Is IVF the only answer for infertility—or is there a better way? In this episode, Samantha Stephenson welcomes back Grace Emily Stark, editor of Natural Womanhood and a leading voice in restorative reproductive medicine (RRM). Together, they unpack what RRM really is, how it differs from conventional gynecology and fertility treatments like IVF, and why so few women have ever heard of it.
We explore:
The science behind cycle charting and hormone diagnostics
Why the birth control pill often masks—not solves—reproductive issues
How RRM treats the root causes of infertility (like PCOS, endometriosis, and fibroids)
The cultural and political barriers to this life-giving approach
How anti-Catholic bias and insurance policy keep women from real options
Why restoration of fertility should be the gold standard—not bypassing it
If you're fed up with “lazy medicine,” frustrated by the one-size-fits-all approach of the pill, or wondering if IVF is really your only path forward, this conversation is a must-listen.
Mentioned in the Episode
International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine
nfpandmore.com
femmhealth.org
neofertility.com
Article: Should you take ozempic for PCOS?
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Grab a copy of Samantha’s book Reclaiming Motherhood—a theology of the body for motherhood in the age of reproductive technologies.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00]
Today I'm welcoming back Grace Emily Stark, editor of Natural Womanhood and one of the leading voices advocating for restorative reproductive medicine. You may remember grace from our earlier conversation on the pitfalls of contraceptives.
If not, go and check out that episode from season two after this one. Today we are diving deeper into what's broken in the current model of fertility treatment and why restoring the body's natural function rather than overriding it may be the most promising path forward. We will talk about the science, the politics, and the cultural narratives that make it so hard for this approach to get a seat at the table.
Is IVF really the only option? Why aren't women being told about other methods? And what might a more humane vision of reproductive medicine actually look like? Let's find out Grace. Welcome back to Brave New Us. It's so good to be back [00:01:00] with you, Samantha. , So for those new to the concept, what is restorative reproductive medicine? How is it different from conventional gynecology or fertility treatments like IVF? , That's a really great question and a really good place to start, especially because we're seeing a lot of misinformation out there about what restorative reproductive medicine or RRM actually is.
So the, the conventional approach when it comes to gynecology, we'll start there, , is to suppress issues that women have with their reproductive health. So key among that is birth control. Birth control is, is probably the number one tool in conventional gynecology toolkit for addressing reproductive health issues. , And mainly what it does is it functions to shut down a woman's cycle. And so when you're having cycle issues, if you just shut down the cycle, the logic goes.
No more cycle issues, right? [00:02:00] So that's why women with painful periods, , teen girls with painful periods are often put on hormonal birth control because it completely just shuts down their cycle. , They still bleed because they're taking a sugar pill one week outta the month., But it's not a true period.
And so a lot of women find that that does sometimes do a decent job of suppressing symptoms. But what restorative reproductive medicine understands and what practitioners of RRM understand, , is that that's not getting to the root cause of why women are experiencing infertility. So we know in this country that endometriosis takes on average about eight to 10 years.
To get a proper diagnosis. And that's insane because it's actually as common as diabetes., And it's often one of the underlying issues causing, , or sorry, the underlying issue causing painful periods in a lot of women,, so are fibroids.
And so a [00:03:00] restorative reproductive medicine practitioner would see a woman coming in and would say, okay. Let's get to the root of this. Let's start doing some imaging studies. Let's start doing some hormonal, , draws, blood draws to test your hormones. , But first and foremost, they're gonna get you charting your cycle. They're gonna get you in touch with what your cycle currently looks like, teach you the biomarkers of your fertility so that you can read the signs of your cycle so that you can track it.
And then a restorative reproductive medicine trained practitioner can use your chart as a fifth vital sign and use that to help diagnose whatever underlying conditions are causing your painful periods, causing your infertility, , whatever issue that you're presenting your doctor with.
So rather than, than bypass issues or suppress issues with reproductive health, RRM gets to the root cause and actually addresses [00:04:00] those underlying issues that are pr, that are causing you to have the symptoms that are disrupting your life or causing you to deal with infertility.
Yeah. Why does it take so long for a diagnosis and why does it take a decade to get that answer? Medical school students are taught,, especially those going into obstetrics and gynecology are taught that the birth control pill is the best tool in their toolkit.
, And it's kind of that, perennial. Problem of when the only tool you have is a hammer. Every problem looks like a nail. , And so it's kind of just taking a hammer to women's health issues just to prescribe birth control for whatever issue your female, , patient presents with, in obstetrics.
The second issue is also that.
We don't have enough funding, we don't have enough research around it, which is crazy for how common it is. There's a, a real lack of [00:05:00] research into it. And so there's a lack of education about it in, in medical school and in residency training. And so there's this constellation of symptoms that. Uh, doctors just don't know about because they weren't taught about it. Mm-hmm. Um, because unless you really specialize, like by going into restorative reproductive medicine, you're probably just learning like, oh, endometriosis is this painful period.
Condition, and the best thing we have is birth control. Yeah. That, that was me. I started my cycle when I was 10. Mm-hmm. I got put on the pill when I was 13. Okay. Um, because it was so pee like I couldn't go to school. Um, and then I tried a bunch of different things, like I was on the patch and that gave me rashes.
And then I one, one type, I think they were giving me. Narcotics at one point. I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah. It was rough. But, um, I got out off of it when I was in college and I would still have to miss a, you know, a day or two of [00:06:00] classes every month, which was fine.
'cause I was, I was like a fairly good student, but when I started working, that didn't work. So I went back on it and then I got a clot and Yeah. Anyway. Right, right. All the, all the fun things about contraceptives, it's like this is not the solution. That we, that women need.
Yeah. Um, so when we're talking about this approach, it seems like there's an underlying philosophy that's driving this approach that makes it just entirely different from the outset from mainstream medicine. Yeah. It's a scientific, ethical, holistic or some combination of all of that. How would you describe that?
Uh, absolutely some combination. Um, I think the central premise that undergirds all of restorative reproductive medicine is that, um, a woman's cycle is an essential [00:07:00] function of her body. I mean, when we say it's a fifth vital sign, we really mean it, um, because it. It's both impacted by every other aspect of her, her health, and impacts every other aspect of her health.
It is totally inseparable from your health as a woman. You know, you and I are of the age where I'm sure we can remember the commercials on TV that we're like, you don't need a period if you're on birth control. Did you know there's no medical reason to have a period, blah, blah, blah. Um, and so we're, we were raised on that, right?
That, oh, it's just this thing that we can shut off. It's this inconvenient thing that we can shut off and why wouldn't we if we have the option to? Um, and it's a lie. It's, it's all been just an, an incredible lie. Um, because it's part and parcel of our, our health as women to have a healthy functioning cycle.
Um, and. That's [00:08:00] probably why birth control has so many, like far ranging side effects and why women are so blindsided by it. Because they're like, well, I'm on birth control and my stomach hurts all the time, but what on earth could birth control be doing to my stomach and or, you know, I know that birth control, , might give me a clot, but I don't really understand why.
And I also know it's associated with depression and I don't really understand why. And it's like it, there's all these disparate side effects. Both because of what birth control is doing to our body and because of what it's stopping our body from doing, which is I think is the real key that a lot of women don't understand, , is that birth control is as dangerous for what it's stopping your body from doing, which is cycling and primarily ovulating.
Right? Ovulate. Ov ovulation is the, , main event we say of your cycle. We think of the period as like the main event because that's all we're taught about is just to look out for your period once a month. But really it's [00:09:00] ovulation. We need to be taught to, , track and, . Keep tabs on the biomarkers of, , because it's healthy, regular ovulation that, particularly in the teen years and early twenties, , that helps proper brain development happen in women, , proper bone density, , building and development happen in women.
, It has implications for our heart health, how our cardiac tissue develops and functions, , our immune system, , especially, and different tissues like, cervical tissue. Breast tissue, which again is why we see the correlation with breast cancer. . To be able to develop and function properly. As women, we need to have regular healthy cycles, and so if you're not having a regular healthy cycle, we need to get you cycling healthily and regularly, not just because it'll improve your quality of life and that your periods won't, you won't feel like your period's trying to kill you every month, [00:10:00] but also because we need to make sure that your hormones are doing what they're supposed to do.
All across your body, not just when it comes to your bleeding. So that's why we call it the fifth vital sign. That's why, um, restorative reproductive medicine is just so fundamentally, like foundationally different from the conventional approach. Restorative reproductive medicine that undergirds everything that a, um, professional healthcare, professional trained in RRM does is restoring the cycle so that you have good health, um, good overall health, and with it good fertility too.
, How do you know when you're walking into your, uh, doctor's office or, or making an appointment, I guess, how do you find one of these, uh, doctors who is practicing restorative reproductive medicine as opposed to the more conventional approach?
Um, now you know that you're gonna not gonna get in your doctor's office, sit down and [00:11:00] then have them look at you like you're a crazy person. Yeah, that's a good question. Sometimes you do just have to go to the appointment and see, I think unless they bill themselves as like a holistic practitioner or somebody who's specifically trained in NaPro technology, fem or now neo fertility is another, , growing, , contingent of kind of this, this flavor of medicine.
, Unless they specifically bill that they're trained in that you're probably going to be met with someone who is likely to offer you birth control, , or if you're trying to get pregnant and not, not, you know, getting pregnant successfully. IVF, especially if you've been trying for six months to a year.
But I also would encourage women if you have, , an O-B-G-Y-N that you have. Used and that you've liked, you, you might be able to educate them a little bit. We off offer a lot of resources at natural womanhood. I [00:12:00] know that there, , we have readers who have printed out articles and brought them to their doctors.
, We need more doctors to become aware that this is a legitimate, , and effective form of practicing medicine. , So I wouldn't necessarily like write your doctor off or write any doctor off, , if you don't see automatically that they, , practice this way. , If they don't build themselves as practicing that way.
Definitely if you know that you have issues and. You're not in the place of want, having, wanting to have to educate your doctor. You need, you need help. Um, yeah. You were a decade in Yes, by the time I got surgery for endometriosis, it, I was married, so I wa it was, it was 11 years for me.
Yeah. So go to somebody who, who says that they are a restorative, reproductive medicine, , trained, , healthcare practitioner. , Especially if you see that they're trained in nepro technology or fem, that's [00:13:00] FEMM, , or neo fertility, n EEO fertility. I will say I saw doctor after doctor, um, about my issues and then when I went and I finally saw the doctor, um, who was a NaPro mm-hmm.
Specialist. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. She diagnosed me on the first visit. Yeah. And then my next interaction with her was having surgery and the problem was fixed. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's incredible that 11 years versus one visit is a little bit more efficient. Yeah. And that can give you whiplash. Right. And so many women get so fired up and so angry, um, that this was a solution that could have.
Uh, you know, save them years of pain, years of interventions that they didn't want. Um, and for a lot of women, like years of heartbreak from miscarriage and infertility. Um, and so I, I think it's great that we're, we're seeing, um, more people gain [00:14:00] awareness that restorative reproductive medicine exists and that they're demanding it, um, because the demand is going to cause.
Is, is ultimately, I believe what's gonna cause more, um, doctors and, and med school students and uh, uh, residents to want to learn more about it. And the thing is, is they might come into it with these preconceived notions. Like I, I can tell you so many stories of, uh, women who go to their doctor who are like, that's not medicine, that's not science.
Um, isn't that, aren't you just talking about the rhythm method? That's, that's not science. Or are you just gonna get pregnant or, you know, um, IVF is all that we can do for you for infertility. What are you talking about? You know, go see it. Some woowoo person if you want, like, they think it's, they think that, uh, this just is like this ideological, um, non-scientific unscientific, um, kind of like reiki and crystals and woo woo type of thing.
Mm-hmm. But the more that they [00:15:00] actually start to read about it and dive into it, like you can't. But not see that this is based in science and it's actually based in better science than most of what conventional, , gynecology does. Because it's based in a really profound understanding of the female menstrual cycle.
. That should be the basis for all of gynecology, right? Like, it would just seem like that, that would just make sense, but unfortunately it's not. , But what restorative reproductive medicine is ultimately based in is that, is this, this really, , really keen understanding of what a normal, healthy female menstrual cycle should look like.
And that's why it goes hand in hand with fertility awareness, , fertility awareness methods and, and good body literacy in in women and patients. Hmm. So we talked about like lack of awareness in, , in medical school, [00:16:00] lack of education, , lack of understanding, masking problems with the pill or just you have this, any one of these.
Female symptoms, the solution is the pill. Period. End of story. Because those are some of the problems to this being more widespread understood and implemented. , Are there other barriers or are there policy barriers to wider adoption of restorative reproductive medicine right now? Yeah, I think, , so on the cultural front there, there's definitely bias against it and I think a lot of it stems from, , frankly, I think there's a good, not all of it, but a good proportion of the bias stems from anti-Catholic bias.
Mm-hmm. Um, because Catholic physicians are the pioneers of restorative reproductive medicine. , And that's because when the Pope said, you know, birth control is off the table for Catholics. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:17:00] back when Humane vita in. Whatever year in 1960 was published, um, that kind of lit a fire under Catholic physicians, , to start looking deeper into the female menstrual cycle, , and into different issues, , around female fertility.
The, the rhythm method was actually already a thing by this point, I think that had been around since, , the fifties. , And so Catholics were already kind of starting to delve a little bit deeper into, , female fertility for the understanding that it could help, , couples with family planning in a way that was, that was illicit, , according to the tenets of the Catholic church.
, And so I think a lot of people see it as like, oh, fertility awareness is just Catholic birth control and. Restorative reproductive medicine is just Catholic, IVF. I've heard people refer to it that way. , And it stems [00:18:00] from the fact that Catholics really grew up and pioneered this form of medicine.
And it kind of, it's like that necessity is the mother of invention idea. Mm-hmm. You know, where, uh, Catholics were not allowed to use birth control, so, but they were allowed to use periodic abstinence. And so that's where the idea of natural family planning. So using fertility awareness to understand when you're fertile and when you're not, and having sex when you're not fertile.
. Avoiding sex when you are, if you're trying to avoid pregnancy, was, was illicit means of family planning. Mm-hmm. So that's where those methods grew up. , And along with it, a really good understanding of the female cycle and fertility. , And then from kind of the Catholic prohibition against in, in vitro fertilization, , and going hand in hand with this really good understanding of what female fertility looks like.
, Grew up, , these restorative reproductive medicine, , techniques that really looked at, okay, well [00:19:00] we're not gonna use IVF, but do we actually even need to, because I can see from your charts, I can see from your cycles that they, they don't look right. That tells me that there's something wrong with your, your, your fertility.
, And so Dr. Hilgers at, , Creighton University started. Doing deep dives into different hormonal balancing, different surgical techniques that could be done to restore fertility. , And so, because a lot of this was pioneered by Catholics, again, out of, out of necessity mm-hmm. Um, I think there's a lot of anti-Catholic bias that comes along with it.
, Even though now there are RRM, , professionals of all different religious stripes, all different backgrounds, , because it's pe as people understand like, oh no, this is, this is just good medicine. This isn't Catholic, this or Catholic, that. This is just, if you're a woman with, you know, a cycle. We can understand what your body's doing or what it's not [00:20:00] doing, um, and, and treat you, treat you better with that understanding.
Mm-hmm. Um, and so I think part of it is, is an anti-Catholic bias that still persists today. , And then on the, the policy side of things, , insurance will not reimburse for a lot of what RRM does. , IVF, , the IVF industry has made a lot of inroads in getting coverage mandated, , in certain states. .
And we haven't seen the same push, , previously with RRM, although that's now changing, , Arkansas signed the Restore Act, , several months ago. And now in addition to, , insurers in Arkansas having to cover IVF, they also have to cover RRM techniques to treat infertility. , And also under Title X, they have to, , implement in, in, in clinics that receive Title X funding, have to also offer fertility awareness based [00:21:00] methods alongside, alongside any other family planning information, , that they give out.
So that's, that's a huge step forward. And we, yeah, we would love to see, there's a push to implement, implement that on the federal level as well. Mm-hmm. , And so there, there's change happening even as we speak, and that's super exciting. , But we're really far behind. . IVF industry, which is a massive, it's a David and Goliath, you know, , IVF has, has all the money, , and they have all or most of the influence.
, And so they've been able to really wield that in terms of what gets coverage. And so, , I interviewed Dr. , Patrick Young. , He owns the Restore Center for Endometriosis in St. Louis, I believe it is. , Who's doing some absolutely incredible things. , With endometriosis surgery in particular. , He does surgeries that last 8, 9, 10 hours.
, He told me his longest [00:22:00] surgery, I think he just did, was 13 hours. , And he would get no reimbursement for that from insurance. , And so he's cash. And unfortunately a lot of these, these clinics and a lot of these RRM , professionals have gone to cash pay, which is unfortunate because it means that a lot of people can't afford their care.
Right. , But if we were able to see better coverage from insurance, , perhaps more of these professionals would start accepting insurance. , And women, more women would be eligible for this kind of care. Because, I mean, , Dr. Someone like Dr. Young and there are other, other doctors, but I'll use him as an example.
'cause I recently interviewed him on the Natural Womanhood Podcast. , He goes in to, . Women's bodies and will remove endometriosis from that's, that's covering their bowels, that's covering their ovaries, that's locking all of their [00:23:00] pelvic organs together. , And these pictures are wild. I mean, if you, if you have a strong stomach and you want to see what stage four my husband does, he would be really interested.
I mean, just if you can stomach it, if you google search like stage four endometriosis photos, it is crazy. I mean, it's just masses of scar tissue, literally locking all of your pelvic organs together. And so he will go in Dr. Young and other well-trained, , RRM practitioners will go in and cut all of that out.
, And then also they have techniques to prevent scar tissue from forming after. The, the, the cutting out the excising of, of the endometriosis lesions. , And so that's why the surgeries he's take, he's doing are, are lasting several hours. Mm-hmm. , And he, he gets patients like this, this one who, who was a 13 [00:24:00] hour surgery that no other physician will touch.
Mm-hmm. , He, he told me that this particular patient was a, was a peak and shriek where the prior endometriosis or prior, , ob, GYN who, who said they'd do surgery on her. . Literally poked a, the lap, laparoscopic camera in and just pulled it right back out and was like, we can't do anything for this. Mm.
And he recommended, I think, like a total hysterectomy. , And this was, I think a woman in her twenties, , and said, you know, you're just gonna have to have, we're just have to take all this out and you're gonna have to be on birth control for the rest of your life. Mm. To suppress it. And thankfully, she heard about Dr.
Young and got on his list and her whole life, she's, she's been given her life back, her life and her fertility back. Mm-hmm. So this is the kind of life changing, just cutting edge stuff that, , things like Dr. Young, Dr. Naomi Whitaker, , there's a, there's another, . Blaze Melbourne up in Pittsburgh, , Dr.
Kwassa in Atlanta. , These doctors that are really, really specializing in [00:25:00] really fine tuning their endometriosis surgery techniques, , are doing incredible stuff. But yeah, a lot of 'em are cash pay because insurance won't cover it, which is really sad and hopefully will change. Yeah. Yeah. So two things about that.
One, it just strikes me so much because follow the science should mean follow the science and whatever the best science techniques, medicines to solve the problem. You shouldn't depend on the character or creed of the scientist who's doing the work. Right? So the anti-Catholic bias, , but I understand how that plays into people's perceptions.
You can't really mm-hmm. Separate out your biases. , Yeah. Recognize them. Maybe you can choose to do better. But then the other thing that strikes me as I'm listening to you talk is I just had a conversation with Dr. Richard Burt about he, , has this technique using your own blood stem cells mm-hmm. To, , not [00:26:00] cure because your genetics are the same, but reverse autoimmune disease.
So you take the, the sample from the patient and, , you do this conditioning regimen, wipe the immune system clean, but basically because it's not a drug, it's the patient's own mm-hmm. Biological material. Mm-hmm. There's no, no FDA approval because it's. Blood, like you can't patent blood. So there's not, , interesting awareness.
And the first one that he was able to reverse was multiple sclerosis ms, which is, you know, steals people's lives from them. Oh, that runs in my family. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very familiar with it. And, and the, but the patients, like the, the pharma, the medication, it's $60,000 in infusion, $90,000. And it doesn't even improve quality of life.
So that's the kind of money that's up. And for the, the medications that do not solve the problem for these patients, they maybe keep the condition [00:27:00] from getting worse, like slow the progression. Meanwhile, there's this procedure, there's a doctor who has figured out how to reverse and give people their lives back, but there's no, there's no money.
There's not a, a company that's going to get rich off of it. They're gonna get rich off of people staying sick. It's just this problem with the symptom, which seems like it's the same thing here, or not the same thing, but just a similar aspect of the problems with the system that really disincentivize medicine from addressing patient problems in a way that restores them to full health.
'cause , healthy patients are not, um, profitable. Yeah. Well, the Dr. Young likes to say like, I'm, I'm a one and done surgeon. He's like, I wanna, I wanna do surgery on you. Exactly. One time and never again. That's exactly what Dr. Burr said in the interview and in his book, everyday Miracles about same thing. I wanna, I wanna make the [00:28:00] problem we deal with God.
God bless those doctors. Right? They still exist. And then for trying to practice medicine that way, they get laughed off as voodoo doctors. Like we couldn't possibly actually address these issues. We are just gonna give them a pill to make people go, you know, go away. Right? And you just keep coming back more.
Right? And that's, that's it with IVF too, is it's like, okay, we're gonna have you, we're gonna get you your first baby and maybe, and then if you want another one, then you're coming back and doing more cycles with us. And, um, you know, rather than let's get you healthy, let's balance your hormones, let's, , get whatever surgical interventions we need going for you, , in the hopes that.
You yourself will be able to get yourself pregnant. Well, with your spouse of course, but, you know, with, with no assistance. They're working, they're working on the science to make it, they're working on that. , That's a subject for another podcast. It's [00:29:00] actually Emma, Emma Waters. And I did talk about that briefly in the, uh, yeah, she's a good one to talk to about that.
, If you could wave a magic wand and pass three laws to Marlborough, what would be on your policy wishlist? , Well laws, I don't know. Okay. Changes to the system, but yeah, changes to the system. I would like to see. , I would like to see a complete and total overhaul, first and foremost of what we call sex education in this country.
'cause it's a joke. It's condoms on bananas. , And so. Young women and young men, , reach adulthood, learning absolutely nothing about their bodies. , And without actually even really learning about, you know, they're taught about all the different methods of contraception and, and sex ed, , but they don't, they're not actually really taught how they work.
, And so we just have this ridiculous lack of, of [00:30:00] education, , in our country for people. , We, we keep people illiterate of their bodies. And so I would like to see actual true body literacy happen. , And in addition to that, , and, , maybe I should explain a little bit more what I mean by that. I would like both young men, young women, and young men to understand the female menstrual cycle.
I would like actual legitimate puberty education for young men and young women. . Whether it's done on a public education level or private education level, , I would just like to see an expansion of, of body literacy program, , so that when pri ideally before, , girls and boys are going through puberty, they have the context for why it's happening, , and know when it's happening and, and what it's all geared towards, which is good and healthy, , fertility, , and therefore good and healthy, just overall [00:31:00] health.
, And I'd like to see, gosh, it's like I wish I, I don't wanna just pull a number out of my, out of my hat, but there's a really huge proportion of young girls who, , have no idea what's happening to them when they start first period. , A lot of them think they're dying or that they're going to die. , And as the mom of three daughters, like, I just, I hate the idea that, , any young girl would, would start bleeding and have absolutely no idea why we have.
We had someone on our team at natural womanhood, no natural womanhood who, , thought she had cancer when she was like 11 or 12. She Googled it, , when she first started bleeding, , and carried that around with her for several months, thought she was dying of cancer. , And that's like a heartbreaking reality that I want.
I, I, I would love no young woman to ever experience, ever. Yes, I would like her to know why she's bleeding, and I would like her to know that it's a, a [00:32:00] good and, and healthy and powerful sign of, of her body doing what it's supposed to. Yeah. Um, and I would like her mother to understand that if she's not bleeding, uh, properly, if she's bleeding too much, if she's having too much pain with her periods, um, or, you know, insane moods, mood swings with her periods outside the norm, or any of the constellation of, of issues that young women can have with their cycles, I want their moms to know.
That there are doctors that they can take their daughters to who will not just put them on birth control. Yeah. Who won't just tell them that, you know, if you, unless you want her to miss school all the time, this is what you need to do. , And so, yeah, just on a, on a very broad population level, I would like to see better education and better understanding, better body literacy.
Um, and particularly around the female menstrual cycle and the fact that it is this fifth vital sign. Um, I'd [00:33:00] also like to see, this is a really big ask, um, but I would like to see, uh, magic wand so magical. That's great. I would like to see people stop referring to, um, IVF as infertility treatment. Um, I, I would wipe that out of the lexicon because it does not treat infertility at all.
It, it works around whatever issue is causing your infertility. Um, even, even when it's biologically, uh, unnecessary. I'll put that in quotes because it's not necessary for anybody to ever have a baby. But there are some really unique conditions. Like, uh, there's a complication of being a male cystic fibrosis gene carrier.
So you don't actually have cystic fibrosis yourself, but you carry the gene. [00:34:00] Um, men who have that, one of the rare complications of that is they don't have vast deference. And so, yeah. So they're, they're shooting blanks. Yeah. As they say. Um, we can't grow trins yet, yet until we can. Yes. IVF is one of the only, the only way that you're going to have, um.
A biological child of your own. Right. Um, there's gonna be, has to be some kind of medical intervention to get the sperm out of the testes. Mm-hmm. Um, and I don't know, I guess you could do ar artificial insemination. Yeah. Um, it wouldn't necessarily have to be IVF, but um, uh, with women too, if you've had your fallopian tubes removed either, um, because of, uh, cancer concerns or because you thought you wanted to be done having babies and you had 'em taken out and [00:35:00] now it turns out you do want them, uh, same kind of thing.
Right. You're not gonna get pregnant, um, without. Uh, the intervention of IVF. Uh, so there are some, some kind of anatomical issues that as of right now, restorative reproductive medicine cannot address. Maybe someday we will, maybe we'll be able to regrow tubes. Maybe we'll be able to grow, um, VAs deens. Um, but until then, you know, we have to be honest about the limitations of restorative reproductive medicine.
But still, even in those really kind of niche cases, you're not treating infertility, right? Mm-hmm. By using IVF to address the reason you're not getting pregnant. Right? So it's, it's just a complete, it's, it's the same way, um, that birth control for so long, we've said it regulates the cycle, right? It doesn't, it shuts it down.
Um, I would [00:36:00] like to, if I could wave my magic wand again, this is magic wand. I would wipe the regulating cycle language around birth control out of the lexicon, and I would wipe out the infertility treatment, um, association with IVF. Can I, can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah. So you mentioned like the, those limitations, but I'd like to go a little bit more into the potential with actually, um, treating the, maybe we're already going to go into this, but I think there's more to be said.
Um, especially for listeners who are not familiar. What can restorative reproductive medicine do to actually heal underlying causes of infertility that, um, that IVF just hijacks the body in circumvent. Sure. Yeah. Thanks. That's a, that's a good thing to delve into more deeply. As for endometriosis, uh, the surgical techniques that r RM trained professionals have mm-hmm.
[00:37:00] Blow conventional gynecology outta the water. Never, ever, ever go to a run of the mill gynecologist and let them do endosurgery on you Don't do it. Most of them will perform ablation, which is just burning the lesions, which you don't want. Um, and even the ones who will excise some of it, uh, won't get all of it.
Um, 'cause they're not trained to see all of it. Some of it's hard to see, or they won't poke around in there and make sure they're getting it everywhere it is. They'll just, you know, maybe get it off of one ovary in the hopes that you can get that one ovulating again. Mm-hmm. Um, they won't get all of it.
Um, and they aren't trained to prevent adhe, uh, adhesions. Um, and so that's the scar tissue that will form after, um, endometriosis excision surgery if the surgeon isn't trained to prevent them. And that's really common and it can actually leave you almost worse off [00:38:00] than you were prior to having the surgery, if you can believe that.
So, um, uh, someone trained in, in, in neo fertility in, um, femme doesn't really do surgery so much, uh, but NaPro technology, um, somebody who, who is actually trained in, in those, um, forms of restorative reproductive medicine. Can go in and get all of the disease, prevent adhesions, and so they can restore normal anatomy to your, your organs and your pelvis.
They that can help your ovaries start ovulating again. Um, they can open up tubes, even tubes that have been blocked or damaged by endometriosis. Um, Dr. Naomi Whitaker is, is a big specialist in this. You can find her on Instagram. She's a huge following on Instagram. Um, she, um, and her RRM Academy, she has a lot of, of videos of, of her performing these procedures and, and giving information to doctors who wanna learn more, [00:39:00] um, and patients who wanna learn more.
Uh, so don't, don't listen to, um, a doctor who tells you, your tubes are blocked. We can't do anything for you. It's IVF or nothing. Uh, RM trained doctors can open your tubes a lot of the time, um, in addition to removing any, uh, endometriosis. Tissue that's, you know, inhibiting your ovaries from functioning properly, properly or, um, your, your uterus from functioning properly.
Mm-hmm. Um, uh, so those are kind of the, some of the big ones with, with endometriosis. Um, and then, uh, with PCOS, uh, they can do some hormone balancing. A lot of PCOS is, is, is lifestyle issues. Mm-hmm. Be addressed with lifestyle issues. Not all of it, but some of it. Um, and so they can help with the, with hormone balancing.
With PCOS, if your ovaries are so polycystic that they're huge, that there's like risk of, of torsion, which is when they get so heavy that they can fall and twist and you [00:40:00] can, they can actually die and you lose an ovary. Um, they can do, there's some surgical techniques, ovarian wedge resection where they actually go in and cut a whole wedge out of it and, uh, stitch it back together.
Um, and they have found that that can help restore ovarian functioning for some women. Um. And, uh, again, uh, hormonal balancing. So, uh, targeted progesterone supplementation. Um, and if a doctor ever tells you, oh yeah, we'll I'll do progesterone cut, we just do it on, uh, day 14 through 28 of your cycle every other day run.
Okay? Because they should never be giving you a, a day of your cycle at which they are telling you to do an intervention. They should know that your cycle is unique to you. They should be looking at your charts. They should be either, they should be teaching you or somebody who works adjacent to them should be teaching you a, a fertility awareness professional.
Um, should be teaching [00:41:00] you how to read and chart. Your own cycle. Um, and then they should be implementing hormonal blood draws and hormonal supplementation, um, according to your specific cycle. So none of this come in at day 14, 16, 18 nonsense. It's come in, uh, you know, two days post peak, then four days post peak.
'cause your peak is unique to you. Right. And you should be taught to identify your own peak. So, and not just you, it's, I I each cycle, right? Yes, exactly. And can, can change, especially if you're dealing with, with cycle issues, your peak might change, um, and be on different days across different cycles. So, have you heard any of this stuff?
I don't know that there's actual, actual research on it, but mm-hmm. Just anecdotes about using GLP ones to address PCOS. Yeah, we, we actually have an article about that at natural womanhood that I can, can link in the [00:42:00] show notes. Um, you know, there's, I think there's a lot that we don't know yet about GLP one inhibitors.
Um, there's issues with being on them long term. Um, certainly losing weight. If you have PCOS and you're overweight, losing weight can be a really, really great way to help. Um. Mitigate or even help start to reverse your PCOS. Yeah. Um, but you need to do it safely and you need to do it in a way that, um, you're, you're still nourishing your body properly.
Mm-hmm. Um, I would never tell somebody that like losing weight when you have PCOS is the end all, end all be all. You should be cleaning up your diet. Um, and then hopefully when you do that, weight loss will come. Mm-hmm. Um, but you just need to focus on nourishing your body properly, first and foremost.
And I fear with the, um, the GLP uh, one drugs, um, that are out there, that again, [00:43:00] we're not really giving people good, good body literacy, good understanding of how to take care of themselves. It's another kind of quick fix. Mm-hmm. Um, and unfortunately. That is where people are turned off by RRM and where they see IVF is more of like the quick fix, right?
Because a lot of RRM is we're doing, uh, these interventions and we kind of have to wait and see how the body responds. Yeah. Um, but ultimately you're going to end up healthier because of it. And I think we need to be better at expressing that to people. Um, I was at an event in Washington, DC a few weeks ago that was, uh, co-hosted by, uh, the Maha Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
Hmm. On women's health and infertility. And a point that I made that I think I just need to start beating the drum on even more is when I was undergoing my infertility workup. [00:44:00] With a restorative reproductive medicine trained doctor, um, I actually felt and saw myself getting healthier because of the interventions that he was encouraging me to do.
Mm-hmm. And because of the different targeted hormone balancing that we were doing, you could see it in my charts. I could feel it in my body. Mm-hmm. Um, I was actually getting healthier for my, for the infertility treatment that I was undergoing. Can you find me a single woman who has undergone IVF who says she's healthier for it?
I, you know, I, I won't hold my breath because in general I see women who health is absolutely destroyed because they've under, um, from undergoing IVF. Um, and so I think we need to hammer that home a lot more. Is that RRM? Sometimes it can be a quick fix. Sometimes all you need is endometriosis surgery by really good surgery and.
You might never need intervention again, except maybe some [00:45:00] hormonal supplementation here and there when you're pregnant. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, IVF you're, you're not gonna get healthier. And so maybe that's why we see, um, worse maternal and infant health outcomes with IVF. Um, we don't really understand why the outcomes are worse, but my thinking is that because the moms are not healthy to begin with, and they're made even less healthy by the extreme interventions of IVF, the drugs that you're put on to pump out, you know, dozens of eggs at a time, which no female body was ever meant to do mm-hmm.
Naturally. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, having to get on the, just the drugs that shut down and then kind of give you a fake cycle so that they can target when they implant the embryos. And by the way, they do this to surrogates too. Mm-hmm. Um, it's the same thing. They have to get. The surrogates cycle on, on track, right.
As it were, [00:46:00] um, for the implantation of the embryo. And so, um, we just, we don't see women getting healthier as a result of IVF. And I think that's an incredible shame because we want healthy moms. Mm-hmm. And we want healthy babies. Um, and we want moms who are healthy enough postpartum to be able to take care of those babies and those children.
Mm-hmm. And so when we're so laser focused on, we just have to get a baby, we just have to get a baby, we just have to get a baby by any means. We're not thinking long term about the health implications of forcing pregnancies upon women who have all these underlying health issues that have been totally unaddressed with IBF.
Well, and then, and then the industry really preys on that beautiful desire for parenthood. Yeah. And the, the pain of not having been able to, um. To pursue that, um, to its fullest ends. And the fact that women [00:47:00] will then, in that instance feel a degree of desperation of like, I don't care if it doesn't, if it makes me less healthy, if it makes me less healthy, but I am able to be a mom.
Like that's Yep. What I wanna do. Yep. And there's a lot of money to be extracted from that and, and a lot of money to fund advertising and articles and celebrity. Um. Yeah, I guess PR type stories of isn't this so great? Um, and not a lot behind actually healing women. Um, we're running up on our time here and I do wanna respect your time, but I did wanna circle back to this question of education and talk a little bit about Natural Women hoods, period genius program.
I'm going through it with my daughter who's a little on the young side, but you know, she'll be, she's very precocious, so she'll be prepared, but it's absolutely fantastic. So I would love to hear, um, for listeners, you know, what is the program? What inspired it, what [00:48:00] kind of feedback you're getting from other moms and girls, not just our great experience.
Yeah, thanks. Can I, can I ask quickly how old your daughter is? Who you doing it? She's nine. She's nine. Nine. And I started, yeah. It's not too early actually. We, we created our period genius program, um, with eight to 12 year olds in mind. Um, and so your daughter's the perfect age because ideally. Like I said before, I want a world where no little girl or teen girl starts her period thinking she's dying and having no idea what's happening.
Right. And unfortunately, that's the world that we live in right now. And so, um, our period genius program is a puberty education program for girls eight to 12. Although we've had moms tell us that they have their older daughters who've sat in on it as they're doing it with their younger daughters. And the older daughters are getting a lot out of it too.
Um, because we don't, we didn't infantalize anything. We don't talk down to you in the program. It's, it's 10, 10 [00:49:00] minute videos, um, that go through the science of the cycle, um, that go through what to expect in puberty, what a normal healthy cycle looks like, what a, what an unhealthy cycle looks like, how to get help for cycle issues, um, and, and all of these different.
Different, um, aspects of, of preparing, uh, girls and, and young women for the life, the embodied reality of being a woman. Um, and we've had really awesome feedback from it. Some of my favorite feedback, I think my very favorite piece of feedback that I've seen was from a mom who said, um, I am loving and so appreciating the change that I've seen in myself talking about my fertility and my womanhood and, uh, and my, my femininity in a positive way for the first time in my life.
And so that, like, that to me just, that's incredible [00:50:00] because we need, we need moms to really, um, heal. Mm-hmm. That was one thing that we realized with the research that we did going into developing the period genius program, was that so many moms are approaching. Puberty and their daughters from this place of fear because of how they experienced puberty.
Um, they, or just the way that it, that you were socialized to think about it or Yes. Talk about it or not talk about it in your family growing up, that mm-hmm. It could be hard to even understand, well, how do I, how do I approach this? Or how do I, that's why I thought it was such a good, um, a good way to frame everything around the beauty of your body, preparing for this incredible natural capacity of marriage, um, of, of marriage.
Yes. Marriage, but of motherhood. Um, yeah. And, and to be able to talk about that in, and to start discussions to, [00:51:00] uh, to open up that line of communication. But to have that, you know, solid foundation to start from is really beautiful. Yeah, and it's, I think what's really unique about it is that it's, it's evidence-based, um, and it's really taught from the standpoint of, you know, this is what your body, this, this is what your body does.
And it's a, it's a good thing. This is a sign of health. This is why your developing breasts, this is why you're developing hips, this is why you're going to bleed and, and why ovulation is so important. We really get into all of that so that, you know, it can be such a, such a disorienting time, um, when you're a teenager to have all of these things happening, happening to you and having no context for it.
Mm-hmm. You know, you're, you are developing breasts, you are developing hips, so you're competing differently in sports, and that can feel unfair and you're attracting the male gaze in a way that you never have before, and that feels a little bit [00:52:00] scary. Um, and if you don't have the context for No, this is all geared towards.
You being able to, um, conceive and carry and. Nourish a new life someday it can feel like, oh my gosh, why is this happening? I hate it. I don't understand it. It's scary. I, why, why, why do I have to undergo this? And it, um, I think that's, I think it's a big reason why we're seeing women just run so far in the opposite direction of embracing femininity, right?
To the point where we have scores of, of girls saying like, no, I'm actually a boy. I don't wanna do this, this girl thing. Um, and so I think it's really powerful when we can contextualize, um, the changes of puberty as being all geared towards, um, eventual motherhood someday, and the gift that that is. And then also letting them know that if you are having problems, those are [00:53:00] real, those are legitimate, and they need to be taken care of in a way that protects and preserves your fertility.
Doesn't just. Deal with symptoms and shut everything down. Um, because that's the other aspect of it too, is right, that women just feel so lost. And I think moms feel so lost when it comes to getting their daughters the help that they need. Um, and so our period genius program gives moms the, the script is not just for moms.
We've had some dads do it, we've had grandparents do it. Um. With their kids and grandkids. Um, it's, it gives you the tools that you need. You don't have to be an expert. You don't have to teach a fertility awareness method yourself. You don't have to, you know, be a, a trained gynecologist. We actually have somebody who, who told us, like, I think she was a, an ob, GYN and an RRM trained OB GYN.
And she said, you know, I know all this stuff, but the way you guys condensed it down, um, for my [00:54:00] daughter and presented it in this just engaging and informative and and age appropriate level, she's like, I never could have done this. Yeah. Sometimes we know too much to articulate it Exactly. In a way that doesn't make your kid feel like they're drinking from a fire hose, you know?
Yeah, exactly. And so I think our program does that really well. Um, and especially if you do like one 10 minute episode with your daughter. A week for 10 weeks or maybe a couple at a time, you know, and then yeah, give your, give yourselves time for discussion after it. Um, and then we have some other supplemental materials to different suggested activities that you can do that go along with the different videos.
But, um, we're really, really proud of the program and we actually have a really good promotion going for July. I don't know if this episode will still air, um, but it will be in September. Okay. Well, we do occasionally run some promotions on it. Um, and, uh, it's not very expensive even at full price. Um, and yeah, we've had [00:55:00] such, such phenomenal feedback and I'm, I'm really, really proud of that program and, and the change that's, that's happening, um, in individual girls and moms lives because of it.
Yeah. I wish we had more time to keep talking. Me too. So much to say and so many more questions. But, uh, we are out of time. So one final question that we're asking all our guests that I am asking all of our guests is, who is one person, alive or dead real or fictional, who you believe exemplifies the very best of being human?
Um, I really, really love, um, Emily, uh, Chapman, uh, the, the writer. She's got a, a great substack called through a Glass darkly. Um, I subscribe to, I love it. Yeah. It's the, it's one of the only substack I pay for, um, which should say something, uh, because she's, she's just. [00:56:00] She's so good. Um, the way she, she delves into different, um, issues, uh, around faith and around family and, um, even food.
Like every, everything that she talks about, she does it from such a, a measured, um, perspective. Both understanding the, like the ideals that we're striving for and the human brokenness that we all carry that makes it difficult, yet encourages you to still pursue the good, um, every way that you can. I feel like every single article I've ever read by her and every book I've ever read by her, you can really sum, sum up in that way.
Um, for, for podcast listeners, I, uh, of this podcast, I really appreciated her comments on Brian Johnson, who is trying to live forever and sacrificing everything that makes life worth living in the process. That was a great post. I [00:57:00] don't. I dunno if that was a, um, public or paid one. But we also had, uh, Emily on the podcast in season two, uh, she talked about embryo adoption.
So, uh, what do we do with the leftovers? Um, from IVF Yeah. That are gonna be discarded, um, frozen indefinitely. So that, um, if you wanna hear about Emily's infertility journey process of discerning adoption and how she thought about the moral question of, and thinks about the moral question of embryo adoption.
Mm-hmm. There's that episode to listen to also. Yeah. So she's just great. I think she, she came to mind after thinking a little bit about that question because I do think she actually, she walks the walk too in, in her home life. Um, I've been fortunate to meet her just once or twice and can, you can just see that she is who she says she is.
Um, she's, she doesn't, and she's kind of something of a, of an [00:58:00] influencer, right. But, um, she's very unfiltered. Um, she's not trying to put on errors and, um, yeah. So I just, I, I really, I really love her and she's, who came to mind to answer that question about just being human. Excellent. Thank you. I'm sure she will be, uh, tickled and probably a little embarrassed too, probably.
Yeah, because she's very humble and I fan, I fan girl over her a lot. So how can listeners support this movement, um, either publicly or personally, and how can they find you, your work in natural womanhood? Yeah, so I am the editor in Chief of Natural Womanhood. You can find all of our resources, all of the content we put out@naturalwomanhood.org.
Um, and I also host the Natural Womanhood Podcast, which you canfin you can find across all of the different, uh, podcast platforms. Um, and yeah, that I, I write, uh, I do some freelance writing and, and different outlets as [00:59:00] well on occasion. But, um, for the most part, my main gig is being the editor in chief for natural womanhood.
That's where my, my passion lies is, um, in the work that we do there. Um, and from the educational content, like the period Genius program that I talked about to, um, the articles that we put out. We do three brand new articles around women's health every week. Um, and I, I edit all of those, um, to, yeah, the podcast and everything else in between.
Um. We're just, we're really, uh, committed to the ideal that every woman can, uh, learn to know and love her, her fertility, um, and to see it as, as beautiful, powerful, and healthy. Um, yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time and the conversation. It's been, uh, fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. It's always so good to talk to you, Samantha.
Thanks for having me on. You too.