Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E210: The Truth About Hormonal Birth Control, Miscarriages, and Fertility w/Dr. Marguerite Duane | Lila Rose Show

Transcript

E210: The Truth About Hormonal Birth Control, Miscarriages, and Fertility w/Dr. Marguerite Duane | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
The world's Health Organization classifieds the combination
0:03
Hermetal birth control pill as a Group 1 carcinogen.
0:06
It's the same category as tobacco and asbestos.
0:08
Infertility is not a disease, it's actually a symptom of other
0:13
underlying diseases. I believe that women should be
0:16
able to make an informed choice, and to do that we need to give
0:18
them information about how medications work.
0:21
I have an opportunity to teach medical students about natural
0:24
methods of family planning and the students response was so
0:27
overwhelmingly positive. Pharmaceutical companies, that
0:30
IVF industry, big lobby, lots of money.
0:32
What you're doing is let's actually care for the patient.
0:34
Yes. And so there's not this billion
0:36
dollar pharmaceutical company, you know.
0:38
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Lila Rose show.
0:40
I'm super pumped today to have Doctor Marguerite Duane in the
0:43
studio today. Doctor Duane is the founder of
0:47
FAX, which is an incredible organization focused on
0:49
fertility awareness. She is a board certified
0:52
physician as well as an adjunct professor over at Georgetown.
0:56
She has many accolades, but most of all, she's someone who's
0:58
incredibly passionate, passionate and knowledgeable
1:01
about Women's Health. And we're going to be deep
1:03
diving the topics of hormones, health and fertility.
1:06
We're going to talk about miscarriage and how miscarriage
1:08
actually can be prevented in many cases.
1:10
Most people don't know this. We're going to discuss birth
1:13
control and some of the truths about the birth control pill
1:16
that again, not a lot of people realize.
1:18
She also shares the incredible fertility awareness based
1:20
methods that can empower women to truly understand and
1:23
appreciate their bodies and seek optimal health.
1:25
This episode isn't just for women, it's for men too, because
1:28
this is important for any man who is a husband, a father who
1:31
hopes to be a husband and a father one day, or he just wants
1:34
to understand women more. Obviously, it's focused on
1:36
Women's Health, but anything with regard to fertility or
1:38
miscarriage also absolutely involves men.
1:41
And we've got a special bonus segment over at
1:43
rosereport.supercast.com for Rose Report members where we
1:47
have a whole special segment with Doctor Duane spinning the
1:49
wheel, answering questions. You're going to enjoy it.
1:51
Go check that out at rosereport.supercast.com.
1:54
Doctor Margaret Duane, thanks so much for joining the podcast.
1:57
Thanks so much for having me. We're really lucky to have you
1:59
out here. I knew you came a long way and
2:01
you're very busy lady, so thank you.
2:04
You're welcome. I'm glad to have the opportunity
2:05
to share with you. Now you're one of our OG podcast
2:08
guests, so back in the day when this show was just an audio show
2:10
and we did like 25 episodes during the pandemic, you know,
2:13
way back 5-6 years ago, you were one of our most popular people.
2:17
Loved your episode. That's fantastic.
2:19
So I've been wanting to have you in studio to do a proper in
2:22
person audio and video episode because what you do is so
2:26
transformative. I think it's made an incredible
2:28
difference. You start fact, we're going to
2:30
learn more about your organization, your work as a
2:32
physician, and it's just incredibly important.
2:35
So thank you so much for making it out here.
2:36
You're welcome. Thank you.
2:38
I'd love for folks who are not, who are not aware yet of you,
2:41
what you do. Tell us a little bit about facts
2:43
your organization. Sure.
2:44
So again I'm a board certified family physician and Co founder
2:49
and executive director of facts which we started in 2010.
2:52
I Co founded the organization with another family physician
2:55
doctor Bob Motley, and originally facts stood for the
2:58
Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to teach the
3:01
science. And I think our name so
3:03
beautifully explains what we do. We're all about focusing on the
3:06
gift of fertility and to appreciate one's fertility, you
3:09
need to understand it. And you can learn to understand
3:12
your fertility and the female cycle through tracking.
3:15
We're collaborative in that we work with all of the methods.
3:18
We work with medical professionals from all
3:21
specialties, whether OBGYN's, family doctors, naturopaths,
3:25
nutritionists, anyone in the healthcare space that really
3:28
cares about empowering women to care for their reproductive
3:31
health. And finally, we focus on
3:34
teaching the science. We're really focused on
3:37
promoting the latest evidence and sharing the most up to date
3:40
science underlying how the female cycle really serves as a
3:45
fifth vital sign, how women can learn to chart their cycle and
3:49
how we can use this information to diagnose, monitor and manage
3:54
a wide range not only of Women's Health conditions, but also for
3:57
couples who are dealing with infertility.
3:59
So Facts, the Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to
4:02
teach the science. Again, we started it in 2010,
4:06
but in 2022 we became our own nonprofit, officially known as
4:10
Facts About Fertility. So what got you so interested
4:14
in, I mean, fertility awareness might be a term we could use
4:17
restorative reproductive medicine.
4:19
I know these different terms to describe, but it's basically
4:21
seeing a woman's fertility as a good thing, first of all, and
4:24
understanding how it works at the bare minimum.
4:27
What got you into that? Well, I think it's, it was back
4:30
to what brought me to medicine and for me my vocation to be a
4:33
doctor. I, I knew I was called to
4:35
medicine on November 2nd, 1979. And I can say that with such
4:39
specificity because that was the day that I watched my baby
4:42
sister being born at home. And that was an older
4:47
experience. I was just eight years old.
4:48
Wow. And I sat next to my 9 year old
4:51
sister at my mother's feet and we watched our baby sister being
4:54
born. And I was like, this is the most
4:56
amazing thing ever. This is what I want to do when I
4:59
grow up. And at the time, I didn't know
5:01
what kind of doctor wanted to be, but I pretty soon decided I
5:04
wanted to be a family doctor. I loved caring for women, but I
5:07
loved caring for children, men, grandparents.
5:10
So I pursued my passion for medicine, went to college,
5:14
actually did a master's degree in Health Administration before
5:18
going into medicine and pursued family medicine.
5:21
And again, really passionate about Women's Health and wanted
5:24
to deliver babies and take care of moms and babies.
5:27
And it was when I was on OB call one night as a first year family
5:30
medicine residency at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster,
5:33
PA, where I happen to be on call with a senior resident who was
5:37
trained in one of the methods. Her name is Doctor Pearl Huang,
5:41
and she was trained in the Creighton model.
5:43
And as I was sitting there on OB call, doing what any good intern
5:47
did on OB call, writing birth control prescriptions for all of
5:50
our postpartum patients, Doctor Huang decided to talk to me
5:54
about how birth control methods work.
5:56
The potential side effects and impact on breastfeeding was part
6:00
of bleeding. And she talked to me about the
6:02
fact, you know, there are some methods of family planning that
6:05
women can use. They don't actually interfere
6:07
with her cycle and have no medical side effects.
6:10
And I thought, what are you talking about?
6:12
Every form of family planning has side effects, whether it's
6:16
an increased risk of depression due to the pill, abnormal
6:18
uterine bleeding with IU DS, even condoms can cause local
6:22
sensitivity reactions. And she said no women can learn
6:26
to chart their cycle, signs of their cycle, to know where they
6:29
are and when they may not be, when they may be fertile or not,
6:32
and use that information so they don't have to do anything to
6:35
disrupt their cycle. And I thought to myself, how
6:39
have I never learned this? I'm a doctor.
6:42
I'm passionate about Women's Health.
6:44
I'm a woman. When I was in college, like most
6:47
college students who went to student health with like a, a
6:50
reproductive health concern, the only option that was offered to
6:53
me was birth control. And I thought to myself, why
6:55
didn't I know this? So that night on call was as
6:59
transformative for me as seeing the birth of my baby sister.
7:02
And that really sparked my interest in learning more about
7:06
women's reproductive health and how we can learn.
7:09
We can teach women to chart their cycle, to better monitor
7:13
and manage their health. And that was back in 2000.
7:16
Flash forward a decade later. I was on faculty at Georgetown
7:20
University. I was the medical director of
7:22
two community health centers in DC, caring for a largely
7:25
underserved minority population. I was married with two young
7:29
children of my own when one of my colleagues at Georgetown
7:32
said, we're looking for faculty to volunteer to teach courses to
7:36
medical students on topics that will make them more well-rounded
7:39
as physicians. And I thought to myself, this
7:42
will be an incredible opportunity to teach even a
7:45
small group of medical students about natural or fertility
7:48
awareness based methods because I didn't learn about this as a
7:51
medical student. And I thought this would be a
7:53
great opportunity. But the rational part of my
7:56
brain kicked in. I thought, well, I'm working
7:58
full time as a medical director. I have two small children like
8:01
we the what time. But I really felt convicted that
8:04
I needed to take this opportunity to teach these
8:08
medical students. And so I reached out to
8:09
colleagues in the field and said, hey, I have an opportunity
8:12
to teach medical students about natural methods of family
8:15
planning and restorative reproductive medicine.
8:17
And my colleagues were like, this is great, we should do
8:19
this. So in the end, I had nine
8:21
students take the class, which was great because they limited
8:23
it to 5 to 10. And I had 12 people teaching the
8:26
course. And not just anybody, like I had
8:28
Doctor Hannah Klaus, who worked with John and Evelyn Billings
8:32
and created the Teen Star program.
8:34
I had Doctor Richard Ferring, who developed the Marquette
8:36
method, fly in from Wisconsin to give an hour lecture on the
8:39
Marquette method, and the student's response was so
8:43
overwhelmingly positive. This is the most clinically
8:45
relevant information I've learned.
8:47
Why isn't this a part of our basic reproductive Physiology
8:49
class that we take? And one student said this is
8:52
something every medical student should learn.
8:54
And I thought, you're right, this is something every medical
8:58
student and nursing student and any healthcare professional who
9:02
cares for women should learn. So that is what motivated me to
9:07
connect with my colleague Doctor Bob Motley to start Facts in
9:10
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using the code Lila. It's amazing doctor during
10:04
because you are a pioneer. I mean, I would maybe say you're
10:06
the pioneer because I remember the space and I'm in a space
10:10
where I know what's on the table in terms of, you know, fertility
10:14
awareness based methods, etcetera.
10:16
But I remember being at college, you know, in College in 20, I
10:19
graduated 2010. So those years and I just
10:21
remember the conversation among my cohort, you know, other young
10:25
women, secular women, not necessarily a faith background,
10:27
just everyday women, right? And they're all in birth control
10:30
pills. You know, I was one of the rare
10:32
ones that wasn't and it was a no brainer.
10:34
It was like, this is what I've been on since I was 12, right?
10:37
I think a decade plus later, a decade and a half now later, the
10:40
conversation, even culturally is very different on birth control
10:44
as this sort of, you know, response to any issue that a
10:48
woman may face, including as a contraceptive.
10:51
And now there's all of this more opportunity, quite frankly, for
10:55
the information that you've known now for decades to finally
10:58
create some sort of traction in a mainstream way.
11:01
So I would say your work doing that has been absolutely
11:04
essential. You truly are the pioneer you
11:07
you threw out a lot of names like the Billings method, I
11:10
think the Creighton method. So there's a lot to get into
11:13
here about what these fertility awareness faith methods methods
11:17
even are super excited because you are the expert.
11:20
I do want to just talk about the landscape for a minute.
11:23
I I've noticed again, more people being opposed to the
11:26
harms of birth control, even being aware of them.
11:30
I've also noticed more of an appreciation for what fertility
11:33
is. And you mentioned it as the
11:35
fifth vital sign, I think was the word that you used.
11:37
I'd love for you to share more about the kind of as you see at
11:41
the landscape over the last decade in terms of how our
11:43
healthcare system approaches a woman's fertility, her periods,
11:47
any reproductive based issues. And if you think that they're,
11:52
you know, where the deficiencies are.
11:54
Yeah. Let's talk about the landscape
11:56
of Women's Health. So when I was training as a
11:58
medical student in the late 90s and as a a resident in the early
12:00
2000's, the way that we were trained to approach Women's
12:03
Health is that the pill is the panacea for all that else women.
12:08
So if a woman would come into the office with irregular
12:10
cycles, put on the birth control pill to quote UN quote, regulate
12:14
her period. In fact, it doesn't regulate her
12:17
period. It gives her a regular
12:18
withdrawal bleed, but it doesn't get out.
12:20
Why is she having an irregular cycle?
12:23
Could it be polycystic ovarian syndrome, one of the leading
12:25
causes? Maybe it's functional
12:27
hypothalamic amenorrhea due to stress or or over exercise,
12:32
other conditions, painful periods.
12:34
Again, a very common complaint that young girls go to the
12:37
doctor with. And again, the way we're trained
12:39
to treat them is like we put them on the birth control pill.
12:41
Well, that's how I learned how to practice initially.
12:44
And what I discovered is that what the pill does is it
12:47
suppresses the woman's hormones. It suppresses her cycle.
12:51
So while it may alleviate the symptoms of pain or give the
12:55
appearance of giving a woman a regular cycle, it doesn't
12:58
actually get at the root cause and help us to make the
13:01
diagnosis and really treat the underlying condition.
13:05
And so over time, not to mention all of the side effects
13:10
associated with hormonal birth control, as I mentioned, there's
13:13
been large studies in Europe showing hormonal birth control
13:17
has statistically significant increased risks of depression
13:20
and suicide and adolescence. The world's Health Organization
13:24
classifieds the combination hormonal birth control pill as a
13:27
Group 1 carcinogen because of the increased risk of breast,
13:31
cervical, and liver cancer. It's the same category as
13:34
tobacco and asbestos in terms of like increased cancer risk.
13:38
I believe that women should be able to make an informed choice.
13:41
And to do that, we need to give them information about how
13:45
medications work, how pharmaceutical agents work, and
13:49
how they may or may not actually treat the underlying symptoms.
13:52
So, for example, with painful periods, one of the most common
13:56
causes of painful periods is a condition called endometriosis.
14:01
Endometriosis is a condition where the cells that line the
14:05
uterus grow outside of the uterus, right?
14:08
So if you think about cells that grow where they're not supposed
14:11
to, I would ask your audience, what do you think of what
14:15
condition comes to mind when you're thinking about cells that
14:18
grow where they're not supposed to?
14:20
Cancer. Cancer.
14:21
Exactly. So to be clear, endometriosis is
14:24
not cancer, but it behaves like cancer, right?
14:28
And we don't treat cancer just by taking out a part of it or by
14:31
suppressing the symptoms. We go in and try to remove it
14:34
all. And physicians like Napper,
14:37
trained surgeons or minimally invasively gynecologically
14:39
trained surgeons, we're trained to remove endometriosis in its
14:43
entirety can significantly improve a woman's overall
14:46
quality of life and her fertility.
14:49
But the way we're trained in medicine is we put women on the
14:51
birth control pill again, that may suppress the symptoms, but
14:55
the condition will continue to spread.
14:57
So in the United States of America, which arguably has one
15:00
of the best healthcare systems, the average time it takes from
15:03
the onset of symptoms of painful periods to the diagnosis of
15:07
endometriosis is to 10 to 12 years.
15:11
They just over a decade. They just didn't know.
15:13
The woman just they have endometriosis for a decade and
15:16
they never got it. Properly, I have a patient right
15:18
now who at 15 went to her doctor with painful periods.
15:22
Was put on birth control pill for 20 years, still suffering
15:26
from pain. Actually had back surgery
15:28
because she thought it was related to back condition.
15:31
No issues there. Finally went off the pill at 35
15:34
because she wanted to have a baby and was told you have to do
15:37
IVF, you have endometriosis, there is no possibility you're
15:41
going to be able to conceive. She didn't feel like she had
15:44
another option. Pursued IVF gratefully.
15:46
Was able to have one child but lost 2 embryos in the process.
15:49
Came to me at 40 and was like I want another child and all
15:52
they're telling me is I need to do more IVF.
15:54
I said no, you need to have surgery and have your condition
15:57
treated. Lila, from the day I saw her to
16:00
the day I got her in to see an endo specialist, Doctor Patrick
16:04
Young, one of the outstanding surgeons in the country.
16:07
She had surgery and then within a month she was pregnant.
16:10
No way. At the age of 40.
16:12
What? Right.
16:12
What were you operating on when you're treating endometriosis?
16:15
I'm sure there's lots of different treatments, but one of
16:17
them you mentioned is surgery, so.
16:18
What are they doing Is the treatment, it is the, it is the
16:21
treatment endometriosis. So as a family physician, I
16:24
cannot diagnose or treat endometriosis.
16:26
I can raise the level of suspicion and say this is likely
16:29
endometriosis and we need to have you see a surgeon.
16:31
So they go in and they remove all of the endometrial implants,
16:34
which significantly reduces the inflammation and creates a more
16:38
favorable environment. So with the.
16:39
Implantation. For for conception and
16:42
implantation, which is so critically important.
16:46
So again, four years going down the IVF route to have one child
16:50
and and two losses, four months working with myself and Doctor
16:55
Young to be able to conceive naturally.
16:58
So it is possible. Now I wish I could say to every
17:01
patient, yes, this can happen, but there's so much we can do
17:04
when we, when we apply the principles of restorative
17:08
reproductive medicine, we look for the root cause of the
17:12
underlying conditions of infertility, of painful periods,
17:16
of irregular cycles, and we diagnose and treat the
17:19
underlying issues rather than this Band-Aid of perch
17:23
suppressing symptoms with birth control, circumventing the
17:26
underlying cause of infertility with IVF.
17:28
No, we need to make the diagnosis, identify the root
17:31
causes and treat them to help women and men live their
17:35
healthiest lives and optimize their chances for having the
17:39
family that they ought that they so desire.
17:41
Why do you think there's such a such a knee jerk reaction to so
17:46
many conditions? Cystic acne.
17:48
I know that some of my girlfriends in college, it was
17:50
like you're on the birth control pill because I got on it at 13
17:53
for cystic acne or obviously painful periods, which might be
17:56
actually endometriosis, which is then going to go untreated when
17:59
the birth control is not asking that.
18:01
But why do, I mean, I don't know if you have a theory, but the
18:03
medical establishment up until even just the last few years,
18:07
it's kind of changing now, but has been so monolith in its just
18:11
using again the magic pill, the birth control pill as this
18:15
panacea treatment. Why do you think this is?
18:18
Well, I mean, this is what we learn in medical school, right?
18:20
I mean, and for better or for worse, the Pharmaceutical
18:22
industry has tremendous influence over what we learn in
18:24
medical. Education.
18:25
They make money with every, with every.
18:27
Prescription, every prescription.
18:28
I mean, the birth control industry is a multi billion
18:31
dollar industry because women are prescribed birth control for
18:34
way more than just birth control.
18:37
So it it has a huge influence. It's what we learn in medical
18:40
school. And until we started teaching
18:42
the facts selective at Georgetown in 2010, this was not
18:46
covered in mainstream medical education. 2018, we were able to
18:51
get our elective officially approved as in a way elected so
18:54
we could then start teaching medical students not just at
18:56
Georgetown, but at medical schools all over the country.
18:59
So since the last time I've been on this podcast in the last
19:02
decade, we have now taught over 1000 medical students from over
19:06
100 different medical schools about fertility awareness based
19:10
methods, their role as the 5th vital sign, which it's not me
19:13
saying that it's the American College of Obstetricians and
19:15
Gynecologists in the American Academy of Pediatrics that will
19:19
recognize the ovarian menstrual cycle as a fifth vital sign.
19:23
So at facts, we're teaching medical students to do it, but
19:26
it's still not a part of mainstream education.
19:29
That is until this year. And I don't even know if I'd
19:32
shared this with you, but last year in the summer of 2024, I
19:36
took a new position at Duquesne University.
19:39
They opened a new College of osteopathic medicine.
19:42
And when they opened the the college, they launched a Center
19:45
for fertility awareness education and research.
19:48
They hired me as the first director so that we could
19:51
integrate this education at every level of the medical
19:53
school curriculum. So November of 2024, I had the
19:56
opportunity to spend an entire day teaching all of the medical
20:00
students about natural or fertility awareness based
20:02
methods and their role in Women's Health.
20:05
The goal, my goal with the work that we're doing at Duquesne,
20:07
building off the work we've done at FACTS, is to create a
20:10
curriculum that can be adapted in every single medical and.
20:15
The nursing school so that the medical professionals, the
20:17
physicians, the nurse practitioners, the midwives,
20:20
they care for women actually have the tools.
20:23
But you asked, why is it this major reaction?
20:25
Again, it's the medical education first and foremost,
20:28
but then it's practice. I mean, the reality is, is the
20:31
time that it takes me to spend with a patient to dig into the
20:35
root causes, to explain how to chart their cycle, to make these
20:39
treatment adjustments takes time.
20:41
It's so much easier if a patient comes in, I have painful
20:43
periods, OK, here's a prescription for birth control.
20:46
I can get on to my next patient, right?
20:48
And so the current medical system does not lend itself well
20:52
to a restored reproductive approach.
20:54
We need time. We need to really dig deep.
20:56
A lot of women who have psycho related issues need to work on
21:00
lifestyle factors like nutrition, sleep, exercise.
21:04
Fax is going to be hosting a virtual conference this year on
21:06
October 10th and 11th and we're looking at these factors.
21:09
How do we improve nutrition? How do why is sleep so important
21:13
not only for female infertility, but male fertility as well?
21:17
What is the role of exercise? It's it's the story of
21:19
Goldilocks. Too much isn't good, too little
21:22
isn't good. What's that right amount of
21:24
exercise that women and men need to engage in again to optimize
21:28
their fertility? Nutrition.
21:29
Again, not something really well covered in medicine and not
21:32
something to say over the time to do in a 15 minute office
21:35
visit. So we need more funding and more
21:38
education on addressing not only fertility but overall health
21:43
from a more comprehensive, holistic, integrative and
21:46
restorative perspective. Amazing.
21:49
I'm so excited to hear about what you're doing and we'll
21:51
definitely link for people listening so they can check out
21:53
facts. Easter is a season to celebrate
21:55
Jesus Christ resurrection and go deeper into our faith.
21:58
That's why I'm a big fan of Hollow App, which is the number
22:00
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22:03
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22:06
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22:08
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22:10
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22:13
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22:16
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22:36
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22:44
for a full three months at halo.com/lila.
22:48
That's halo.com/lila. So when you say the 5th vital
22:52
sign, can you explain what is the 5th vital sign and why does
22:55
it matter for women? Absolutely.
22:57
So when I was a resident, we were learning the vital signs.
22:59
We learned the four main vital signs, heart rate, respiratory
23:02
rate, blood pressure and temperature.
23:04
When I was a resident, we learned about pain as the 5th
23:06
vital sign. I think to myself, what is a
23:08
vital sign? A vital sign is something that's
23:11
a sign of life. Well, last I checked, nobody
23:13
needs pain to be alive. So I kind of rejected the whole
23:16
concept of pain as the 5th vital sign.
23:18
But when we talk about the female cycle as a fifth vital
23:23
sign, in order for a woman to ovulate, her hormones have to
23:27
function optimally. It's an intricate orchestration
23:31
and if the woman's fertility is is optimal and she's ovulating
23:35
it, it allows for the continuation of the life of the
23:38
species. If a woman's hormones are not
23:40
functioning properly and she's not ovulating, not only does it
23:43
affect her fertility, but it does affect her overall health.
23:47
Why the reproductive hormones estradiol and progesterone?
23:50
We think of those about we need that to have a baby, but they're
23:53
also critical for other aspects of health.
23:55
Estradiol is critical for heart health, heart health, heart
23:59
disease is one of the leading causes of death.
24:01
Estrogen is really important for optimal heart health.
24:04
How do we know this? When a woman goes through
24:06
menopause and she's no longer ovulating, her estradiol levels
24:09
are lower. She has a much higher risk of
24:11
heart disease or heart attacks. Progesterone, again, we often
24:15
think of it as a reproductive hormone.
24:16
It's important in pregnancy. But progesterone is also
24:19
critical for mental health. It's critical for bone health.
24:23
The female reproductive hormones are not merely important for
24:26
pregnancy and having children, but they're critical for overall
24:29
health. Estradiol is important for heart
24:32
health. Heart disease is one of the two
24:35
leading causes of death in America, and when a woman goes
24:38
through menopause, she no longer produces estrogen.
24:40
Her risk of heart disease goes up.
24:42
Progesterone, while it's important in pregnancy is known
24:44
as the pregnancy hormone, is also critically important for
24:47
women's mental health. We see this in women who suffer
24:50
from PMS or premenstrual syndrome.
24:52
It's often due to the fact that the progesterone levels drop
24:55
precipitously and it can cause mental health issues such as
24:59
depression and increased anxiety.
25:01
Progesterone is also critical for bone health.
25:03
So the female cycle as a vital sign is not only critical for
25:07
ovulation and for the survival of the species, but it is a sign
25:11
of good Women's Health. So when you are looking at your
25:17
own, let's say it's someone's health, right, and you're coming
25:19
and a woman comes in, let's just say it's a, it's a cystic acne
25:22
situation, right? So you seeing a very young
25:25
patient. She's, you know, God's gone
25:27
through puberty, but she has cystic acne.
25:29
The pain, the maybe the periods are not particularly painful,
25:32
but she's getting treated for that again, a decade or two ago,
25:35
she might have been put on the birth control pill as I had
25:37
friends who were put on the birth control pill, especially
25:39
girls, girl they knew in college, etcetera.
25:41
What would be the proper way to treat that girl as opposed to
25:46
just let's get her a birth control prescription?
25:48
Yeah, great question. So acne is one of the common
25:51
reasons and it can be due to normal hormonal shifts.
25:54
So one of the first things I like to do is I like to have my
25:56
patients chart. I have a young patient, 18 years
25:59
old. She was dealing with cystic acne
26:01
from the age of 16. We had her start charting and we
26:04
could see when she would have those spikes in her acne.
26:08
So things that we can do to affect it.
26:10
Some things can be as simple as a dressing or diet.
26:14
So there are foods that are very inflammatory, sugar,
26:17
carbohydrates, processed foods. We really try to get those out
26:20
of the diet. Having a good skin care routine
26:24
can also be critically important.
26:26
Sometimes a lot of these girls that become very self-conscious,
26:28
they'll use extra makeup that can actually in turn worsen it.
26:32
But there's certainly lots of other topical treatments and
26:35
antibiotics that we can use to often treat it, which again
26:39
helps because you're treating the root 'cause you're not
26:41
simply shutting down the hormones of her cycle.
26:45
You know, I like to describe it as, you know, I think the best
26:50
way to think about the way we treat some Women's Health
26:52
problems, like like acne, for example.
26:55
You want to do a targeted treatment, right?
26:57
You want to treat the problem in front of you and not just wash
27:00
out the whole system. So if you have an Ant problem in
27:03
your kitchen, you want to target killing those ants and not get
27:06
the fire extinguisher and, like, flood the floor.
27:08
Yeah, it'll kill the ants, but what damage are you going to do
27:11
in the process? So the more we can look at the
27:14
root cause to a targeted diagnosis and treatment, the
27:17
better it's going to be for women.
27:19
Why? Again, hormonal birth control,
27:21
especially in adolescence, has a whole range of side effects that
27:25
many women are pushing back on. And I'm not sure if you're
27:29
familiar with the book called Sweeten the Pill, how women are
27:31
hooked on hormonal birth control, you know, written by a
27:34
secular person. Pioneer work again.
27:36
Yeah, very outspoken about the harms of birth control and and
27:39
really look at looks at it from a secular lens, from a woman's
27:43
rights perspective, women have the right to have the knowledge
27:45
about the way their bodies work and to get care that aims to
27:50
treat the underlying issues. So my husband and I just had a
27:53
baby last year. She's one now.
27:56
Thank you. But you know, we had, you know,
27:58
you're in the hospital. It was a hospital birth.
28:00
We had nurses in and out. And one nurse came in.
28:02
I don't think she knew what our preferences were.
28:05
Well, she clearly didn't. She walks in and she says, so
28:07
this is #3 just here to talk to you about your birth control
28:10
plan. And I, you know, kind of laughed
28:13
like my husband rolled her eyes and were like, we don't, we, our
28:16
plan is no plan. We don't do birth control for
28:19
multiple reasons. So anyways, this is so, you
28:22
know, separate from the whole like old cystic, you know,
28:25
cystic acne or painful periods. There's just the other push in
28:29
the medical establishment today, which is if you are, you know,
28:33
having sex and, you know, whether you're married or not,
28:36
you should, generally speaking, make it be on birth control and
28:39
be on birth control. That's like what you should do.
28:41
And then if you have a baby, even if you just have one baby,
28:44
you should be on birth control for at least 18 months so you
28:47
can, even if you want other children, get on the birth.
28:49
So it is, it is, again, prescribed like a panacea.
28:53
And what is almost never part of the conversation is a serious
28:56
discussion of the harms and separate from a moral question
28:59
of birth control, separate from that, we can talk about that
29:01
too. But the potential risks and
29:05
consequences, the side effects of birth control.
29:07
You mentioned a little bit earlier, but I would love to
29:09
hear again just for our knowledge, because again, the
29:12
conversation I think culturally gets so partisan weirdly like
29:17
around political divide and was like, no, what are the actual
29:19
facts here about the harms of hormonal birth control?
29:23
Because there's a whole lot of data on this that a lot of
29:26
people are not aware of. So what would you say like the
29:28
top 3 or 4 things that women should know about the potential
29:31
side effects of hormonal birth control?
29:34
Yeah, so great question. So in fact we do a presentation
29:37
called the facts about fertility explained and in it we walk
29:40
through here are from the medical literature.
29:42
Here is a list of all of the side effects and the the slide
29:46
is full. It affects every single
29:48
reproductive, I mean every single health system within the
29:51
body, not just our reproductive health.
29:54
So we already talked about increased risk of depression,
29:57
but. How much like?
29:57
Because I think that's one thing.
29:59
I don't know if we have those that information here, but I
30:02
know that mental health issues are on the rise among women and
30:05
have been for decades. It's like the strange thing, why
30:07
are so many women depressed? Why are so many women anxious?
30:10
And there's this research that shows, well, birth control
30:12
pills, which so many women are on too, is not helping your
30:15
mental health. It's not.
30:16
And why is that? Again, we talked about
30:18
progesterone. The progesterone that your body
30:20
produces when you ovulate, after you ovulate crosses the blood
30:23
brain barrier and works as an anxiolytic.
30:26
What does that mean? It helps to calm you.
30:28
It makes you feel better, you sleep better.
30:30
When women are natural progesterone, when you are on
30:33
synthetic hormones, progestins, they do not cross the blood
30:37
brain barrier. And so This is why we're seeing
30:40
more mental health issues. We also see an increased risk in
30:43
blood clots. The funny thing is, Lila
30:45
Cosmopolitan did an article on like why women are ditching the
30:50
birth control pill and they highlighted the stories of women
30:53
who lost their lives. I haven't met families who have
30:57
buried wives, sisters, daughters because of the side effects of
31:01
birth control. Increased risk of blood clots
31:04
that can cause heart attack, blood clots to the lung like a
31:07
pulmonary embolism. So it's real now.
31:09
The probability is very low. It's less than 1%.
31:13
But when millions and millions of women are on it, less than 1%
31:17
is hundreds or thousands of women.
31:19
Again, one dad was like, I didn't even know.
31:22
Like I didn't know she was on birth control.
31:24
Like I wish I'd known the side effects.
31:27
I believe as a physician, we need to fully inform our
31:31
patients about the intention, the the what the purpose is, the
31:35
medication and the side effects so people can make an informed
31:38
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31:41
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32:48
I often, when I when I give the facts about fertility, explain
32:51
presentation, we talk about like choosing healthy options and
32:54
informed choice, I'll often use the example of my mom.
32:57
My mom, God bless her, is a nurse.
32:59
She spent 4050 years as a nurse, so she understands medicine.
33:02
But she grew up at a time when nurses smoked and my mom smoked
33:06
for decades. Despite the increased risk of
33:09
lung cancer and heart disease, she swore, well, it's going to
33:11
reduce my risk for dementia. I'm like, really Mom?
33:15
She had lung cancer back in 2019 and kept smoking.
33:18
I'm like, well, you are fully informed.
33:20
You have, you know, you're making a choice that I wouldn't
33:22
agree with, but you're making an informed choice.
33:25
I think women need to understand when it comes to being
33:28
prescribed birth control, whether it's for poor pregnancy
33:31
prevention, whether it's for quote UN quote treatment of
33:34
irregular cycles or painful periods, they need to know what
33:37
all of their options are. They need to know how this is
33:39
actually going to treat the underlying condition and what
33:42
are the potential side effects of the treatment option so they
33:46
really can make an informed choice.
33:49
So again, it can cause a whole host, it can disrupt the gut
33:52
microbiome. It can increase risk of
33:54
migraines, increased risk of of blood clots, increased risk of
33:58
breast, cervical and and liver cancer.
34:00
There are so many risks with birth control.
34:03
Some women, though, feel great on it.
34:05
They're like, my skin clears up, I feel good.
34:07
Other women are like, my libido is shocked, right?
34:11
Some people notice, and there's research backing this up, that
34:14
hormonal birth control can affect who you are attracted to
34:17
because it changes the pheromones, right?
34:19
So crazy. So it has so many, so you're
34:22
attracted. To a guy and then you get off
34:24
the birth control pill and you're like, I don't know, not
34:27
anymore. Wow.
34:28
But I want to echo something you had said.
34:30
You talked about having your your third child and the
34:33
reaction that you had when I had my third child and I went to see
34:36
the midwife, she asked me what I was going to use for family
34:39
planning. And I was like, well, I'm going
34:40
to use the lactational amenorrhea method.
34:43
I mean healthy child. Spacing the lactational
34:45
anemaria. Method amenorrhea.
34:48
What is that? The lactational amenorrhea
34:50
method. So for women who have had a baby
34:52
and the baby is less 6, less than six months old, if you're
34:55
nursing or fully nursing and you haven't had a return of your
34:58
period, the likelihood of getting pregnant is less than
35:00
two. Percent AKI just be natural and
35:03
enjoy your baby and. They're not worried about nurse
35:05
your baby. Yeah, so and that's the thing.
35:07
I mean, spacing children is important, but you can do that
35:09
without birth control. You can do do it through using
35:12
the lactation amentary method. So I said to the midwife, well,
35:15
right now my baby's two months, so we're using the lactation
35:17
amentary method. But you know, as he gets older,
35:19
I'll switch and I'll start using the Billings ovulation method.
35:22
Did she even know what that meant was.
35:23
Like I know women that got pregnant doing that.
35:26
And I looked at her and I had my sleeping baby on my chest and I
35:30
was so enraged. And I wanted to say, did you
35:32
tell that to the woman that you just put the IUD in?
35:34
Because I've actually delivered a baby with an IUD still
35:37
implanted because I've seen women get pregnant on the IUD
35:40
too, right? There is no 100% effective
35:43
method. But I was so frustrated because
35:46
this was 2012. I had already started facts.
35:49
I'm teaching this. And and I thought to myself, if
35:52
she's saying this to me and I'm feeling offended and like I
35:58
can't say anything, what must it be like for all these other
36:01
women who are like, my doctor dismissed me.
36:04
My doctor is. Disrespectful.
36:06
I mean, that's part yes. I mean, I'm not saying they
36:09
intend to disrespect, but it is. Disrespectful.
36:12
We did a study at FAX a few years ago where we looked at
36:14
women's experiences talking with their clinicians about their use
36:18
of fertility awareness based methods.
36:20
Only 1/3 of the women surveyed. We served nearly 1000 women so
36:24
that they had a doctor that laughed at them, mocked them, or
36:27
made fun of them for using a natural method of family
36:29
playing. And I'm like, I don't always
36:31
agree with the choices that my patients make.
36:33
Like I didn't agree with the choice my mom made to continue
36:36
smoking. But I don't mock them or make
36:38
fun of them. I try and get it.
36:40
What is it? The root, right?
36:42
Again, I want to give grace to my medical colleagues who offer
36:45
birth control as the primary treatment option because like
36:48
them, that's how I was trained and they may not know that there
36:52
are other options. And This is why we started
36:55
Facts. We really want to educate our
36:56
medical colleagues so that they can offer women the full range
37:00
of options when it comes to addressing family planning or
37:04
addressing a wide range not only of reproductive health issues,
37:07
but hormonal health issues overall.
37:10
What you were saying earlier about, you know, there are
37:12
people that are on, you know, Iuds, you know, long.
37:18
Long acting long. Acting reversible
37:20
contraceptives, whether it's an IUD or whatever else, an patch
37:22
or implant or whatever, or they're on birth control pills
37:26
and they get pregnant. So, you know, I think about that
37:29
statistic from the Guttmacher Institute, which is the research
37:32
arm of Planned Parenthood. And they say of the women who
37:34
have abortions, so it's a certain cohort, but 50% of them
37:38
were using a contraceptive the month that they got pregnant.
37:42
Right? Now, of course, there's
37:43
imperfect imperfection in the use.
37:45
So it's not like they necessarily were using them
37:47
perfectly, but they were using them.
37:49
And the reality is like you're saying there's a failure rate.
37:51
So this kind of, oh, dismiss it just, you know, just dismissing
37:55
of, you know, fertility awareness based methods as
37:57
they're somehow lesser. They're, they're natural, they
38:01
work within the order of the body and they don't have all
38:04
these harmful side effects, which is so we are so misled
38:08
about the, the side effects of hormonal contraception.
38:10
And the beautiful thing about natural methods is they really
38:12
empower women by educating them about the way their bodies work,
38:17
what I think shocks a lot of people.
38:18
And we just launched another elective this block.
38:21
And one of the students said the things she found most surprising
38:24
is that women are actually only fertile.
38:27
They're only capable of conceiving for less than one
38:30
week out of their cycle based on their normal Physiology.
38:34
When women learn to chart with fertility awareness based
38:37
methods, they learn to observe one of the key signs of
38:40
fertility, whether it's cervical mucus or fluid secretions, basal
38:43
body temperature, urinary hormones.
38:46
And they use this information to identify that period of time
38:50
when they are able to get pregnant again.
38:52
Physiologically, women are almost always infertile.
38:56
They can only get pregnant three to six days out of their cycle.
39:00
And when they learn to chart with a natural method, they
39:02
identify that window of fertility.
39:04
And then together a couple can modify their behavior depending
39:08
on their family planning goals. Another thing I teach my
39:11
students is that natural or fertility awareness based
39:13
methods of family planning are true methods of family planning
39:16
because people can use them to plan to prevent pregnancy or
39:20
they can use these methods to plan to try to achieve a
39:23
pregnancy. Such a good point.
39:24
Again, just modifying their behavior so women find this
39:28
incredibly empowering. It also helps them understand
39:32
what's happening with their cycle.
39:33
They often will learn to be able to identify and predict when
39:36
they're going to get their period.
39:37
When I teach my teenage patients about charting their cycle,
39:40
that's the thing they love most. It's like, oh, now I know when
39:43
I'm going to get my period and I don't have to worry about it.
39:45
Like, you know, coming unexpectedly when I when I
39:48
wasn't planning on it. So natural or fertility wearing
39:51
space methods really educate and empower women.
39:54
And we want to be able to do that because sometimes it can
39:56
solve a seemingly challenging problem in a very easy way.
40:00
We talked about infertility being so common.
40:02
Now it's up to like one in five or one in six couples.
40:06
And when I was working in inner city DC at a federally qualified
40:08
Health Center taking care of a mostly Medicaid population, I
40:12
had a couple come in because they couldn't get pregnant.
40:14
They've been trying for over a year.
40:16
So technically met the definition for infertility.
40:19
She was 27. I mean, like the ideal age to
40:22
have a baby. Her husband was 30.
40:24
She thought that there was something wrong with her because
40:27
her husband had a child from a previous relationship.
40:29
And she described to me this recurrent infection that she
40:32
would get month after month, this discharge, that whenever
40:36
she would get it, she would not have sex with her husband
40:39
because she didn't want to give him whatever it was that she
40:43
had. When I heard that, I was like,
40:46
can you describe a little bit more of this discharge?
40:48
She was like, yeah, usually starts a few days after my
40:51
period. Sometimes it just starts as
40:53
cloudy or creamy, but then it gets like, clear.
40:55
And there's a lot of mucus. And so whenever I have this, I
40:58
just don't have sex with him because I don't want to give him
41:00
whatever this is and I was. Like so sad.
41:03
Oh my goodness, what you are describing is your normal
41:05
fertile cervical mucus when you are getting ready to ovulate
41:08
when you are entering into your fertile window.
41:11
So they had proven very successfully how effective
41:13
natural methods can be for preventing pregnancy, because
41:16
they didn't know. She must have been so relieved.
41:18
She was so relieved. I mean I did a work good.
41:20
Thing I did a work of fertility when.
41:23
I was like, everything was negative.
41:24
They were pregnant within two months.
41:26
She was like, you're a miracle worker.
41:27
I'm like no I just thought you the way your body works and so
41:32
many couples need this information.
41:35
Information if if. I had been any other doctor.
41:37
She'd been trying for a year. I'd been like, well, let me send
41:40
you to a specialist, put her down this path unnecessarily.
41:43
The extra. Question right, that's the
41:45
battle is actually taking the time to get to know what is
41:48
going on with this patient, which you were saying there's
41:50
this like in and out in modern medicine, like even and out.
41:52
You have a few minutes, make a prescription, send them on their
41:55
way, and that doesn't really do justice to the patient.
41:57
Yeah, exactly. I got it.
41:59
I want to get into some of these fertility awareness methods
42:03
which are so interesting and there's a several of them.
42:05
So I want to get your take on that.
42:06
But before that 1-2 more quick questions on birth control.
42:10
There is a, you know a data it seems not just data.
42:14
It's actually my understanding it's in the some birth control
42:16
inserts. But can birth control hormonal
42:19
birth control operate as an abortifacient?
42:22
Great question. And let me just start with this.
42:24
I never used the word abortifacient because it's not
42:26
technically accurate. I think the more medically
42:28
accurate term is embryocytal. Does it kill the embryo?
42:33
And that's a great question and. And tell me the distinction
42:36
because abortifacient is something designed to cause an
42:39
abortion, but you're saying you like the word.
42:42
Embryo embryicidal because the birth control pill, it's not
42:45
designed to cause an abortion, but it can result in the death
42:48
of the embryo. Got it.
42:49
And the term abortion is used more broadly, like spontaneous
42:52
abortion refers to a miscarriage, right?
42:55
And so and I think just in our culture, when we use the word
42:58
abortion or abortifacion, it puts up, you know, people block
43:02
you and they don't want to have a conversation.
43:04
So from a medical professional perspective, I want to be as
43:06
medically accurate as possible. And so with hormonal birth
43:11
control and with Iuds, for example, in particular copper
43:14
Iuds, they work by creating an inflammatory environment to
43:18
prevent the implantation of a newly formed human embryo.
43:21
And words matter, Lila. So like using the word
43:24
embryocidal, using the word pregnancy.
43:27
I don't know if you're aware, but in the 1960's, the term
43:30
pregnancy was redefined by ACOG to begin to refer to pregnancy
43:35
beginning at implantation of the embryo.
43:37
Well, you can define pregnancies beginning in implantation, but
43:41
the science shows that new human life begins at the moment of
43:44
fertilization, which. In the uterus.
43:46
In the uterus, but this is several days after
43:49
fertilization. Exactly.
43:50
So fertilization, when the sperm fertilizes the egg and forms a
43:55
human zygote that happens in the fallopian tube and it takes
43:58
about 5 to 9 days for that human zygote which is rapidly dividing
44:02
forming A blastocyst Amorella in embryo to then implanted about
44:06
one week post fertilization. So that embryo is just about a
44:12
week old. OK, with some forms of birth
44:16
control like the IUD, it can create such an inflammatory
44:20
environment in the uterus that there is no place for the embryo
44:23
to implant. With common forms of combination
44:26
hormonal birth control pills, often times women will be
44:29
prescribed hormonal birth control for heavy bleeding.
44:32
Why? Well, it will help to thin the
44:34
uterine lining. Even women who have normal
44:36
cycles who take hormonal birth control will notice that their
44:39
periods are much later. Why is that?
44:41
The woman does not build up a thick uterine lining.
44:44
If a woman does not build up a thick enough uterine lining,
44:46
that newly formed embryo may not be able to implant and as a
44:51
result, it causes the loss of the life of that embryo at its
44:55
early stages. How often does this happen?
44:58
We don't know for certain, but there is a research showing that
45:01
women who take hormonal birth control ovulate about 30% of the
45:05
time. And this is based on research by
45:07
my colleague Dr. Brusque Miller. Yes.
45:09
So 30% of the time women who are taking hormonal birth control
45:13
will ovulate. Well, the failure rate for
45:15
hormonal birth control is 10%. So what's that other 20%?
45:20
It is likely that some of those is the early loss of the embryo
45:23
within that first week before implantation even occurs.
45:26
Again, for some people that may not be a concern.
45:29
They may not have a moral issue with it.
45:31
But I think every woman deserves to be given full informed
45:34
consent so she understands that by taking hormonal birth
45:37
control, that may thin the uterine lining and work by
45:40
preventing implantation of the embryo.
45:42
It doesn't always work by depressing ovulation.
45:45
It's just important to note and the the the drug inserts on
45:50
birth control show that it works by suppressing implantation,
45:54
thickening the cervical mucus to prevent sperm penetration and
45:57
thinning, thinning the uterine lining to prevent implantation
46:01
of the embryo at its earliest stages.
46:03
I've talked to a lot of women over the years about these
46:05
things, of course, as I know you have.
46:07
But I've noticed that many women who are very passionately
46:11
pro-life, they're maybe not fully aligned on the birth
46:13
control issue maybe yet, meaning they weren't really given
46:16
education about the harms of birth control.
46:18
They don't necessarily have this vision of working with the body
46:21
and God's plan. So that's not like fully there
46:23
yet, but they're kind of, you know, wanting to make good
46:25
decisions, especially for life. They will say, well, is there a
46:29
birth control method? They'll ask that cannot operate
46:33
as a fetus, as an embryoicidal, as a excuse me, embryo.
46:36
You're using the word embryo cause of course they're an
46:37
embryo, an embryoicidal. Did you coin that term, by the
46:40
way, Dr. Duane? Think I could OK, but I've been
46:42
using it for a decade. OK, I, I'm gonna give you the
46:45
credit for that one. That's a good one.
46:46
So the embryo, but the, the way that birth control can operate
46:49
as an embryoicidal. Are there birth control methods
46:51
that do not operate as an an embryoicidal?
46:55
I mean, certainly barrier methods like condoms, right?
46:58
Pills or patches or implants that all have that.
47:00
Potential risk. They could potentially, yeah,
47:02
yeah. Yeah.
47:03
So then another question. You are listing some of the
47:04
other harms of hormonal birth control and you were talking
47:09
about women who were maybe on the pill for years and then
47:12
finally came off of it. I've talked to many women over
47:14
the years who were on the pill for years, went off of it
47:17
usually in their 30s, sometimes late 20s, and then they want to
47:20
have a baby and then they struggle.
47:23
Is there a link between birth control and being on birth
47:26
control for years and potential infertility later on?
47:29
Likely because often times again hormonal birth control is being
47:32
prescribed for painful periods or irregular cycles.
47:35
And as we discussed, the most common cause of painful periods
47:38
is endometriosis, which is one of the two leading cause of
47:40
infertility. When women are prescribed
47:43
hormonal birth control for irregular cycles, one of the
47:46
most common causes of irregular cycles is polycystic ovarian
47:49
syndrome, again, one of the two leading causes of infertility in
47:53
women. And when women are on hormonal
47:55
birth control, you're not treating those underlying
47:58
conditions right. So you have a disease that's
48:00
progressing for 20 years. You go off the pill, and now
48:04
you've delayed the time for adequate treatment.
48:08
And as women age, you know, we have something of fertility
48:11
decreasing at 40 or 35. A woman's fertility actually
48:14
begins to drop at 32, right? And if you have a woman that
48:18
goes off the pill at 35 and she has endometriosis, it may take
48:21
time to treat that or polycystic ovarian syndrome.
48:24
So you're increasing the risk of infertility by virtue of the
48:27
fact that now they're older and age itself is a risk factor.
48:31
One other important thing to note, we talked a little bit
48:34
about cervical fluid as one of the key signs.
48:36
I, I talked about that patient who noticed the cervical fluid
48:39
and thought it was a problem. What people don't realize is how
48:43
critical cervical fluid is for fertilization.
48:46
And one of our facts presentations we talked about
48:48
there are three things that you need to make a baby.
48:50
You need an egg, you need a sperm, and you need fertile
48:54
cervical fluid. Why is that?
48:56
I like to say, and I coined this term, cervical fluid is the
48:59
elixir of life. Why?
49:01
In the absence of fertile cervical fluid, sperm can only
49:05
survive in the women's reproductive tract for 6 to 12
49:08
hours. The woman's reproductive tract
49:11
is a hostile environment for sperm, but in the presence of
49:14
fertile cervical fluid, sperm can survive for up to five days,
49:19
which is amazing. And that cervical fluid is
49:22
produced in glandular cells of the cervix and it produces
49:25
different types. What's important to note is that
49:29
there's a researcher by the name of Doctor Eric Otteblade from
49:32
Europe. He spent 50 years studying the
49:34
cervix. He was an OBGYN and a PhD
49:37
researcher. And what he discovered is that
49:40
in women who are pregnant during pregnancy, it up regulates those
49:44
glandular cells. So when a woman has a baby, it's
49:47
easier for have a baby in the future because she has more of
49:50
those glandular cells to produce that fertile cervical fluid.
49:54
What he also discovered is that for every year a woman is on
49:57
hormonal birth control, it actually ages the cervix.
50:01
So if a girl is put on the birth control pill at 15 and goes off
50:05
the pill at 30, she doesn't have the cervix of a 30 year old, she
50:08
has the cervix of a 45 year old and she may not be making as
50:12
much of that fertile cervical fluid.
50:14
Again, that elixir of life critical for sperm survival, as
50:18
she would have had she not been on birth control for 15 years.
50:21
Now, does this directly correlate to an increased risk
50:24
government fertility? The answer is I don't know.
50:27
We don't have the. Research.
50:29
It sounds pretty if you I mean again.
50:31
Like it's a plausible hypothesis, but.
50:33
When women deserve to know it, they deserve.
50:35
Most have no idea what they just shared, which is mind blowing.
50:38
It's incredibly important. And we, we need more funding for
50:41
research in this field in the realm of restorative
50:44
reproductive medicines, so that we have more answers for women,
50:47
so we can help them address risk factors for infertility,
50:51
miscarriage, how to treat a wide range of woman's health
50:53
conditions in a way that really seeks to restore health.
50:57
I'm so grateful for your work in that area because you're
50:59
obviously doing this through a non profit through fax, which I
51:01
recommend everybody check out. It'll be in the link in the
51:03
description here. But I know that even the White
51:05
House, you know, has indicated, you know, President Trump's
51:08
administration, we want more babies.
51:09
Babies are good. We have a declining population.
51:12
The birth rate is below replacement rate.
51:14
And so let's fund IVF. And it's like, OK, what about,
51:18
you know, restorative reproductive medicine?
51:20
What about everything that you're talking about?
51:21
I just don't think enough. There's no big lobby, you know,
51:23
the pharmaceutical companies, the IVF industry, big fertility,
51:27
big lobby, lots of money, lots of money.
51:29
What you're doing is let's actually care for the patient.
51:31
Yes. And so there's not this billion
51:33
dollar pharmaceutical company, you know, backing what you're
51:36
trying to promote, but it's actually the solution to so many
51:39
of the problems we're discussing.
51:41
So anyways, it's it's so important.
51:44
Can I, can I just touch on that because I think you're right.
51:46
I mean, the good news is, is there are a lot of us.
51:48
We talked about the different methods of natural family
51:51
planning. Billings and Creighton are cut.
51:53
So many of us are working together to get information to
51:56
the government so that they can see there is an alternative,
51:59
especially when it comes to infertility.
52:01
I think an important thing to note is infertility is not a
52:05
disease. It's actually a symptom of other
52:09
underlying diseases. And this is the fundamental flaw
52:12
with IVFIVF treats infertility as the disease.
52:15
If we can make a baby in a test tube, we've solved the problem.
52:19
Well, if you can make an embryo in a test tube and implanted
52:23
back into the woman, IVF should have 100% success rate.
52:26
It doesn't. The success of IVF is anywhere
52:29
from 3 to 30%. Like the patient that I shared
52:32
who you know went through IVF, she has one child and lost 2, so
52:36
a 33% success rate. So far working with me in four
52:40
months she has 100% success rate using restored reproductive
52:43
medicine. Why?
52:44
We recognize that infertility is a symptom of other underlying
52:48
diseases and we work to get at the root cause.
52:51
Another issue is miscarriage. I have a patient right now.
52:54
She became my patient because she had three miscarriages and
52:58
her doctor was like, well, you need to do IVF.
53:00
And she's like, but I'm not having trouble getting pregnant.
53:03
And we're like, well, we need to genetically screen the embryos
53:06
and remove the ones that might not survive, AKA destroy them,
53:11
by the way. Exactly.
53:12
Exactly. And so she started working with
53:14
me. I said, well, we need to look at
53:16
what are those underlying modifiable risk factors for
53:19
miscarriage that we can address and prevent.
53:22
And Lila, there are some really simple, easy things we can
53:26
identify and treat to prevent miscarriage.
53:29
So that patient I shared with you, she's now four months
53:32
pregnant with me because we identified thyroid disease as a
53:35
condition in her that once we started treating, she's now four
53:39
months along in this pregnancy. So I don't know if I share with
53:42
you, but in 2020, I moved my family from Washington, DC to
53:46
Utah to do a two year research fellowship.
53:49
And my focus was on miscarriage and identifying those risk
53:52
factors. Why?
53:54
Just like infertility is contributing to the dearth in
53:57
children, miscarriage, the inability to carry a pregnancy
54:01
to term is also contributing. And miscarriage is the silent
54:06
problem that women don't talk about.
54:08
But it is so common. I mean, the statistics suggest
54:11
close to a there's a close to 1,000,000 miscarriages a year
54:15
that women are losing their babies.
54:17
What are we doing to try to address that?
54:19
Facts. And through our work, we're
54:20
doing so much to address that issue.
54:23
What's crazy to me is how little we know about why miscarriages
54:26
happen. I think there's so much, there's
54:29
so few answers for women. And I know, I know we, my
54:32
husband and I, we had a miscarriage between our first
54:34
and our second, but we were really blessed that that's just
54:37
been one. I know families that they've had
54:39
multiple, you know, 6789 miscarriages.
54:43
And when they go to their physician, there's it's not
54:46
really an answer for why this happens, except it's happening,
54:49
right? And sometimes they might be
54:50
turned towards things like IVF even as some sort of a solution.
54:54
Your research is so fascinating in this area because again, it's
54:57
pioneer work, Not surprised with Doctor Margaret Twain.
55:01
Tell me, what are the what are you seeing in this new space of
55:05
actually finally studying miscarriage?
55:06
Why are miscarriages happening in your view?
55:09
And how do we actually solve and heal under underlying conditions
55:13
so that there are less miscarriages?
55:15
Great question. And again, I think
55:17
unfortunately, the way we're trained in medicine is that
55:19
miscarriage is common. It happens.
55:21
We are taught not to even look for the underlying causes until
55:25
a woman has lost, had three miscarriages, right.
55:28
And as a mother of three, I ask you, would you stand with losing
55:31
1-2 or three children before you're like, let me figure out
55:34
what's going on? No.
55:36
And yet this is how we are trained.
55:39
What I have discovered through my research is that what we
55:41
learn is that the most common cause of miscarriage is a
55:44
genetic anomaly. And the reality is, is if
55:47
there's a genetic abnormality there, that's nothing we can do
55:49
anything about. It happens about 50% of the time
55:53
with the first miscarriage. But in women who expect.
55:56
We know that, by the way. So it's actually based on
55:58
relatively old data where they would look at the remains of the
56:02
embryo or the fetus and do genetic testing to see if there
56:05
were genetic abnormalities. And when you say genetic
56:07
abnormality, it's something so severe that the baby has that
56:10
they can't continue to grow. They die, they pass away
56:12
naturally because genetically they're not able to continue to
56:15
develop. Exactly.
56:16
Exactly. But in women who have recurrent
56:18
miscarriages, have lost 234 or more babies, the genetic reason
56:24
is less than 5%. More often it's due to an
56:27
endocrine issue, an anatomic issue, a lifestyle issue, things
56:31
that we can address. In the mother.
56:33
In the mother and in the father and in the father.
56:36
And that's really important to know.
56:37
So I have a patient currently. She, you know, was blessed with
56:41
three healthy pregnancies and had three children and after her
56:44
third child developed postpartum thyroiditis, was treating her
56:48
condition but had miscarriage after miscarriage after
56:52
miscarriage. She came to me with her 9th
56:55
pregnancy. So she had three miscarriages
56:57
and now this was her 9th pregnancy.
56:59
And we identified some factors that we started treating.
57:02
She was about six or seven weeks.
57:03
Unfortunately, she lost that baby and he's like, well, let's
57:06
make sure once you've kind of gone through the morning and
57:09
recovery process, we addressed some of these underlying
57:11
factors. But for now, I want you to
57:13
continue to follow this treatment plan that I had laid
57:16
out for her. So she followed the treatment
57:18
plan. By the time she came back to see
57:19
me, she was pregnant again. She's now 36 weeks pregnant at
57:23
the age of 42. And she's like, the only thing I
57:26
did different was the dietary plan you recommended and the
57:29
medication that I had recommended for her.
57:31
So there's so much that we can do.
57:33
You mind me asking what was her? Yeah.
57:34
So. So you So you recommended you
57:36
had a treatment plan? She had three miscarriages.
57:38
She's in her. She had five miscarriages. 5
57:40
miscarriages. You see her, you give her a
57:43
plan, it's both nutrition and a medication and then she's now 36
57:47
weeks pregnant. She's not obviously has not
57:49
miscarried and will not miscarry.
57:50
No, we she's due the end of April, so we're we're waiting
57:53
for. The baby comes now this baby is
57:55
going to be, you know, OK for there's not some horrible thing
57:58
that happens in the birth, which, yeah, again, it's a it's
58:00
a success story is what I'm. Saying and I had patients who
58:02
have 8910 miscarriages. So it depends and it's going to
58:06
vary. So I had one woman who had eight
58:07
miscarriages and she had received progesterone.
58:10
Progesterone can often be a necessary treatment to support a
58:13
pregnancy and to prevent miscarriage.
58:15
There's actually solid research that's come out of England that
58:18
shows in women who have a threatened miscarriage that is
58:21
bleeding in early pregnancy or recurrent miscarriage.
58:24
Progesterone beginning as soon as we have a positive pregnancy
58:27
test can significantly reduce the risk of miscarriage.
58:30
Right, my colleagues. By the way, really, I just even
58:34
a girl, not a personal friend of mine, but a friend of a friend
58:37
was fearful she was starting to miscarry, has had a previous
58:40
miscarriage, was just trying to get a progesterone.
58:43
Yeah, a progesterone prescription.
58:45
Having so much trouble because she's being Pooh poohed like
58:48
she's being told by whoever she was saying, oh, this isn't going
58:51
to do anything. Miscarriage is natural.
58:52
You've only had one, not a big deal.
58:54
And she's like trying to save the life of this baby, right?
58:57
Potentially save the life of this baby.
58:58
Right. And the reality is this
58:59
progesterone we're giving is the bioidentical progesterone, it's
59:02
the hormone that the woman's body is producing.
59:04
So there's really no risks associated with that.
59:06
I mean, there are side effects and you always have to inform
59:08
patients of side effects, like it can increase fatigue and
59:12
other things, but it's pretty safe.
59:15
And so if it's like I'm willing to put up with those side
59:17
effects to potentially save the life of my child, it's very,
59:20
very important. Another treatment that we often
59:23
look at is estradiol. So my colleague, Doctor Phil
59:26
Boyle from Ireland, he did research looking at pregnant
59:29
women and he found in women who have normal hormone levels,
59:32
including normal progesterone levels, if their extra dial
59:35
levels were low, their risk of miscarriage was 45%.
59:40
Now, the typical rates of miscarriage are 15 to 20%, so
59:44
45% is 3 times the normal in these women.
59:47
When we give them DHEA, which is a hormone that the body uses a
59:51
building block to make estradiol, their miscarriage
59:54
rate drops to 17%. Wow.
59:56
So these are simple, straightforward treatments that
1:00:00
I, as a family doctor can employ to help save the lives of these
1:00:05
children. So the other treatment that
1:00:07
Doctor Boyle often recommends, and this is what I'd used in the
1:00:11
case of this one woman with an autoimmune thyroid condition, is
1:00:14
a medication called low dose naltrexone.
1:00:17
If you're a listener's, Google naltrexone just to put it out
1:00:20
there. It's commonly used for people
1:00:22
with opioid addiction, but at a low dose it actually helps to
1:00:25
balance the immune system. I had another patient with three
1:00:28
miscarriages last year had a history of Crohn's disease.
1:00:32
There's a good randomized control trial that shows low
1:00:34
dose naltrexone significantly improves Crohn's disease.
1:00:37
We started her on the low dose naltrexone at the beginning of
1:00:39
her 4th pregnancy. She had a beautiful baby boy in
1:00:42
November. So again, she was on her way to
1:00:45
see an IVF doctor when she got my name and my number and we
1:00:48
were able to help her. So I just want to give hope and
1:00:51
I just, I just want to take a minute and, and for all of your
1:00:54
listeners who've experienced miscarriage, and I know it is so
1:00:57
common, just I see you and I hear you and my heart goes out
1:01:00
to you for your loss. I recognize your doctors may not
1:01:04
know what to do, but but please have faith that there is hope.
1:01:09
In fact, we are working to train as many doctors as we can to
1:01:13
recognize miscarriage for what it is, a very common problem.
1:01:16
As we said before, miscarriage is not tracked as a cause of
1:01:20
death in the United States. But if we did track it as a
1:01:23
cause of death again, there's about half a million to
1:01:26
1,000,000 miscarriages a year. It would be the third leading
1:01:29
cause of death in the United States of America after heart
1:01:32
disease and cancer. Look at everything we do to
1:01:35
identify and prevent heart disease and prevent cancer.
1:01:38
We need to look at miscarriage in the same light.
1:01:41
I think unfortunately because of issues surrounding woman's
1:01:44
health, you know, this, they're very political.
1:01:47
People don't want to talk about progesterone can prevent a
1:01:49
miscarriage because progesterone can also help in women who have,
1:01:53
you know, perhaps chosen to do the abortion pill.
1:01:55
And so it gets into political worlds.
1:01:58
At Facts, though, we're really focused on the science.
1:02:00
I want women and their doctors to up to So for my medical
1:02:05
colleagues curious about progesterone and miscarriage, I
1:02:08
refer them to the work of Doctor Kumaraswamy, who's published
1:02:11
multiple reviews on this on this topic.
1:02:13
It's so amazing. What would you say needs to
1:02:16
happen in the research space for us to properly understand?
1:02:20
I mean, I was particularly shocked by what you're saying,
1:02:24
how 50% roughly potentially of those women of their first
1:02:28
miscarriage, it's likely genetic, but once you're having
1:02:30
multiple miscarriages, that number shrinks down into the
1:02:33
single percentage points. So we're talking about other
1:02:35
things that could be treated potentially, yes.
1:02:38
Absolutely. Are you hopeful with what you're
1:02:40
seeing in the miscarriage treatment space?
1:02:43
I absolutely am, at least what I'm seeing in my own patients.
1:02:46
I'm excited to have a student working with me this summer just
1:02:48
to to look at the data for my own patients because we have
1:02:50
seen such a huge benefit. But there is more need for
1:02:54
research. We talked about low dose
1:02:55
naltrexone. Naltrexone is a generic
1:02:57
medication. So no pharmaceutical company is
1:03:00
going to make a ton of money off of doing.
1:03:03
That's why we need a lack of education about what's
1:03:06
availability. We need more research on the
1:03:09
role of low dose naltrexone in addressing things like
1:03:11
endometriosis, recurrent miscarriage, etcetera.
1:03:15
So at Duquesne, where I'm now the director of the Center for
1:03:18
Fertility Awareness Education and Research, this is what we
1:03:21
want to do. We want to look at we, we hope
1:03:23
to develop treatment protocols for identifying and addressing
1:03:26
things like recurrent miscarriage, male infertility,
1:03:30
polycystic ovarian syndrome. We need more funding to be able
1:03:33
to do this research. I for your listeners, I did a
1:03:36
podcast recently with Lisa anticipating Jack from Fertility
1:03:39
Friday, where I specifically dove deep on the need for more
1:03:42
research in the restorative reproductive medicine space.
1:03:45
And unfortunately, there are people like my mentor, Utah
1:03:47
doctor Joe Stanford, who is pioneering research in this area
1:03:51
with a storm study, surveillance treatments and outcomes for
1:03:55
restorative reproductive medicine.
1:03:57
So there is hope on the horizon. And it's exciting to be able to
1:04:00
collaborate with colleagues across the methods, across the
1:04:04
disciplines to try to bring this to the patients, but also to try
1:04:08
to bring it to the government so that this administration will
1:04:11
actually recognize and support real solutions to addressing
1:04:16
infertility and miscarriage, to really address the fertility
1:04:19
crisis we're seeing in America. It's truly the the most loving
1:04:23
work. I mean, it just makes me so
1:04:26
happy. My heart so happy.
1:04:27
I'm thinking about all the women.
1:04:28
I mean it makes me want to cry. Just who are just struggling and
1:04:32
they are hoping to have babies. They try, there's miscarriage,
1:04:36
repeat miscarriage. It's so devastating.
1:04:39
And the fact that there is a future, you know, there is if,
1:04:42
if more research is done, if they have more of an opportunity
1:04:45
to meet with a doctor like the ones that you work with, there
1:04:48
could be such a bright happy ending to those stories that are
1:04:52
being written instead of what they usually get, which is we
1:04:55
can't solve miscarriage or just go do IVF, you know, or even get
1:04:59
on the birth control pill. You have these problems, you
1:05:01
know, probably shouldn't be a parent anyways.
1:05:02
I don't know. They're usually not saying that
1:05:04
now. They're just saying send you to
1:05:05
the IVF clinic right? And to my medical colleagues,
1:05:08
like, again, I realize we don't learn about this and so, you
1:05:11
know, facts really focused on medical students to begin with,
1:05:14
but now we have this extensive online continuing medical
1:05:18
education course, 13 parts. You know, I just spoke to an
1:05:21
OBGYN who's been practicing for 20 years.
1:05:24
He heard me give a presentation. I miscarriage.
1:05:26
He's like, how do I do what you do?
1:05:28
Like, where can I learn more? I'm like, let's start with part
1:05:31
A&B of our CME course. You'll learn about the different
1:05:33
methods. You'll learn about identifying,
1:05:35
you know, causes of miscarriage, how to treat it.
1:05:38
So to my medical colleagues, I would refer them to the Facts
1:05:41
about fertility.org website to learn about our continuing
1:05:44
medical education courses. Our conferences, like I said,
1:05:47
our virtual conference will be October 10th and 11th this year.
1:05:50
We just did a conference in Pittsburgh in March and it was
1:05:53
phenomenal. We had over 150 people from all
1:05:56
over the United States looking at treating infertility from a
1:05:59
restoratory productive perspective, addressing
1:06:01
nutrition, providing body literacy education for all
1:06:05
women. There's so much that we can do,
1:06:08
but we need to really work together to expand training
1:06:11
opportunities, fund research, and collaborate as medical
1:06:15
colleagues so that we can provide the highest quality care
1:06:19
to our patients through an integrative and restorative
1:06:22
lens. And when you say nutrition,
1:06:23
you've mentioned that several times.
1:06:25
Is there sort of just high level, maybe a few core tenets
1:06:30
of nutrition that you recommend across the board to women if
1:06:33
they want to ensure that their fertility health is maximized?
1:06:37
Yeah, yeah. What?
1:06:38
Would those things be? So one of the most common causes
1:06:41
of both ovulatory dysfunction and spermatogenic dysfunction is
1:06:44
a condition called insulin resistance, which is really the
1:06:47
precursor to pre diabetes and diabetes.
1:06:51
To address insulin resistance, it is so important to ensure
1:06:54
your weight is optimal and to minimize blood sugar and insulin
1:06:59
spikes. So what I tell my patients is
1:07:01
consider your vegetable, your appetizer.
1:07:03
Start every meal with a vegetable, then focus on protein
1:07:08
and consider carbs your dessert. Why?
1:07:10
If you begin with a vegetable and a protein, that's going to
1:07:13
slow the body's absorption of blood sugar and minimize the
1:07:16
insulin spikes. That's important because if your
1:07:19
insulin is really high, they can affect your body's ability to
1:07:22
ovulate and it can affect male sperm production.
1:07:26
Inflammatory foods, you know, processed foods, Carba, excess
1:07:30
carbohydrates, sugar, those are all honestly terrible.
1:07:35
Again, my colleague, Doctor Patrick Young, who's one of the
1:07:38
leading endometriosis surgeons in the country, he is a practice
1:07:41
Restore Endo. He's got a great dietary
1:07:44
handbook that I give to all of my patients in the
1:07:46
anti-inflammatory diet to help reduce the risk of
1:07:49
endometriosis. So there is, that's, that's
1:07:52
typically where I start on. And then again, incorporating
1:07:56
exercise. If you can walk for 15 or 20
1:07:58
minutes within 30 to 60 minutes of a meal, that's also going to
1:08:02
improve your body's responsiveness to insulin and
1:08:05
lower the risk of insulin resistance.
1:08:06
So unfortunately in medicine we don't learn a ton about
1:08:10
nutrition. So this is where I really rely
1:08:12
on my nutritionist colleagues and we're thrilled to have a
1:08:15
registered nutritionist who's going to be speaking at our
1:08:17
virtual conference on October 11th to address this very topic.
1:08:20
One thing I'd love to do and I've been I've been like, you
1:08:23
know, excited, like I want to hear the let's do.
1:08:26
I don't know, I don't know if it's a 32nd project.
1:08:28
I know there's so much under each of these, but I'd love to
1:08:31
hear just when it comes to fertility awareness based
1:08:33
methods, I'd love to hear your kind of high level on Marquette
1:08:36
Creighton Billings. I think there's at least one or
1:08:39
two more. Just give us the very high
1:08:41
level, you know, back in the napkin.
1:08:43
What are these methods? I know people listening are
1:08:45
like, I'm in on this. I want if I'm not already doing,
1:08:48
you know, fertility awareness, faith methods.
1:08:49
I want to know. And by the way, my Full
1:08:51
disclosure, my mother-in-law was a teen star director at one
1:08:54
point and she was, you know, her big.
1:08:57
We were talking about, she said, you know, she has five daughters
1:09:00
educating her daughters in their teen years about their fertility
1:09:03
even before they started their periods.
1:09:05
Like every girl deserves this education even before their
1:09:08
periods start. Almost none of them are getting
1:09:10
it like sex that in the schools today is all about like condoms.
1:09:13
I mean, it's just totally messed up.
1:09:15
Anyways, what are these fertility awareness faith
1:09:18
methods give us the high level and the difference between them?
1:09:21
Sure, yeah. But I agree wholeheartedly.
1:09:22
We need to start teaching girls when they're young.
1:09:24
At Facts, we have a presentation called Know Your Body, which
1:09:27
provides that introduction into the female cycle and how it
1:09:30
works. And then again, our facts about
1:09:32
fertility explain goes into the different signs women can
1:09:35
observe and the methods. So we can break these methods
1:09:38
down into categories. You have cervical, mucus or
1:09:40
fluid only methods. These include the Billings
1:09:43
ovulation method, the Creighton model and the two day method.
1:09:46
With these methods, women learn to pay attention to this
1:09:49
sensation that they feel in the genital area, and they learn to
1:09:53
observe cervical fluid secretions.
1:09:55
And with the Billings, they'll just write down their
1:09:57
descriptions in their own words. With Creighton, they'll use what
1:10:00
we call a vaginal discharge recording system to write down a
1:10:03
more detailed description of their observations.
1:10:06
Cervical fluid is produced under the fertile.
1:10:09
Cervical fluid is produced under the influence of estradiol, and
1:10:12
it will cause this production of like clear, stretchy, slippery
1:10:16
mucus. It's just like rot egg white.
1:10:17
If you've ever cracked open an egg, that's what it looks like.
1:10:21
Then under the influence of progesterone, it changes the
1:10:23
cervical mucus and women will often notice are drying up or
1:10:26
they'll notice a mucus that's very thick or cloudy, but
1:10:29
distinctly different from the fertile mucus.
1:10:32
With a cervical mucus only method like Billings and
1:10:34
Creighton, women can learn to identify the beginning and the
1:10:37
end of their fertile window. Then you have symptom thermal
1:10:40
methods. With these methods, women learn
1:10:42
to observe the symptom of cervical fluid secretions and
1:10:45
their basal body temperature. They take their temperature at
1:10:48
the same time every morning, and with the rise in progesterone in
1:10:52
after ovulation, you'll get a rise in basal body temperature
1:10:56
to confirm the closing of that fertile window.
1:10:59
So women will use observations of cervical fluid to identify
1:11:03
the opening of their fertile window and the rise in basal
1:11:06
body temperature to confirm the closing of their fertile window.
1:11:09
This method is taught throughout the United States through
1:11:11
organizations like Symptoprol, Couple to Couple League, Sense
1:11:15
of Plan, etcetera. Many of the apps out there
1:11:19
incorporate synthothermal, but I do caution your listeners when
1:11:23
it comes to apps. I like to tell women you are
1:11:25
smart. You're smarter than your
1:11:26
smartphone. Don't let your app tell you when
1:11:29
you're fertile or not. Learn to make these observations
1:11:32
and interpret them, and I always recommend women working with a
1:11:35
trained instructor. Would that be a mix then of
1:11:37
methods? Basically you're saying you can
1:11:39
use multiple methods to get more clarity?
1:11:42
Multiple data points. Ultimately not, but more data
1:11:44
points doesn't mean more clarity.
1:11:46
So some women do like the cross track method.
1:11:48
If you want to track mucus and temperature that's great, but
1:11:51
learn from a trained symptopro instructor or a couple to couple
1:11:54
instructor. And then if you want to use an
1:11:56
app to facilitate tracking, that's fine, but learn how to
1:11:59
make the observations and interpret them from a trained
1:12:01
instructor. Then you have what we refer to
1:12:04
as symptom hormonal methods. Most commonly is the Marquette
1:12:07
model. This involves tracking cervical
1:12:09
mucus plus urinary hormone measurements.
1:12:12
Marquette uses the Clear Blue fertility monitor that can
1:12:15
detect estradiol metabolites and luteinizing hormone, which are
1:12:18
two of the key hormones. There are now a number of newer
1:12:22
monitors on the market that have not been proven yet from an
1:12:25
effectiveness perspective for pregnancy prevention, but there
1:12:28
are ongoing studies to look at whether or not these other
1:12:32
monitors may be may be helpful. And of course I already
1:12:36
mentioned it, my all time favorite method was the
1:12:39
lactational amenorrhea method because it was the easiest.
1:12:42
All I needed to do was nurse my baby and love that.
1:12:45
And I've talked to women who they're nursing their babies and
1:12:48
they're like, I'd like to get pregnant again.
1:12:49
I'm like, you're nursing your baby, Yes.
1:12:51
Or at least maybe too much. You're nursing there.
1:12:53
And and that gets into one of the hormonal issues that we see
1:12:56
can cause infertility. Like when a woman is nursing,
1:12:58
her prolactin levels are high, right?
1:13:01
Prolactin, prolactin expectation.
1:13:02
When your prolactin levels are high, it suppresses ovulation.
1:13:06
So why? Well, if you're nursing a baby,
1:13:08
your body's too busy growing this baby on the outside to try
1:13:10
and grow a baby on the inside. But I often times will see women
1:13:14
struggling with infertility who don't have a nursing baby whose
1:13:16
prolactin levels are high and that will affect ovulation.
1:13:20
How do you get that? It's very simple with
1:13:22
medication. So again, doctors.
1:13:24
Just need to look. At this and there are protocols
1:13:28
like FEM, the Fertility Education and medical
1:13:31
management, Napro Technology and Neo Fertility that all have
1:13:35
medical management protocols for doctors to be trained in to then
1:13:40
work at making that diagnosis and treat these underlying
1:13:44
hormonal or anatomical issues that can contribute to
1:13:47
infertility. It's amazing.
1:13:49
Doctor Dwayne, you're doing God's work.
1:13:50
I mean, seriously, it is a it is revolutionary.
1:13:53
You are the pioneer. How can people find facts and
1:13:56
find your work? I mean, visit us at facts about
1:13:58
fertility.org. I, I will say I would not be
1:14:01
able to do all of this incredible work without the
1:14:03
amazing team that we have at facts.
1:14:06
And over the, over the years, we've had so many volunteers and
1:14:09
so many supporters that have donated to supporter work.
1:14:12
My sister, remember I mentioned I sat next to my 9 year old
1:14:15
sister and she and I were like jockey for position.
1:14:17
She going on to become a trauma critical care surgeon.
1:14:21
And although she doesn't do the work that I'm doing, she has
1:14:23
been our number one supporter financially, emotionally, our
1:14:27
biggest cheerleader. And of course, my own family.
1:14:29
I mean, my husband and my four children.
1:14:31
My daughter said to me once when I was like, you have to go mommy
1:14:34
because you have to help all of these women to have babies like
1:14:37
you have. I'm like, you're so sweet.
1:14:39
Like, yes, I feel so blessed to have four incredible children,
1:14:44
and I want every woman, every couple to experience the gift of
1:14:48
parenthood that my husband and I have been able to experience.
1:14:51
Again, I would not be able to do all of this work without my
1:14:54
incredible family, my husband, our children, my siblings, and
1:14:57
again, the entire team at Facts About Fertility.
1:15:00
So visit our website, factsaboutfertility.org.
1:15:04
You can e-mail us at info@factsaboutfertility.org.
1:15:08
If you are trained in these methods or a clinician, we have
1:15:11
a physician, clinician and educator directory.
1:15:13
We're trying to build it to increase access so more women
1:15:17
can have access to this care. That's so beautiful.
1:15:19
Thank you so much, Doctor Duane. Seriously, it's such a gift to
1:15:22
have you on. You are amazing.
1:15:24
And everybody, check out facts if you don't already get
1:15:27
supported by fax and the information.
1:15:29
Make sure you donate if you can, cause fax is amazing and it's
1:15:31
doing pioneering work. Thank you so much, Doctor Duane.
1:15:34
My pleasure. Thanks so much for watching this
1:15:36
episode of The Lila Rose Show. Make sure you check out Doctor
1:15:39
Duane's incredible work. It is LinkedIn.
1:15:41
The description of this episode, check out facts, check out her
1:15:43
work. It's amazing.
1:15:44
Share it with other people. And don't forget we're over at
1:15:48
rosereport.supercast.com and we're doing some extra bonus
1:15:51
content with Doctor Duane. You can check it out at
1:15:53
rosereport.supercast.com. We'll see you guys next time.
1:15:56
And a huge thank you to EWTN Eternal Word Television Network,
1:16:00
which is the largest religious broadcaster in the world.
1:16:03
You can get access to Lila Rose Show episodes 24 hours in
1:16:07
advance at ewtn.com. Slash on demand.
1:16:10
And a big thank you to EWTN and their incredible mission to
1:16:13
bring souls to Jesus.