some things, but it might not be removing enough, especially depending on where you live in the
• 8:17
  country. So we know that if you go to the EWG and you look at your tap water score, you can see
• 8:24
  what's actually in your water. So that can be an incredibly helpful resource to determine what
• 8:28
  level of purification you need to do in your home. A lot of us do have things like chemicals and
• 8:33
  metals. When I looked at mine, there was huge levels. I think it was like 100 times the legal
• 8:37
  limit of chloroform in my tap water. But then also a lot of us have a lot of radioactive substances
• 8:45
  depending where we live. So a lot of research shows that at least 70% of the tap water in states
• 8:50
  like Texas are contaminated with things like radium and uranium due to drilling in those states.
• 8:57
  The same is true. So we're basically getting radioactive basically. Exactly.
• 9:02
  And so if that's the case, we're not going to help fertility at all. Not at all. And then we're
• 9:06
  thinking about bone health and osteoporosis and all of these big, scary diseases like cancer
• 9:12
  that we're seeing on the rise as well. And a lot of this can come from tap water.
• 9:15
  I mean, I love that we're highlighting these things. But the reality is most people won't even
• 9:20
  know how to read their local municipalities water. So have you found in your just your experience
• 9:26
  like, okay, this filter works really well. And I recommend this one or maybe you recommend a few.
• 9:34
  But have you found something that really does work? Yeah. So we're looking for reverse osmosis
• 9:39
  for most people. So that's going to be things like aquatru or greenfield. Those are the two main
• 9:44
  brands that we often recommend. Their great water filtration systems if reverse osmosis is enough.
• 9:49
  The key differentiator there is if you do live somewhere where there are radioactive substances.
• 9:55
  So the way that I think about this is we know that drilling and fracking can basically release
• 10:00
  these radioactive substances. They come up to the surface and a lot of these states. So if you live
• 10:04
  in a state where that is an active practice or even in the past. So thinking about states like
• 10:08
  California is one of them. A lot of those substances are in the water. And if that's the case,
• 10:13
  then the only way to actually remove radioactive substances from tap water is through distillation.
• 10:18
  There's a company called my pure water that I use. We have a distillation system in our home where we
• 10:24
  distill about five gallons of water at a time. We put it in a glass container and then we bring it
• 10:28
  up until we drink it and then we refill it with the machine. But we're actually distilling water
• 10:32
  in our own home to make sure that we're removing that. I live in Colorado. And when I move it into
• 10:37
  the house that I'm currently in, we got a notification from the water company saying that there was
• 10:41
  high levels of radium in the water and to be aware of it. So I was immediately like we have to be
• 10:46
  distilling our water here. There's so many questions coming up. But before I go backwards,
• 10:52
  when we reverse osmosis are distilled, we're removing all the good stuff as well. So what is someone
• 10:57
  who's being that conscientious? What do they do? We need to be putting minerals back into the water
• 11:01
  when that's the case because when we are doing reverse osmosis or distillation, we're basically
• 11:05
  stripping it of all minerals and electrolytes. And if we're to drink those type of water, we're
• 11:10
  going to become dehydrated. We need minerals in order to be cellularly hydrated. So this is a
• 11:15
  really important factor. So even if we're using things like full of acid or trace minerals,
• 11:22
  there's a lot of different brands on the market. I like there's one called trace minerals, Utah
• 11:26
  sea minerals, bio full of it because another brand I love. So horror has one that's that's okay as well.
• 11:32
  There's so many ways that we can be putting minerals back into our water. But then also thinking
• 11:36
  about a mineral dense diet as well, making sure that we're getting minerals somewhere, even if it's
• 11:41
  not directly in our water, is going to help offset the effects of those type of water purifications.
• 11:46
  Okay, and we're definitely going to get to food. But now to step back a little bit because I had
• 11:51
  made it sound like, well, no one's going to look at their municipalities water report. However,
• 11:57
  because you've just mentioned how it is challenging to actually filter it out,
• 12:03
  then it really is important that we look at that because we need to know what's in it to know
• 12:07
  what filter to use, what process to use as you just point out. So is there any tip that you have
• 12:13
  to reading that? What would you say are the top five toxins that if you see this and you see it
• 12:20
  this number or higher, you have to filter this out. 40% of you listening still haven't followed
• 12:28
  the podcast. Let's drop that to 20%. It takes three seconds and helps us reach more folks who need
• 12:34
  these conversations. Go follow every day in Cestral on Apple or Spotify and let's stay curious
• 12:41
  together. So I would say if you see any level of uranium or radium indicated in your water,
• 12:48
  those are radioactive and we need to be addressing those. The same would be true of cesium as well.
• 12:53
  Cesium often gets labeled as a heavy metal, but cesium is also used in a lot of radioactive
• 13:00
  explosions for lack of better words. So a lot of people will have elevated cesium levels when they
• 13:06
  live in areas where they're being exposed to byproducts of World War II, for instance.
• 13:11
  Oh my goodness. Okay. So in Europe or something, you're going to see that a lot. Wow. It's so
• 13:16
  interesting because no one's talking about this. People are all talking about like lead and
• 13:20
  microplastics, but no one's talking about like radio activity, you know, that's in our water.
• 13:25
  Oh my gosh. Water is a huge focus. You said then the next focus you would do is
• 13:33
  is air purification in your home. So we know that the air in our homes is often more polluted
• 13:39
  and toxic than the air outside of our homes, even if we live in a city setting where there is
• 13:44
  polluted air. Part of this has to do with all the things that are in our homes. Our furniture,
• 13:49
  our carpet, the paint, the cleaning products we use, the personal care products we use,
• 13:54
  and then of course if there's any danger of some type of water damage or mold growing in your
• 13:59
  home, all of that gets put into the air. And if there's not proper air purification in the home,
• 14:05
  our lungs become the filter and we start to absorb a lot of those things. And a lot of these
• 14:11
  chemicals and even the the micotoxins that come from mold are so small that they can go directly
• 14:17
  through the alveoli in the lungs and directly into the bloodstream, which means that our lungs are
• 14:23
  no longer really filtering them in a huge way and they're directly going to the bloodstream where
• 14:27
  they can mount immune response, cause oxidative stress, and really cause a lot of damage very quickly
• 14:33
  because we don't have that barrier for selectively preventing what's coming in.
• 14:37
  Which is probably why mold and Lyme disease are the two fastest growing ailments that
• 14:44
  surfacing throughout the U.S. Absolutely. And so we have to be doing some type of air purification
• 14:49
  in our home. And I think a lot of us think, well, my my age back unit has a filter on it,
• 14:53
  but a lot of these don't have small enough particle filtration to make sure these things aren't
• 15:00
  actually coming into the air that we're breathing. So we really want to be thinking about using
• 15:04
  HEPA filters in particular so that we're getting down to the correct micron size so that these
• 15:09
  things aren't coming through a home and they are being caught by a filtration system at least
• 15:13
  as some capacity. Is there specific brands that you're just like these are the top three or
• 15:18
  what would you share around that? Yeah, I love you know, we have both air doctors in our home as well
• 15:24
  as Jasper air filtration. They are very comparable depending on the the size of the unit they
• 15:29
  are using. Those are the top two that I often recommend, but they can be expensive too, right?
• 15:35
  So the budget on this can really keep a lot of people from doing air purification. So in those
• 15:41
  situations, there's still a lot that you can do. So for instance, you can buy a HEPA filter at
• 15:47
  Home Depot and you can put it on something like a box fan. Now this might be a little bit janky
• 15:53
  to do, but you can essentially like tape a HEPA filter to a box fan, run it so that you have
• 15:57
  air filtration system that has is electrically powered pumping air through it is still going to
• 16:02
  be catching things on that HEPA filter so that it's not going through the air. You have some level
• 16:06
  filtration or we can even just think about let's open our windows, right? So many of us live
• 16:12
  in very airtight homes where we're highly reliant on our HVAC systems to heat and cool our homes
• 16:18
  where back in the day, we just open up the windows if it was too hot in the house or if it was cold,
• 16:23
  right? And so nature has has a really great way of making sure that our air is safe. We have air
• 16:29
  flow. The sunshine kills mold. If we can just open up the windows in our home, even if it is a
• 16:33
  little bit cooler hot outside, it makes a huge difference with air quality in our homes.
• 16:38
  Yeah, it's such a great tip. I mean, it's one of the most natural things we could do, yet people
• 16:43
  have moved away from that. I even recommend people doing that in their car once your rainy season's
• 16:48
  done. You want to roll down the windows all the way and just let the air seep in and let all
• 16:53
  the dust. And if you have a pet like the pet hair, like just let it all exit your car because keep
• 16:59
  in mind when your windows are up and you're just doing air conditioning, you're inhaling that stuff
• 17:03
  too, right? Absolutely. And a lot of people don't realize that mold can even grow in the interior
• 17:07
  of your car. So sometimes we'll see that people have mold in their homes and that's what's making
• 17:12
  them sick, but sometimes it's also their cars. So we need to be airing these things out.
• 17:16
  Right. And of course, the filters themselves can start to grow mold if you don't change them.
• 17:21
  Now, and that's something I want everyone to consider because we have we have the air doctor as
• 17:25
  well. And yes, they are costly, but it's kind of a one-time major cost because the filter last
• 17:33
  freaking all year, I think. Yeah. They have a carbon filter and then a
• 17:37
  HEPA filter in there. And I believe the carbon filters have to be changed every six months,
• 17:42
  but the HEPA filter lasts a full year. Right. So it's minimal. And I want us to all really start
• 17:47
  to reframe like, what is the true cost of our health? Because we think like, oh, I'm going to buy
• 17:54
  cheap food here. I'm not going to use this there. And I'm going to just skate through life. And
• 18:00
  it's not a big deal because I'm being cheap and or like I'm thrifting, right? But then you get to
• 18:06
  60, 70 and suddenly your hospital bills are just astronomical. And you're like, oh, I guess it caught
• 18:14
  up with me, right? So it's like, we forget. We have this illusion that we're going to skate by
• 18:19
  and not have to pay the price, but the reality is you're either paying it now or you're paying it
• 18:24
  later. There's there is no escape. And to that point too, I see a lot of people who really want to jump
• 18:28
  to like the functional medicine side of things where they're like, let's do all of this testing.
• 18:33
  And let's figure out what's going on. But we're missing a lot of these foundational pieces.
• 18:37
  And so these are the things that I really want people to be starting to think about before you
• 18:41
  jump into those more expensive costs, get an air filtration, think about the water source that
• 18:46
  you're drinking. A lot of times that's going to make a huge difference so that you don't need a
• 18:50
  lot of those other things. Foundations are huge and because they are some of like the easier
• 18:56
  things, people often skip that step. And then they they have to come back and like come back
• 19:00
  to the basics at some point. Yes. And what brings us to our next principle, which is food,
• 19:06
  because I always am saying like that should be the first thing people look at because it's the
• 19:10
  thing we do the most. So we know that our produce is sprayed with a ton of different pesticides
• 19:16
  and herbicides, things like glyphosate and atrazine. These can impact a lot of different things in
• 19:21
  the body, the whole way that we're able to detoxify everything. So we know that glyphosate impacts
• 19:27
  phase one detoxification in the liver, which means that everything you come in contact with that
• 19:31
  has to go through phase one, which spoiler is everything has to go through that. And if that
• 19:37
  level is impaired, it just means that there's a stumbling block that the liver is not going to be
• 19:41
  able to effectively metabolize and eliminate everything that we're coming in contact with.
• 19:46
  So if we can reduce glyphosate exposure, we know that the liver won't be impacted. But a lot of
• 19:50
  people also don't realize that glyphosate was originally patented as an antibiotic, which means
• 19:56
  that it's harming beneficial bacteria in the gut and lowering our overall immune function,
• 20:01
  mucosal health and causing things like leaky gut long-term. So if we can remove these type of
• 20:06
  things that are being sprayed on our foods, even if we're just thinking about produce to start with,
• 20:10
  or reduce the amount that we're eating, it's going to make a huge difference in gut health,
• 20:14
  which we know is so foundational for so many different systems in the body, the way that our brains
• 20:19
  and our neurological system can function, the way that we're able to detox everything. And so this
• 20:24
  is again one of those things where there is an investment in eating organic produce. It can
• 20:29
  feel like a high cost, especially I think in our day and age where inflation is happening and
• 20:34
  groceries are insanely expensive. But in the grand scheme of everything, if we're not doing this,
• 20:39
  even if we're doing all the right things to detox our bodies, we're going to be coming back to
• 20:44
  the same spot. So this is really foundational for me as well. Now the thing that's frustrating to
• 20:49
  me is that, so depending on where you live, first of all, locality and season is determined really,
• 20:56
  right? For example, I'm on the East Coast now. Most of the produce is coming from the West Coast,
• 21:02
  and even more so in the US nowadays during the winter months, it's all coming from outside of the US.
• 21:08
  You'll see it come in as certified organic, but it's completely different organic standards,
• 21:14
  and it's not as actually measured as we would think. So how do you recommend we navigate organic
• 21:20
  when even that's of question? Yeah, it is hard, because I think there's a lot of things as
• 21:26
  consumers that we just aren't being informed on when we're buying produce, unfortunately.
• 21:31
  So I think as best as possible, if you can be buying organic, that can go a long ways.
• 21:35
  If you can be working in a local setting where there are some limitations in terms of the produce
• 21:41
  in particular that you're getting that can make a huge difference in like being in your community,
• 21:45
  knowing exactly where your food comes from, getting to know your farmers and their practices,
• 21:49
  and they may also have other resources as well in terms of, you know, if we are bringing
• 21:54
  things from the West Coast, then great, here are the people who I trust in that area as well.
• 21:59
  And then in terms of eating things outside of the country, it is kind of the Wild West,
• 22:02
  unfortunately. So as much as we can to be thinking and being mindful of those things,
• 22:07
  knowing that it might not be perfect. So for instance, one of the things that we will often test
• 22:12
  people for is for glyphosate and atrosate. And it's not uncommon that we'll see people come in
• 22:16
  and they say, I eat 100% organic and we'll still see elevated levels of these toxins. So, you know,
• 22:23
  produce is one way that we get exposed to this, but it's not the only way that we get exposed to
• 22:26
  things like glyphosate and atrosate and it's also sprayed in in critilage and on lawns and in parks.
• 22:32
  And so it's in the air as well at the end of the day. So there's a lot of exposures, but we really
• 22:36
  just want to be thinking about reducing that. So I know a lot of people get really hung up on
• 22:39
  like everything needs to be organic. And of course, please, by all means get as close as possible,
• 22:44
  but we really just want to be reducing it so that we aren't increasing the accumulation
• 22:49
  and the total load that we have. So it's almost like if we had to tear it like, okay,
• 22:53
  first choice is by locally from an organic farmer that's that you know is doing very specific
• 23:00
  practices because you can go to the farm and you can talk to them and you can really like look
• 23:04
  them in the eye and find out what they're actually doing. So that would probably be tier one like
• 23:08
  first choice, you know, and then I guess the rest would really just be okay, certified organic,
• 23:13
  and then ideally growing your own is maybe a second tier or first tier two.
• 23:18
  You made a mention of this earlier of like how we can use food to offset the minerals run
• 23:24
  not getting in our water. I have to say it's one of the reasons why I love organ meat. For example,
• 23:29
  in areas where they don't have a grow season like for example, in Alaska, organ meats are considered
• 23:37
  a fruit and vegetable because there's some nutrient dense and you can't get the vegetables and fruit
• 23:44
  for such a large amount of time during this season. How do you recommend organ meats to your
• 23:52
  clients because there's a fertility person. I have to imagine you do recommend them, right?
• 23:56
  Absolutely. That's not just people who are trying to conceive. We recommend them for children
• 24:00
  oftentimes because a lot of times parents are like, I'm worried that they're not getting the nutrition
• 24:04
  that they need. So the way that I usually think about this is we have a lot of conversations with
• 24:09
  clients about heavy metals and heavy metal toxicity, which is something that we see a lot of.
• 24:14
  But I think the way that a lot of people think about heavy metals is we just need to pull them out
• 24:18
  of the body. And that might be one strategy involved in removing heavy metals, but heavy metals are
• 24:23
  also going to be more dangerous in the body when there are inadequate mineral levels. And we know
• 24:29
  that organ meats in particular are very dense in a lot of important minerals that we need as humans.
• 24:35
  And so when we bring those things in from a food first perspective, it's going to offset the impacts
• 24:40
  of heavy metals, but it can also help to displace those heavy metals to actually eliminate them.
• 24:45
  So it's not just an either or situation. We really want to be focusing on those on in the diet
• 24:50
  long term so that we, if and when we do come in contact with heavy metals, whether it's,
• 24:56
  you know, you go out to a restaurant and you're drinking tap water or you have something happen
• 25:00
  where you're going to be exposed to heavy metals in terms of like medical procedures or anything
• 25:04
  like that. We're body's going to have the capacity and the nutrients that it needs to offset
• 25:09
  any damage there. So it's a huge part of our practice and something that we are often recommending
• 25:14
  as we're doing some detoxification work. But then also in that immediate preconception phase,
• 25:19
  all the way through pregnancy with the hope that women will then just be introducing them
• 25:24
  with their children. So that when they start solids on day one, essentially with nutrient
• 25:30
  dense foods as part of their palate. Really what you're talking about is creating robust humans,
• 25:35
  whether it's women who are trying to get pregnant or the kids that they conceive,
• 25:40
  that we want people to be robust, that it's not about being perfect, but it's about being robust
• 25:46
  enough so that as we come into contact with these toxins, our body knows what to do with them
• 25:52
  and can quickly hopefully get rid of them. That is fantastic. Everything we've pointed out is going
• 25:57
  to support that person who's trying to get pregnant, but you're about so much more than just helping
• 26:03
  people get pregnant. Talk a bit about the pediatric side. So when I think about couples who are
• 26:10
  coming in and they're having trouble getting pregnant, I'm always thinking that there's a reason
• 26:13
  that this is occurring. Our body is designed to keep us safe. And so if there is something that
• 26:17
  is harming us internally in our terrain, our body is going to basically sequester resources so that
• 26:24
  we are in a good spot. So yes, we help a lot of couples get pregnant and that's a huge part of
• 26:29
  what we do and the way that we work has come from my personal story. So I did a lot of work around
• 26:35
  gut health and I knew how important gut health was for children from conception on. So when I got
• 26:43
  pregnant with my little boy, I had a plan. I hadn't taken antibiotics in years. I knew that I wanted
• 26:49
  to pass on good gut health. He was born at home. I breastfed him. We did a lot of skin to skin with
• 26:55
  both me and his dad. So we were thinking about gut health and so I was very shocked around nine
• 26:59
  months. He started getting this really intense full body eczema and I was like, I've done all the
• 27:04
  right things, right? All of the things that we in the holistic space think of like this would promote
• 27:09
  good gut health for him. What I figured out was I had actually passed on my toxin burden to him
• 27:17
  in utero and so he got everything that I had accumulated over 30 years of life passed on to him
• 27:23
  on day one and it impacted him in a very unique way. What we do on the preconception side is yes,
• 27:30
  we want to be thinking about toxin burden and getting people back to nature as much as humanly
• 27:34
  possible supporting their inherent ability to detox. But this also tends to mean improvements in
• 27:40
  hormone health, which is the main reason that couples come to us. There's something going on with
• 27:44
  my hormones. How do we fix this? But when we impact hormones in that preconception phase, it also
• 27:49
  means that we're going to impact hormones all the way throughout pregnancy. So we can prevent things
• 27:54
  like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes. We can improve birth outcomes. Here in the US, the rate
• 28:01
  of c-sections is over 30% and growing all the time. A lot of that has to do with the fact that
• 28:06
  birth is a hormonal process. If hormones aren't able to facilitate that process because they already
• 28:12
  started preconception in a bad spot, it just means that we're going to see increasing rates of
• 28:17
  c-section and therefore impaired gut health with kits. But then we can also really work on the
• 28:22
  child side of things too, knowing that if children don't have that huge transfer that happens,
• 28:27
  if mothers got health isn't a much better spot, children are going to have less chronic health
• 28:31
  issues when they come into the world. So what we see now in our pediatric practice is we work with
• 28:37
  a lot of kids who do have digestive health issues and skin health issues, maybe behavioral issues
• 28:42
  or they're on the autism spectrum somewhere. And so we see children with significant
• 28:47
  toxin burdens. So what we see compared to the fertility side of our practice is kids have
• 28:53
  three times as much toxin burden as adults too. They have a huge burden and kids are great
• 28:58
  eliminators so we see a lot more of what they're coming in contact with on a regular basis.
• 29:02
  But we know that a lot of that is actually coming from mom. So the work that we're doing in the
• 29:06
  fertility space is directly impacting kids. So I'm thinking about the fact, you know, we know that
• 29:10
  fertility is declining and a lot of research points to sperm health going down to zero in the next
• 29:17
  couple of decades. I want my little boy to be able to get married and have kids someday if he
• 29:21
  wants to do that. So I'm really thinking about how this is impacting adults long-term but also
• 29:26
  their children. I just connected a dot based on what you said. I feel like so many parents,
• 29:32
  I'm thinking specifically like, well, my kid is not going to be able to afford the house I
• 29:37
  currently live in. So they're constantly looking at the future from a financial perspective.
• 29:42
  But what you're talking about is what about whether our kids are going to be able to be fertile
• 29:49
  or not? Like what about the basics? Will they be able to have those basics? And I think that's
• 29:55
  kind of going over people's heads because we're so almost used to having the facilities, you know,
• 30:03
  of these basics. So that's kind of a scary future when your children don't even have access to
• 30:10
  these very human things like conceiving. And that's the way we think about these. We want adults
• 30:16
  right now to have a birthright to be able to conceive if they walk to. And we also want
• 30:20
  our kids to be able to have that birthright. It used to be that we had to be really careful
• 30:26
  to prevent conception. But that's no longer the case in our modern society for a lot of reasons
• 30:32
  and it's only going to get worse for our kids if we don't do something about it now for them.
• 30:37
  So you mentioned though that you passed on the toxic burden to child. You're clearly not
• 30:42
  unique though. I mean, everyone must be passing on that toxic burden or passing on the
• 30:48
  loss. Like I know sometimes if you have kids too close to each other, you haven't had enough time
• 30:53
  to replenish your nutrients to conceive a second time. And so you might conceive, but that next
• 30:59
  child is not getting the exchange of minerals and nutrients they need. I guess how can people
• 31:06
  kind of better prepare to not pass on as much toxic burden? Yeah, I think it is, you know,
• 31:14
  the way I usually think about this is there has to be some level of radical responsibility
• 31:17
  where I think a lot of people are starting to be more health conscious as they start to think
• 31:22
  about growing their families, especially if they do have health issues, but even if they don't
• 31:26
  have health issues. So even if you have no problem conceiving, you get pregnant on the first
• 31:31
  trial. That's what you expect because there's no hormonal issues. The thing I will say too is like
• 31:36
  both me and my husband have a very long history of being healthy people exercising well,
• 31:40
  eating well, taking care of our bodies. So this is something that came really out of left field for us.
• 31:45
  If people can go into it with the knowledge that they have probably accumulated some level of
• 31:50
  toxic burden, even if it's not impacting them in any way. And to get really familiar with that,
• 31:55
  and take care of some of these basic things like water, air, and food quality before they start
• 32:00
  conceiving, not on the day that they actually get pregnant, which is super common in our society.
• 32:05
  That makes it a whole lot easier to make sure that we're actually detoxing things.
• 32:10
  One of the things we work on with a lot of women is let's take a look at your toxic burden,
• 32:13
  even if you are perfectly healthy. Let's just make sure that everything's in a good spot
• 32:17
  so that you don't have to do what I did because I don't wish that on anybody what I had to go
• 32:21
  through to make sure that my little boy's health got restored. And I didn't ever think that it would
• 32:26
  be that way. So I think a lot a lot of times we just need to have a really honest conversation
• 32:30
  about the state of the world, all the toxins we're being exposed to, and assess our health
• 32:35
  with a fine tooth comb, even if we feel good. Do you think it's important for people prior to
• 32:41
  conceiving to get a genetics test? Because with a genetics test, or do you think it's just like,
• 32:47
  you know, let's just assume we all don't process them. They're very well and just do the work.
• 32:52
  I think the majority of people don't just, they just don't process toxins very well.
• 32:56
  Genetic tests can be really helpful. So one of the things that we had realized in retrospect
• 33:00
  after everything had gotten resolved with my little boys, I had actually done genetic testing on
• 33:04
  both me and my husband. I have bad detoxification genes and no inflammation markers, and I don't
• 33:10
  have any signs of poor detoxification. But my husband has more genetics that creates susceptibility
• 33:16
  towards inflammation. But when you put those two things together and our little boy, it presents
• 33:20
  very differently than it does for us. So it can be very helpful. The biggest thing is we just don't
• 33:24
  know how our kids are going to present ultimately. So sometimes we'll see siblings who have very
• 33:30
  different health presentations, even though they have been exposed to the same things, whether that
• 33:34
  be a utero for mom or in their own home from like a current exposure, because, you know, some
• 33:40
  kids can be exposed to something like mold, let's say. And one child will have eczema, but the other
• 33:45
  one won't have any skin issues or digestive issues. They just have asthma sort of things. So it
• 33:49
  really has to do with how their unique genetics allow for things to present.
• 33:54
  I'm curious to, since you deal with a lot of parents trying to conceive, you probably are supporting
• 34:00
  them and conceiving. But then let's just say their pregnancy does not go as naturally as they
• 34:05
  would hope. How do you support those parents? Not only with protocol, like, let's say,
• 34:11
  had a C section and they got the antibiotics, like how are you supporting them there? But what about
• 34:15
  also emotionally? So when we're thinking about something like a C section, great. We know that
• 34:21
  there's going to be antibiotics administered and that we may not have had that transfer of the
• 34:26
  microbiome via the vaginal canal. There's a lot of things that you can do if you have the tools
• 34:30
  prepared. So there is something called vaginal swabbing where you can basically prep kids with that
• 34:37
  same microbiome if you know that that's going to happen in the operating room. If you don't have
• 34:43
  that, there's things you can do after the fact too. And what we typically recommend is for mom who
• 34:47
  is being administered antibiotics, utilizing something like a probiotic can be really helpful
• 34:52
  in that short term. And then for baby, really just watching what happens. What we do know to be true
• 34:57
  is that oftentimes when there is that transfer of the microbiome, sometimes there's an overgrowth
• 35:02
  of bacteria. So even if there is an antibiotic that's being administered to baby, it's not always
• 35:07
  going to negatively impact their health. Sometimes it does nothing happens because of the way that
• 35:12
  they are able to actually process that and what their microbiome starts off with on day one.
• 35:17
  But then also from an emotional perspective, I think all parents are just doing the best that they
• 35:22
  possibly can. And a lot of times when I'm talking about toxin burden and things like that, I know it's
• 35:28
  very easy for parents to feel like, I wish I would have known this, but I already have kids. They're
• 35:32
  like seven and 10 and the damage might have already been done. And the reason I'm talking about
• 35:38
  this is not to make anybody feel bad because I'm actually in that spot too. I learned this after
• 35:42
  the fact just like everyone else. And I want to be able to get ahead of some of the people who maybe
• 35:47
  aren't there yet. But when we're thinking about things on the back end of things, the way that I
• 35:52
  always refer to this is I don't think that there's anything that isn't reversible. If there is a
• 35:57
  gut health imbalance, it can be reversed. It might take some time. It might not be a very quick fix.
• 36:02
  It might not be a month or six months. It could be years. But we can always see these things restore
• 36:07
  balance. And I truly believe in the body's ability to heal itself if we give it the resources
• 36:12
  to do so. That's such a great sentiment. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about stress
• 36:18
  because we just briefly touched on it. But stress is huge. I mean, let alone the expectations we
• 36:24
  have around birth, around parenting, let's start maybe just with you and your husband, we did
• 36:30
  everything right. And yet our son was still burdened. I have to imagine that was a stress
• 36:36
  time for you, right? Absolutely. Very stressful. I think for me, I really felt like a failure
• 36:41
  as a mom because I was like, I tried to prepare for this. And it was very hard for I think both of us
• 36:47
  because we tried to do everything we could. And then we also ended up going the conventional
• 36:53
  route as first time parents of going into the pediatrician. What do we do here? And the answers
• 36:58
  that they had weren't really helpful either. They wanted to do something like a topical
• 37:01
  steroid long term, which has its own side effects. And so we're like, well, that doesn't really
• 37:05
  make sense. So it can be really stressful. I think when those things do come up and being able to
• 37:12
  just put one foot in front of the other can be really helpful. And knowing that our kids
• 37:18
  do mirror our nervous systems. So this is one of the things that, you know, I do talk with a
• 37:23
  lot of parents about when we're really dealing with some type of toxin burden or health concern
• 37:27
  with kids. Or if they know or discover, usually, that there's something like mold in their home.
• 37:32
  That's really stressful to be thinking about the fact that there's mold in your home. And there's
• 37:36
  something in this place that is supposed to be safe for you that is now harming your family.
• 37:40
  And it's easy to get worked up about these things. But if we can kind of take a step back and
• 37:45
  really focus on nervous system regulation and managing our stress response to these situations,
• 37:50
  is going to mean that our kids are going to be able to mirror that. So we tend to see, particularly
• 37:54
  with moms where moms are very stressed and they're high strong and they're kind of on edge.
• 37:59
  And we see kids flare in symptoms in response to mom stress response even when they're outside
• 38:06
  of the womb. And so we know that there's this huge connection between parents and their children
• 38:10
  and the way that their health responds. So we have to be thinking about this and ultimately like
• 38:15
  repairing ourselves every day as our children grow because we're just growing with them.
• 38:20
  Well, first of all, let's first honor the women because you mentioned how usually it's the
• 38:26
  mother's sister. And it really is true. Women are the absolute driver of health within a family.
• 38:32
  I don't believe anyone that doesn't attest to that because my experience as an entrepreneur,
• 38:36
  like it's always women who are the largest audience. They're always the ones that are coming
• 38:42
  and they're curious. They're like, you know, I think there's something going wrong. And they're
• 38:46
  the ones that bring in this new idea around, hey, maybe we should look at this, right?
• 38:51
  So first of all props to all the women out there listening that need some reaffirming of, you know,
• 39:00
  how they're contributing and doing better for their family. But secondly, we think about this a
• 39:06
  lot in our family as well. It's like there is a timing to things. Like you might not be feeling
• 39:12
  huge effects of having mold, but then suddenly you learn you have mold. And so it's very easy to
• 39:17
  increase the stress and feel like, oh my gosh, we have to deal with this right now. But maybe the
• 39:21
  timing is not right because you're in the process of moving or you're in the process of doing
• 39:25
  something that's taking up a lot of your energy. And so how do you recommend people kind of manage
• 39:32
  the circumventing that timing and awareness around these things?
• 39:38
  You know, I feel like the culture that we live in is very keen to say that once you have
• 39:45
  information, you need to do something about it. And that's not always the case. Or we are always
• 39:49
  expected to be moving forward in some way. And sometimes that is helpful. And sometimes it's
• 39:56
  absolutely necessary in families. But I don't think that it's always the case. So for instance,
• 40:00
  I was talking with a family who ended up finding mold in their home. And now they are living in an
• 40:07
  Airbnb short-term while their home is being remediated. But they're in that Airbnb now. And
• 40:13
  they're saying, there's definitely mold in here. So what do we do now? This is just the timing
• 40:17
  of it. Everything is going to be okay. But it's hard to feel that way when you're in that moment.
• 40:22
  And so just trusting that, you know, we're thinking long-term about things. It doesn't mean that we
• 40:27
  need to make a change right now. Even if there is a current concern or an issue, it can be something
• 40:33
  that can be addressed in the future. And I think that having less urgency and having the capacity
• 40:39
  to slow down and look at the full picture of everything allows us to make better decisions,
• 40:44
  especially for our families, where we're not feeling rushed to do something in an urgent manner.
• 40:48
  Yeah. And maybe prioritizing what's the most important thing to focus on right now. And I would
• 40:53
  offer to the more that the whole family can get on the same page. And in many ways,
• 41:00
  that should be the focus is never let the situation separate you all. Separate your
• 41:06
  unification, separate the teamworkness of it. To really make sure that the core
• 41:13
  is the family. You're stronger together than you are separate.
• 41:17
  Yeah. And just like you said, I think a lot of times mom can be the driver of health concerns
• 41:23
  in the family. But there's this equally as important role for husbands and dads where they
• 41:30
  are often trusting mom or their wife to make those decisions because they are more connected.
• 41:36
  And those two really do have to work together because if they're not working together,
• 41:40
  I can tell you clinically what I see in practice. If mom is on board with doing things holistically
• 41:45
  and dad is like, I think we should just go to the doctor and like whatever they say goes,
• 41:49
  it never ends well for the children in particular. So it really has to be a team approach.
• 41:54
  Whether that's a blend of things, whether that's going one way or the other,
• 41:57
  it really has to be coming to that decision together, determining what the priority is for the
• 42:02
  family. Even if that is getting some short term relief in one area, knowing that they're going
• 42:07
  to have to back up at some point in time and really address more group cause approaches.
• 42:12
  Excellent. Well, this has been fantastic. Before I let you go, I want to check in around one
• 42:19
  thing. Am I right that you are an advocate of using castor oil? I am.
• 42:24
  Okay. I would love to just touch base on that because castor oil packs they've been used for
• 42:28
  generations, but it seems like you've taken that knowledge to a whole new level. So what makes
• 42:34
  castor oil such a powerful tool and how is it that you recommend it be used?
• 42:40
  Yeah. I think castor oil can be used a lot more ways than people often realize. So castor oil
• 42:45
  supports natural detoxification efforts in multiple different organs. So we can be thinking about
• 42:50
  castor oil primarily for the liver, which is what most people are using it for in a liver pack
• 42:54
  directly over their abdomen, but you can also be using it over the uterus. So for women who have
• 43:01
  more like painful cramping or heavy bleeding or just general like uterine detoxification issues,
• 43:08
  it can be really helpful there, but you can also use it over organs like the thyroid and endocrine
• 43:13
  glands. So there's a lot of research that shows that using castor oil directly over the thyroid
• 43:18
  can help with detoxification of things like heavy metals, as well as halogens like fluoride and
• 43:24
  other type of toxins, the impact the ability of this gland to function appropriately and produce
• 43:30
  adequate thyroid hormones. So it can reduce things like antibodies, you can use it on the skin,
• 43:35
  you can use it on your face. So really thinking about anywhere where there might be a detoxification
• 43:41
  issue, you can use castor oil in those areas. Now the thing I will say about castor oil is you
• 43:45
  want to go slow with it. So I don't recommend slathering yourself in castor oil by any means,
• 43:50
  because you might have a pretty nasty reaction where your body's like, we did a little too much
• 43:54
  too quickly. What happens if you go too fast? It can just be a lot of different things. I usually
• 43:59
  see a lot of people get themselves diarrhea, honestly, if they go too fast. And that's usually when
• 44:03
  you put it over your liver a little bit too long, you can just move things a little too quickly
• 44:07
  and increase bile flow a little too fast. You know that was in the movie, stand by me. I don't
• 44:13
  know if you know that movie, but back in the day they had the dream sequence and that's what they
• 44:16
  are drinking is castor oil and everyone throw up. Yep, absolutely. Same thing is like using it
• 44:22
  in the burst process where women drink castor oil to induce labor. Same concept there is that it can
• 44:27
  move the bells relatively quickly. But generally like you just wouldn't feel good. So if you like
• 44:31
  have something like diarrhea or you generally feel like you have like flu-like symptoms,
• 44:35
  that's what I would consider a diaph or detox reaction. Your body is just trying to detox
• 44:39
  and it's detoxing faster than you have the capacity to handle safely. And so just means you want
• 44:45
  to back off a little bit and not push too fast. Alright, so before we end the castor oil conversation
• 44:50
  though, so for those that don't know, what is it? What is a castor oil pack? Like how would they
• 44:55
  use it on these different organs? Yeah, so a castor oil pack you could basically make on your own
• 44:59
  if you would like to. Some people use cotton or a flannel. You can also purchase a castor oil pack.
• 45:04
  There's a ton of them on Amazon, but you're looking for something that has an organic natural
• 45:09
  material to use primarily. There's a brand called Queen of Thrones that we often use with our
• 45:14
  and recommend with our clients who have more like a tie so you can wrap it around your body.
• 45:19
  But essentially what you do is you're going to put castor oil over the organ system that you would
• 45:23
  like. So if you're putting it over your liver, your liver is on the right side of your body,
• 45:26
  just below your ribs, essentially a little bit over your ribs and underneath. Put the castor oil
• 45:31
  there and then put the pack on. Usually we recommend leaving it there for about 20 to 30 minutes
• 45:36
  to start. You can work up in time to wearing it overnight. It can help with sleep. But essentially
• 45:42
  what happens is the castor oil actually absorbs to the skin. We often forget that our skin is our
• 45:47
  largest organ and so it can actually generally absorb these nutrients and it will promote detoxification
• 45:53
  in that organ system below the skin essentially. So just work your way into it more than anything.
• 45:58
  Don't go too fast, but you can do that over your thyroid. You can use the same type of pack
• 46:02
  over your thyroid, over your uterus. People will put it over their abdomen. If they have more like
• 46:07
  GI issues, there's a lot of different ways you can use it. Yeah, it's one of those, you know,
• 46:11
  I'll say ancestral practices, even though it's been used for what the last 200 years maybe,
• 46:16
  so I'm not talking that old, but you know, old enough. It's kind of lost its way a little bit,
• 46:21
  but it's a really cheap and easy solution for a lot of things. So happy you talked about that.
• 46:26
  And say for kids too, they make kids cast oil packs. My little boy is four. He wears
• 46:30
  cast oil packs. He thinks it's super fun. No adverse reactions to it. It's a really safe way to
• 46:36
  support kind of this lifestyle of detoxification. So even if you aren't doing like a therapeutic
• 46:41
  detoxification protocol, knowing that we're all exposed to things all the time, we want to make
• 46:45
  sure that our levers are functioning optimally. That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your
• 46:50
  time. I feel like this is an information packed episode and I'm so grateful for the work you're
• 46:57
  doing. I'm always saying our kids are the canaries in the coal mine. We have to support kid health
• 47:03
  because it's our future. And of course, the way to support kids is to also support their mothers
• 47:09
  and the family units that support them. So we have to be looking collectively at all of our health,
• 47:15
  really. Can people that don't live near you work with you? Yeah, we have a fully virtual
• 47:21
  practice. So we work with people all over the US and Canada. We're on Instagram. You can
• 47:26
  find us on Instagram for the fertility side of things that reversing infertility. And then our
• 47:30
  pediatric page is always growing littles. We call of our pediatrics are littles. But our website is
• 47:36
  always dash growing.com. And you can find all of our information regardless of what type of program
• 47:41
  you're interested in there. And then your book, please share that title and where people can
• 47:47
  find that. Yeah, my book is toxic infertility. It's detoxification solutions to improve natural
• 47:53
  fertility. You can find it on Amazon. Perfect. Well, thank you again for your time. Keep it up.
• 48:00
  Thank you all for either listening or watching. I just hope that you're getting as much out of
• 48:06
  these episodes as I am. I feel like I'm getting clear on what I need to do to bring ancestral
• 48:12
  health into my present. And I hope you are as well. So stay curious and keep it ancestral.
• 48:20
  Thank you so much for joining me on everyday ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode,
• 48:26
  hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You could find the show notes links and resources
• 48:32
  mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out
• 48:43
  of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.