These are some of my notes from our discussion! Dr Aumatma also wants to offer her free e-book, "Diva's Detox Guide" to our listeners. Get yours here!
- Bio: Dr. Aumatma is a Naturopathic Doctor, with a Master's in Nutrition, who has been practicing medicine for over 10 years. She specializes her practice solely on Fertility, Pregnancy, and Post-Partum, is the best-selling author of "Fertility Secrets: What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making," and is a sought out speaker on topics of Fertility, Women's Health, and Women's Empowerment. Dr. Aumatma was also awarded the "Best Alternative Medicine Practitioner? award; she consults with clients locally in the Bay Area and works virtually with clients all over the world.
- Not only do you specialize in fertility?but you are pregnant yourself. Congrats! (Relevant questions here: is this your first? How long have you been planning this, and why now?) Her partner has been ready for 2+ years and she's been putting it off. Last year, she decided she was going to start prepping. It was about 12 mo of preparation. She was using all the tools in her tool kit to maximize and optimize her fertility. Her assumption going in was that if she plans this well enough and prepare well enough, she'd have few symptoms during pregnancy ? and that's how it turned out!
- What did your "preparation" phase entail: what kind of testing did you undergo in advance, diet changes, supplements, etc? She started running hormone testing for fertility, the nutrient analysis through Spectracell, and food sensitivity testing. In April of last year, pt started having digestive symptoms, and found intestinal permeability. By June or July of last year she was feeling a lot better, best in her life.
- I understand you're over 35, which puts you, according to traditional medicine, in the "high risk" category. Does this change some of your protocol, both before and during pregnancy? She hasn't done anything different. This is the same protocol that she would run on a 30 or 25 yo to do preconception care. You want to make sure your systems are working. Those are the core: hormones, nutrients, and the gut. The difference comes in with egg and uterine quality. Those are the things that change as you get older. But she's seen 30 yo with poor egg quality: lifestyle, nutrients, alcohol intake, etc. It's just a case by case basis.
- If you could name the top 3 things any woman could do to prolong fertility, what would they be? 1) get good quality sleep. At the minimum, 6 hours. Can be based on the body type. 6-9. 2) Make sure you're getting good quality, purified water that is not in plastic bottles. Water is crucial to hormone balance and plastics throw off hormones with BPA and all that stuff. 2.5) Make sure your body is not having higher exposures to toxins and for women, especially, most women are walking out with toxic ingredients on the skin. Get products that are free of these hormone imbalancers. 3) Eliminate the alcohol, or at least reduce it. She has heard lots of fertility docs say to cut it out completely. She generally agrees with that, except that it's not likely. 1-2 glasses per week.
- Is there a specific exercise regimen you would recommend for women to increase their changes of conceiving? A lot of exercises are good, but the one that she really enjoys and likes: 8 min alternating running and walking. 8 min daily, 4-5 times per week. Interval training. That affects HGH which trickles down to affect all hormones.
- Many career-oriented women over 35yo are hesitant to get pregnant because they hear geriatric pregnancies increases the risk of genetic abnormalities, including Down Syndrome. Can you please shed some light on that? The chances are higher of this when you're older. But her oldest lady that has been pregnant is 44 and she's worked with everything up to that and never seen a case of Down's Syndrome in her practice. But epigenetics plays a role in how our bodies process the nutrients that we have. Make sure your body is optimal regardless of your age.
- How are you handling some of the pregnancy symptoms? Which ones are you experiencing and what are you doing to deal with them? (Morning sickness, fatigue, etc). She had fatigue for the first 3-4 weeks of pregnancy even before she knew she was pregnant. She just let her body rest. All of her fears kicked in, so she had to do some mind-body healing to process those things. After that, the fatigue lasted another week or two. Then she started taking the prenatal after the positive result and that helped a lot. Nausea: really mild, treated with ginger tea. That resolved itself. Since then she hasn't had a ton of symptoms.
- For women who have had recurrent miscarriages, what would you say are the top things that you check (and correct) as possible causes? It's important to find the root cause, from miscarriages or not getting pregnant. The patterns she sees: epigenetic or genetic abnormalities, a mutation in certain gene sequences: MTHFR, COMT, VDR are common. The second: making sure egg quality is good. That's where nutrient testing comes in: make sure the woman has the right levels of nutrients. Then gut inflammation. This is the weakest scientific link but she often sees women that have had miscarriages have intestinal permeability.
- For women who have experienced difficulty getting pregnant, what would you say are the top things that you check (and correct) as possible causes? Same as above. Women who can get pregnant have fewer hormonal imbalances. Low progesterone: you'll have this if you have poor egg quality. Antioxidants, L-Carnitine, CoQ10, vitamin D help to support this. She is less of a fan of DHEA. They almost always get gut symptoms from that, and she has almost never seen it work. If you have low AMH, that won't help it. The other thing they do a lot for egg quality is low level laser therapy. She changes the protocol for out-of-town patients so they can do it in 4 days. This increases egg quality and AMH levels.
- Would you recommend a technique called seed cycling? If so, have you found it particularly helpful? She likes the technique. She has recommended it to a few women that are borderline hormonal imbalance, but it's not significant enough to justify major interventions. Tends to improve in those cases.
- Anything else? Get Dr Aumatma's Diva's Detox Guide! http://holisticfertilitycenter.com/divas-detox-guide-2/