Welcome to Her Fertility, the podcast revolutionizing the way women are supported on their fertility journey. I'm your host, Jess Tims, with years of supporting women as a fertility doula, I've seen the emotional pain caused by infertility, including my own struggle with unexplained infertility, and I always knew there had to be a better way to support women with their fertility, health, and healing.
This is the first podcast to combine the principles of spirituality and energy healing with the research-based fertility data to support you in a way you've never seen before. You can stop feeling alone, confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed, and start finding the answers you've been looking for. Because this podcast goes so much deeper than anything you can search for online if you are ready to find a new.
Spiritual perspective for your fertility journey, then press play. We are here to reclaim control, find clarity, and transform the fertility conversation.
 Welcome back to the Her Fertility podcast. I am delighted today to be joined by Dr. Kalea Wattles. If you are not familiar with Dr. Kalea you can check her out @functionalfertility She's the host of the Functional Fertility Podcast.
And she's a naturopathic doctor, a functional medicine practitioner, fertility expert, and certified girl mom, who is combining cutting edge science with the traditional wisdom of the female body. And I could not think of anybody better to answer my questions all about gut health and fertility. Because to be honest, this is a topic that's really big and really important, but I have limited knowledge about, so I'm delighted to have Dr.
Kalea with me. Welcome Dr. Kalea. Uh, Jess, thank you so much. It's always fun to chat with you. I'm so happy to be reunited after you were on my show too. So let's talk gut health. Thank you. Yeah, let's dive into it. And I do have to say a huge thank you to you after being on your podcast. It's what inspired the Her Fertility podcast, so thank you for that.
So lovely. And now we're here together again. Exactly. Yeah. So you know, there's a big kind of whisper I would say about like gut health and fertility. You may or may not hear that it's connected, but I think it's something that we're largely missing in the fertility conversation. Mm-hmm. Um, and I know we'll go on quite a journey here with this conversation, but where should we start?
Well, I think maybe what I want. I'll, I'll do a little illustration first of like systems medicine to try to get everyone oriented to why these things might be related. Okay. And this is a little snapshot of what happens in my brain when I'm working with my patients and clients because, um, like you mentioned, I am a functional medicine practitioner, and functional medicine is really all about what we call systems biology or systems medicine.
And so that means when I'm working with my patients, I'm collecting. Your, um, medical history and personal history and signs and symptoms and lab testing and everything about your health trajectory. And I'm creating a map in my mind. Mm-hmm. Um, and sometimes on paper about what these body systems look like and how they're working together.
So just to give my very quick overview, that means we're looking at assimilation and that translates to gut health. So this is the bacteria in our gut. It's how we utilize nutrients in the body. It's. Inflammation that might be coming from the gut. We're also looking at what I call defense and repair.
That's your immune system and your inflammation. We're looking at cellular energy production. We're looking at biotransformation and elimination, which is, you know, how do you engage with environmental toxicants in your world, and then how do you eliminate them through? The gut oftentimes, um, we're looking at what we call transport, which is blood flow, lymphatic flow, and then glucose transport.
So meta metabolic health falls under this category. We're looking at communication that's neurotransmitters largely produced in the gut. Hormones. So I spend a lot of time there because of course fertility is so much more than hormones, but they certainly play a big role. And then structural integrity, and that means big structures like our skeleton all the way down to tiny structures like our cell membranes.
So I, I say this all so that everyone can visualize this map. And if you think about a spider web, this is a good visual. All of these distinct body systems are kind of connected in a web, and if you picture a spider web, if you pull on any part of the web, it kind of distorts the structure of the whole web, right?
Yeah. So if we think about our gut health being connected to our cellular energy production and the way that we detoxify and our hormone production, when we start to change the way our gut health functions, it rolls over into all those other systems. Mm-hmm. So that's, I guess. One of the most important reasons why I focus on gut health because it's involved in so many other aspects of our health, infertility, it's such a beautiful way to paint the picture because I feel like we do, we have a general understanding, like it's all connected, right?
Yeah. Like when I'm putting in my body, how I'm treating my body, like that's all connected, but using gut health as like, it's the way that it's all connected, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's so central. Mm-hmm. And, and it's even interesting, you know, our. If we think about gut health being like this open tube that's from the mouth to the anus, really it's the way that our body communicates with the outside world, like the outside world with our food and the things we're ingesting is coming in, and then it's coming out through this open tube.
That's our line of communication. Mm-hmm. And I sometimes tell people like. If you think about, you know, you, you're gonna cross the border into another country and you stop at the border and there's customs there, and you have to show what you have and what's with you. That's happening at our gut barrier all the time.
Yeah. So it's one, this is just this huge regulatory point. And then the other piece I like to illustrate is if we just think about the geography of our body. Our intestines and our reproductive organs just physically in our body are located so closely together. Right? Yeah. Our reproductive organs sometimes sit right behind our intestines, and so there's just a lot of opportunity for things like inflammation to leak over from one system to another.
There's so much cross communication, so there's really like all of these different touch points and interactions. It's so important. And it's funny being that you say that because it makes me think about, you know, the different clients who we have these symptoms we're trying to understand like, oh, is that, you know, cramping?
Is that implantation pain? Is that gas? Right? Like it's all connected right there. And so that's what I was thinking about. Yeah. Well it's so true and that's actually one of the reasons. Which, this is a bit of a tangent, but I'm gonna say it anyway 'cause it feels relevant. Um, we talk about endometriosis and why does endometriosis sometimes take 20 years to be diagnosed?
Right. And it's because the symptoms can look so similar to something like irritable bowel syndrome. Mm-hmm. Because the pain is coming from a similar place, it's traveling up similar nerves, and so there's so much. Um, overlap between gynecologic pain and intestinal pain because of that close relationship, which can really complicate the picture sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like we're, we're just now rounding that corner of like talking about endometriosis and really getting more information about it to where we're not just, you know, passing it off as something else like you said, which feels it's about time that we do that. That's right. Yeah. So it can feel a little overwhelming, right?
Like this is a huge sys system that's controlling a lot of things. And it, um, you know, I've, I've heard it talked about in the way of like, you have, um, like microbiome in the mouth, microbiome in the gut, and microbiome in the vagina. Like, is that the way that you think about it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, there's so many.
Parts of this umbrella term of gut health, and maybe we should parse it out a little bit because the microbiome is certainly part of it. A microbiome science. Ooh. It's advancing so fast and it's so fun to see. But yes, we have these. Distinct microbial colonies in the mouth, in the bladder, in the vagina, in the intestines, in the uterus, in the joint spaces.
And what's interesting is there seems to be crosstalk between these communities. So I'm gonna give you a really wild example. Are you ready for this? Yes. So they, there's, they researchers have looked at the placentas of babies who are born with, there's a placental infection going on. Maybe it caused some kind of, you know, um, early rupture of membranes or some kind of compromised growth within the baby.
And so they've looked at these placentas and they have found these bacterial infections. The natural instinct is to say, okay, obviously this bacteria came from the vaginal canal, right, and it ascended into the uterus. No, they have found that those bacteria were not present in the va in the vagina, but they were present in the dental plaques of the mom.
So these bacteria traveled from the microbiome in the mouth into the uterus where they cause some complications. And so this is like one example of why I always say. Your gut health starts in your mouth. Mm-hmm. Right. And so if you're trying to conceive, if you're a male or female, you gotta get to the dentist.
Yeah. You gotta take care of periodontal disease, opportunistic bacteria in the mouth because there's all this crosstalk That's so, so interesting. Right. So interesting. And it's interesting because I feel like even in the fertility space, I am aware of the importance of dental health. You know, especially, you know, we hear about that, but like never gone that deep.
Like I never knew. That research, which just fascinating. Yeah. And I think we're ready to know it. You know, like we're ready to know that information, know it. We are, and I've talked about, I've said like the fertility danger signal that we're not talking about enough is halitosis or bad breath. Mm-hmm.
Because when someone has chronic halat ptosis, there tends to be more of a specific type of bacteria in the mouth that's very pro-inflammatory and. Our gums are, are a, a leaky barrier, just like our gut can be. Right? And so bacteria and toxins produced by bacteria can enter our systemic circulation through our gums.
And I always tell my patients, once inflammation is in your circulation, it can go anywhere, right? Yeah. It has access to your whole bloodstream. Mm-hmm. Um, and so we can see that this systemic inflammation can impact our reproductive organs, can impact. People who have like chronic migraines and these other symptoms, these other conditions that are associated with chronic inflammation.
And it's like it all started from the mouth. And if someone would've paid attention to that, we could have been proactive. So the more you know Absolutely, and that's why we're here, the more you know why we're here. Yeah. And it's interesting the conversation about inflammation. So it's. I, so I broke my foot back in January and just like a personal tangent here, um, and it obviously was very painful and I was very on a low inflammatory diet because I wanted to promote healing and all of the things, and I, I noticed a direct correlation between what I was putting in my body, what I was eating, and my pain level.
So on the days where I. Either, you know, hadn't prepared food for that day or we needed to go to the grocery store, whatever it was over that months of healing and I just was eating whatever. My pain was so much higher and that was something I could see and feel. With fertility, we can't always see and feel the effect, right.
Of the inflammation possibly until it's like out of control, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, this is a great, so when I'm thinking about gut health. I'm kind of breaking it into categories in my mind. Mm-hmm. So we have dysbiosis, which is kind of what we just talked about with the microbiome. Dysbiosis being an imbalance between healthy bacteria and more opportunistic bacteria that can cause symptoms.
So that's kind of one category. Dysbiosis in itself can certainly cause inflammation. Then I think about leaky gut or intestinal permeability. We should dive in there in a minute because that's where a lot of the inflammation comes from. Okay. And then I think about a lack of digestive factors. So hypochlorhydria or low stomach acid.
Low bile acid, low pancreatic enzymes. So I kind of think about these in categories. And is that where like mitochondria conversation pops in? Okay. It certainly can, mitochondrial conversation pops in, in the chronic inflammation space, which, yes. Well, let's dive in there. Um, but when we'll be here for the next 10 hours, just book the whole day at this point, we need it all.
Um, it, it helps me to understand like, is the primary issue in this person that they have dysbiosis or is it that they, their intestines are too permeable or they're lacking some kind of digestive. Factor. And so I have a whole series of questionnaires and all these things that I go through to try to get to that point.
But when we're looking at chronic inflammation, it's really the intestinal permeability that I think about the most. So maybe I'll. Let me build a, like a persona in case someone's like, oh, that's me. Yeah. Um, someone who has chronic inflammation, maybe on their blood work I might see. Um, so I measure something called high sensitivity, C-reactive protein, HS.
CRP, that's my favorite inflammatory marker. I might see an elevated CRP. I might see elevated uric acid, which is another inflammatory marker or an elevated homocysteine, so we can talk labs, but all of those should probably be on your preconception panel if you're trying to conceive. Maybe this person also has rashes, joint pain, headaches, maybe like a fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue diagnosis.
Water retention, high blood pressure, all of these things are associated with chronic inflammation. So here's the story. We have our gut barrier. Sometimes people like to think about it like cheesecloth, where it's filtering some things and letting some things through, right? Yeah. But at the lining of our intestines, that's our main line of defense.
We have immune factors that protect us from pathogens. We have some mucus. It's really that, um, barrier between the inside of our body and the outside world. So we're eating food, we're engaging with the outside world, and we have to protect the inside of our bloodstream from those things. And that's what our gut does now.
It's going to allow nutrients to pass and you know, things like water, things that we need to pass. And we have these cells of our intestines and they're usually very tightly. Next to each other, but maybe we had a lot of period cramps. So we took a bunch of ibuprofen, or we had a couple drinks at dinner.
We had a couple glasses of wine, or we were traveling and we had some water that had some bacteria in it that. Caused a little infection at the gut barrier. All of that can damage that gut barrier integrity. And now things that should have been filtered through are able to traverse that intestinal barrier and enter our systemic circulation.
Our immune system's really smart. If it sees something that doesn't belong, it is going to raise the alarm and activate our immune system and all this whole inflammatory cascade to control that invader. Right? Yeah. And so now we have all of this inflammation that's circulating through our bloodstream.
And like I said, once it's in the bloodstream, it's going everywhere. And that includes our uterus and our ovaries. So what we see is that sometimes when patients have a more leaky gut. It can, that inflammation can go into the ovaries and impair progesterone production. So we might see what we call luteal phase dysfunction, right?
It's like a low progesterone in the luteal phase. Lots of spotting before your period starts. Or we can see in the uterus that that chronic inflammation can affect endometrial receptivity. So the uterus's ability to accept an embryo or you know, an egg that has been fertilized. So when we look at studies of recurrent pregnancy loss, implantation failure, oftentimes there are increased markers for intestinal permeability.
So this is one of the ways I make the connection, like I know it's not super intuitive. Why the leakiness of your gut might cause all these issues with your fertility, but it's because these organ systems are really affected by those inflammatory chemicals in the bloodstream. That's so fascinating. I was like so fascinating, especially because for me, what the conversation largely has been around digestion is with estrogen and how estrogen needs to pass through.
Um, or it'll get reabsorbed in the body. Like that is the conversation I have heard and been around. Right. But now it's even linked to, and it makes sense, right? That it's linked to progesterone and all these other factors too. It really, there's no limit. Really, it's all connected. And when I say that, I really, I really mean it.
And with the leaky gut conversation, it's. It's cool because, you know how you said sometimes with fertility we can't, we can't really feel it, right? Yeah, and that's true. Sometimes you, if you have a short luteal phase, it, maybe you have more PMS, but you don't necessarily feel like, oh, my progesterone is not as high as it should be right now.
You can't. Yeah. You know, correlate the level with your symptoms. But when we start treating the chronic inflammation and people say, wow. My headaches are gone. I'm sleeping better. I'm losing some of the water that I was retaining, so I just feel less puffy. My blood pressure is improving, my lipid panel is getting better.
Like all of these other markers of health yeah, are improving. And I've said a million times, and this is always my. Take home messages that all these things that we do to support our fertility are ultimately to support our health and longevity as well. Right? Yeah. That's why a comprehensive preconception assessment is so powerful because it gives us longevity in our health, and a lot of my patients are working really, really hard for their family.
Let me make sure you have the longevity to enjoy them. Right. Yes. Yes. It's such a beautiful message and, and one that we all find in our own way, right. Of like this infertility journey, but it's so true. And making the changes to promote your fertility like you do, just, you just feel better, right, because it's impacting your whole system.
Exactly. And leaky gets one of those things that once you start. Supporting the integrity of that gut barrier. People tend to feel a lot better because the inflammation is going down because the nutrient absorption gets a little bit more efficient. So. Kind of fitting that into the whole picture of like, okay, now the leaky gut is solved.
We can talk about the dysbiosis, we can talk about the digestive factors, and really make sure that we're turning over every stone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So with leaky gut and really this whole gut health puzzle, is it all about nutrition and what you're putting in? It's largely about nutrition and what you're putting in, but the foundation is lifestyle.
So when I think about lifestyle factors. Nutrition is part of it, but it's stress, sleep, nutrition, exercise, relationships. Yeah. And they all have a role to play even in leaky gut. So nutrition, absolutely. For example. You need adequate protein to repair your intestinal barrier. And I know protein's like all the rage right now, so probably everybody's already well aware of that.
Um, things like zinc, zinc, dietary zinc, so important to support that intestinal barrier. Um, Omega-3 fatty acids can be really helpful. Um, and then just avoiding foods that are triggers for you. So sometimes, sometimes for me, I'm doing an elimination diet with patients, not because I want them to be on a restrictive food plan forever, but we need to know, is there some food that's a trigger for you so that we can limit that and limit inflammation at that gut barrier, at least temporarily while we work to do some healing, um, nutrients like glutamine, butyrate, all of these things are gonna be really helpful, but.
Guess what? Even stress, even stress can make our gut barrier more leaky. Yeah. And people are always like, oh great. Because how do we avoid that? Right. And it's not that you can't. Encounter stressors we're going to. We're going to. Mm-hmm. But it's having the skills to nourish the nervous system, to do your vagal toning, to have your mindfulness practice so that when those stressors emerge, you have the tools to deal with it so that your gut ultimately is supported through that pathway as well.
Mm-hmm. So. The nutrition part is always part of the conversation, but I could never say like, oh yeah, you need to eat more Zrich Foods, but I'm not gonna address the fact that you're getting 4,000 emails every day and commuting for 90 minutes and have to get everywhere with your kids. Like, that's so stressful.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we've normalized that. I feel like that's the, the crux, right? Like we've normalized that level of. Stress and it's expected and it's normal, and we just go, go, go. And it's a very masculine way in which we're pushing these feminine bodies. Right. And like you said, I am total in agreement with that, where we can't get rid of it.
We are in this society, but we can absolutely manage it with these tools that we know work for us. Yeah. Um. And I love, I love when you post about your binary beats. I love them. It ma, you know, like those are the things that matter. And I think we overlook that. It can be really simple. It can be really simple like a meditation or the music or just stepping away, having quiet time, whatever it is.
Mm-hmm. But it really moves the needle on the stress part. Yeah. And if we think about like. I will try not to go on such a huge tangent, but our vagus nerve and how, yeah, our, it's the wandering nerve, right? It's traveling all throughout our body and it is involved, you know, when there's vagus nerve dysfunction, it looks like IBS, it looks like a lot of things.
And so when I have patients that have gut dysfunction, sometimes I think they're surprised when we get into the treatment plan and I'm like, okay, here's your vagal toning exercises. I want you to do humming. We're gonna do box breathing, we're gonna do all these things. And it's like, oh, but. I have bloating.
Yeah. Yeah. Because your mind is so related to the health of your gut and the way that you absorb nutrients, that it's a really important part of the plan. It's really important. And, and I know in my own experience and experience with clients, it's like we, we kind of want that one fix, right? Like we want the one thing to get us pregnant, right?
That magic pill. And it's, it's largely never gonna be that it, because everything is connected and it's, like you said, it's worth. Investing in all of these things, but we have to take that larger lens mm-hmm. To get that. Yeah. And so many people are, they're working so hard and they're like, I'm already doing the things, I'm already eating the diet.
Right. And I'm already doing the things. And I tell people like, you've already made all these changes to get this bomb fertility diet that looks so beautiful, but it doesn't really matter if you can't absorb it. Yes. Right. Yeah. Right's a good, so if there's there dysbiosis happening. And you're not gonna take advantage of all those nutrients.
So we gotta get the foundations in order so that all those fruits and veggies and protein and all the stuff you're doing counts. Absolutely. And I'm just curious, are you like team supplements or team like natural foods with the, with the vitamins and minerals in them, or a combination? I'm a combo. I'm a combo gal.
All right. Um, it's funny because I looked into this a while ago. I, I've shared about this on social media before, but um, I had a patient and we were working on Her Fertility and I said, you know, I think you should do like a prenatal vitamin and coq 10 and some alpha lipoic acid. We were doing a lot of mitochondrial support and she was also working with her ob and her OB said, you know, whatever, like, it's fine, but just eat a healthy diet and you don't really need to take anything.
And so I was like, okay, that's fair. Love a food for, I have a nutrition degree too, so love a food forward approach, but things like coq 10 or vitamin D or alpha lipoic acid. Let me just crunch some numbers and see how much food it would take to get therapeutic doses. It's for coq 10, I can't remember now, but it's like pounds of organ meats that eat every day, right?
Vitamin D, it's like. Pounds of cold water, fish and like tons and tons and tons of mushrooms. There's just no way to get a therapeutic dose of those types of foods where, you know, B12, that's a different story for me. You could get B12 or vitamin C or maybe B six, you could get that reasonably through food.
So it's always a combo for me. Um, and it really. It really speaks to like what is the content of these minerals and vitamins in a food? And could one reasonably consume this much in a, with a normal appetite that's not, yeah, 60 pounds of like kidneys or something. Right. And I think that brings to mind like the importance too of working with a professional like yourself who can.
Really tailor the protocol to you. Everybody is different. Mm-hmm. And this self DIY approach can, can be detrimental, right? Like if you don't need certain nutrients or you need more of another, um, and, and to note that it might just be, you know, a little bit like a little supplementation for X amount of time.
And then you don't have to take that forever. We're just trying to get you back on track. Yeah, absolutely. And. I'll link this back to the gut health because sometimes, um, let me use iron as a great example, because iron is so important for fertility, right? We know that iron, I tell people iron its job is to deliver oxygen to your very important tissues like your brain.
And your reproductive organs. And so when we have chronically low iron, we can get into a state of, um, what's called hypoxia or low oxygen in our organs. And so our, our ovaries can become deprived of oxygen. And when we have low iron stores, we are more likely to have an ovulatory cycles so we're not ovulating and our endometrium, that nice fluffy layer in our uterus, it needs iron to thicken and to become this.
Pillowy gorgeous layer for an embryo to implant and we have low iron. That doesn't happen. So sometimes my patients, they're taking iron. Maybe they've had blood work that shows that they need iron. Mm-hmm. And it's not coming up the way that they would expect. And they're like, I'm telling you, I'm taking my supplement every day and this is not coming up.
What we know is that we need stomach acid to help us to pull iron from our foods, from our supplement, and really utilize that nutrient. And so sometimes when my patients are, they're diligently supplementing and it is not working. We talk about, oh. Do you have hypochlorhydria or low stomach acid? Yeah.
And oftentimes that's actually the issue. I need to repair that digestive factor so that they can utilize those nutrients. Very similar story with something like B12. Yeah, so this is just another connecting point, like supplements are great. Our body needs to be able to utilize them. Yeah. Yeah. It's so important.
And that makes me think about, so obviously like probiotics are huge on the market of like you could supplement with probiotics to help your gut health, but what about vaginal suppository probiotics? Yeah. Okay. I'm into it. Okay. I have to tell you, I'm, my gut instinct is to tell you I'm into it. Great. Um, I, I'm doing a lot of vaginal microbiome testing these days.
Cool. So it's a swab. It's looking at it. And, um, you know, when you go to your ob you, you'll get, you know, your pap smear and an STI screen, but no one's looking at. All of these specific strains of bacteria. Yeah. And like we said, there's all these bacteria in the vagina, in the gut, in the mouth, in your joint spaces, on your skin.
They're everywhere. Um, and what we know about the vaginal canal is that lactobacilli should be the predominant species and it helps to keep the acidity in the vagina so that you're combating, you know, vaginal infections. There's lots of different strains of lactobacilli even, and some are better at controlling that acidity than others.
And so we like to look at, oh, who's most popular in the vaginal canal right now? What strain of lactobacilli? Um, and then we also can look at other, what we call opportunistic pathogens. So yeast. UIA plasma Prevotella, like there's all these little pathogens that can pop up inside the vaginal canal, and we look at that in relationship to the constellation of lactobacilli and sometimes.
It makes sense to put some lactobacilli in the vagina. And so we do that with a vaginal suppository. It works really well. I'm such a fan. That's awesome. Yeah. I, I will say, I recently, like within the last six months, learned and do dove into the research on them and I was like, this kind of feels like a golden nugget that I had never considered for people before.
And um, so I was curious your take on it, and I have a question about the bacteria. Does it change throughout the cycle? It does. Of course it does. It does. Yeah. It changes the bacteria change in response to circulating estrogen and progesterone. So your bacteria does have some shifting throughout the cycle.
And you know what's so interesting is, um, there was this study, I wish I could remember the name, it's older now, but I used to be obsessed with it, where they took all these vaginal samples. And from the constellation of vaginal bacteria, they could tell, does this person have PMS? Do they have heavy bleeding?
Do they have things like freckles, more freckles? Like there were so many things about this person's phenotype that they could tell from their vaginal microbiome. And it was really fascinating to me. Um, but yeah, it does, it does shift and there's, there's probably. Some reason why it does that. Some protective factor.
Mm-hmm. That I don't think we've quite figured out yet. Um, but how cool and dynamic is the human body that our microbes respond to what's circulating in our bloodstream. It's so amazing. Amazing. The more I learn, the less I know. And I love that because the more I learn, I'm just like blown away, especially by the female body.
Like I'm just blown away. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And now there's more and more studies. Especially in the IVF setting looking at. Um, the, the vaginal microbiome and how it can affect things like IVF outcomes, and I just think that that's, I imagine in the next five years, like that's where fertility research is going.
Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'm so glad you pulled that in because I do feel that the conversation up until now has largely been like. Natural conception and assisted conception, and those are separate conversations, but the reality is they're very one and the same. And regardless of what your journey brings you this.
Gut health is going to impact your trajectory no matter what, right? That's absolutely right. Um, I have an online program that I run and we work on gut health, and people are always like, oh, is this, you know, can, can I do this if I'm just trying on my own, or if I'm doing IUI or IVF? And I always tell people, no matter how you get pregnant, supporting your levels of inflammation, your ovarian function, your uterine environment.
That's, that's kind of the recipe for getting pregnant, right? I tell people if we look at all the ingredients that are involved, it's a healthy sperm. So get your partner on board here too, because gut health is gonna be important for sperm too. Yes. Um, a healthy sperm, a healthy egg that is actually ovulated or retrieved, and then a healthy and receptive endometrium.
Yeah. No matter your path to parenthood, those are the things that are going to matter and gut health plays such a huge role. In in any of those scenarios. Yes, yes. It's so, such a beautiful way to kind of pull that all together for someone. So regardless of what your path brings you, this conversation applies.
And I love that you brought up your, your program. I know it's on hold at the moment, it's full right now, but do you mind sharing more about it for when it opens up again? I would love to because Great. It's soon. It's opening. Good. Okay. Um, so my online program is called the Functional Fertility Blueprint and.
I've been, you know, working in my practice using functional medicine to support fertility. I mean, going back to that map of the body systems I've talked about, humans are so complex, and my patients would come to me and they would say, there's a million things out there and I don't know where to start.
I'm so overwhelmed. I can't choose an entry point. Like I don't know what my body needs. There's all this noise. And so what this program was designed to do, which I'm gonna gush a little bit 'cause I'm really, really proud of how this turned out, is I've essentially created these assessments and quizzes that help the program participants to create their own map of their body systems so they can visually see, oh, it's my gut health that's most imbalanced, or, oh, it's my cellular energy, or my hormones that are.
The top priority for me. So it walks the participants through this whole process of creating a map for themselves. And then it's kind of a choose your own adventure, where if you scored the highest in gut health, go to the gut health module and we're gonna walk through all of this. All the things we talked about today.
There's all these assessments you can figure out for yourself. Do you have hypochlorhydria? Do you have dysbiosis? Do you have leaky gut? Here's what you need to do about it. Here's the testing that's available to you. Um, if it comes up cellular energy, that's all mitochondria, which we could do a whole other episode about.
Yeah, that's one of my faves. But what are you gonna do for cellular energy production? How does that affect your egg quality sperm quality? Early embryo development. Um, so it's really this stepwise approach. That's everything I do with my patients in the clinic, but on an online format, there's videos, there's PDFs, there's quizzes.
You choose a fertility food plan. It's really comprehensive and I'm really proud of it. Um, so I love that. It's exciting. It's coming back Oh, good. In June. I'm so excited. I love that because. You know, over here in my world, we work on, on the Mind and how you're managing the emotions. And a program like this that's highly qualified and is gonna give you what you need, it's, it almost gives you the agency that you're lacking where you can finally do something about the thing.
Right. And that to me is so amazing, and that helps the mind really overcome a lot of that challenge. That's absolutely right. Yeah. I always want people to feel like. The locus of control is internal, that I'm not waiting on someone else to take charge of this. And, uh, this is a bit of an aside, but I know you see this with your clients too, that oftentimes people are told, oh, just wait 12 months and then we'll figure something out.
No, this is getting us the tools. You're not waiting for anyone to come rescue you. You're not waiting for 12 months of agonizing heartbreak to pass before you do something. This is figuring out exactly what your body needs, accessing all the labs that you need. 'cause I make all of that available. Wow. And really taking charge.
And not only is it a situation where, oh, you order the labs and then you're like waiting for someone to explain them to you. No. You order the labs and all the resources are there so that you know what's happening. I always tell patients. You deserve to know what's going on in your body. Like your labs are your information.
Yes. You just deserve to know what they mean. Yes, yes, yes. I'm like, I'm so excited that this is opening back up for everyone. So if you, I, obviously the links will be in the show notes, but if this is calling you, if you're curious about it, check it out. It's the Functional Fertility Program. Blueprint.
Blueprint. Yep. How exciting. Okay. Mm-hmm. Functional Fertility Blueprint. Mm-hmm. And gut health is a big part. So if you've been listening and you're like, oh. That's me. I'm this person. I'm the hypochlorhydria person, or I have leaky gut. Great. Let's help you figure out what tools you need to intervene because yeah, it really can make such a difference.
And even like if, if you like, what I'm thinking about is like back in my journey, if you just can't figure it out, right, and you haven't explored this avenue, then go there. For me personally, I'll go on a little tangent. Like I had a history of, um. Strep throat and I ended up getting my tonsils out in my twenties.
Oh. So through that experience, I had a ton of, um, bacteria killing medication and, you know, and I, nobody had ever asked me when I was trying about that history, and I didn't necessarily have. Gut symptoms. I didn't have the best gut, but I wasn't necessarily identifying, um, with that. Yeah. But I wish somebody would've told me like, look at your gut.
Look at your gut. And so if, if you're just curious or you maybe can't put the nail on the reason why you're not getting pregnant, then this would be for you too. Yeah. You know, you just reminded me too, is I think so many of us live like in a constant state of being bloated. Yeah. Being a little uncomfortable.
And so I'll, I'll ask. Patients like, oh, do you have bloating? They're like, no, I don't. I don't think so. But if we do, so I didn't mention this before, but I'm a big fan of a comprehensive stool analysis, so I usually do Genova GI effects, but there's, there's many, like GI 360 GI Map, there's all kinds of GI testing.
I just do GI effects. And sometimes we'll notice like, oh, you have some kind of opportunistic bacteria in the gut, let's treat that. Or you have low pancreatic enzymes or low stomach acid. Let's correct that. And then people feel better and they're like, wow. I was walking around for 15 years bloated, and I didn't even realize, I thought this is how my body was.
Right. We just normalize it. We're acclimated. We're like, great. This is me now. Yeah. We just don't realize it. It's such a slow onset that you just get used to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then, you know, on the flip side, once you feeling good, feels so good, and then you just have this more energy and all and all the benefits.
Right. And once you've. Experienced that. Then if something happens again and now you're bloated or you have abdominal pain or indigestion, now you know what that looks like. Mm-hmm. And so it's just such a, um, it comes from such a deep body awareness, which I think is really powerful for a lot of reasons.
Yes, yes. From for fertility and beyond. Exactly. Oh, Dr. Kalea I could honestly talk to you for hours. I'm so grateful for you really opening up and sharing your beautiful wealth of knowledge. I'm really excited about the program. How can people connect with it? Yes. So if you'll head to my www.drkaleawattles.com/ there'll be a little link where you can learn more about the blueprint or my clinical services.
Please follow on Instagram at Functional Fertility. That's where I am, like every day having fun and talking fertility. Um, you can listen to the Functional Fertility Podcast on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you like to listen to things. Uh, and I always am sharing what I'm up to and what new projects are happening and certainly what's going on, um, inside the blueprint.
It's super fun. I'm so excited. Yes. And all that will be linked in the show notes. And thank you. Thank you for sharing your beautiful knowledge with us and I am so excited for your new addition to your family and wish you the best of luck with that. Oh, thank you so much Jess. So good to be with you.
Thanks for listening everyone. Thank you.
 If you are struggling with infertility, you've probably tried to find support from family and friends, but they just don't get the depth of your problems. That's why I created the fertility support circle. The circle meets monthly for free, where you'll connect virtually with women who are also navigating their fertility journey.
If the monthly call is not enough, I also created a fertility support circle membership to give you professional support at a fraction of the cost of private fertility doula sessions. The Circle membership gives you weekly support, including live sessions with me each week inside the member only portal, and access to a community of women who understand.
If you are ready for support, please send me a DM on Instagram @fertilityjess That's F-E-R-T-I-L-I-T-Y-J-E-S-S, and I'll send you the information.
