Did you know many prenatals are designed for women who are already pregnant? As a result, these prenatals contain vitamins and nutrients you don’t need until you are pregnant!
On this episode, we discuss the PCOS fertility world with Dr. Mark Ratner including fertility supplements, treatments, and the importance of other nutrients that are beneficial for getting pregnant!
Why are women with PCOS often told to lose weight in order to get pregnant? We discuss common IVF practices and misconceptions regarding PCOS & fertility.
What essential vitamins should be found in a prenatal? You’ll learn the importance of certain vitamins and compounds such as Vitamin D and folate. What are you waiting for? Click play!!!
Interested in learning more? Read on for our breakdown of what we learned on today’s podcast:
As most of us Cysters know, fertility can be a real challenge. Women with polycystic ovary disease often struggle with fertility and are left wondering how they can improve their chances of starting a family of their own.
Taking a prenatal vitamin can improve fertility in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome by filling the nutritional gap. Basically, prenatal vitamins can help ensure your body is getting all the nutrition it needs to be in tip-top shape. And when you’re in tip top shape, chances of conceiving greatly increase.
Prenatal vitamins can also help Cysters fight and ward-off common symptoms of PCOS during pregnancy. Think about reducing inflammation, hair loss, vitamin D deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, insulin sensitivity, and more.
Taking prenatal vitamins is not limited to just pregnancy; they can also be beneficial for women who are trying to conceive. In fact, women with PCOS symptoms may find prenatal vitamins helpful in managing their condition. PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, is a hormonal disorder that can affect fertility. Prenatal vitamins containing essential nutrients like folic acid and vitamin D3 can support reproductive health in individuals with PCOS.
In addition to fertility benefits, prenatal vitamins can also help regulate the menstrual cycle and alleviate PMS symptoms. The nutrients present in these vitamins can support hormone balance and reduce the severity of menstrual cramps, bloating, and mood swings.
Moreover, prenatal vitamins can play a role in managing insulin levels. Women with PCOS often experience insulin resistance, where the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin. Certain nutrients like zinc, found in prenatal vitamins, have been shown to help improve insulin sensitivity. Incorporating zinc supplementation through prenatal vitamins can be beneficial for individuals with PCOS symptoms.
When considering prenatal vitamins, it is essential to examine the label and ensure they contain the necessary nutrients. Refer to the table of contents to confirm the presence of key vitamins such as folate, vitamin D3, and zinc. It is always recommended to consult with a healthcare professional to determine the appropriate prenatal vitamin regimen based on individual needs and health conditions.
Women with PCOS that wish to take a prenatal vitamin should look for some key ingredients, in order to get the max benefits. At the very least, the prenatal vitamin you choose should have:
Women with PCOS should also consider a prenatal vitamin or supplement for PCOS that includes myo inositol and d chiro inositol. These chemicals can improve insulin resistance by improving hormone levels. And in turn, this can help prevent pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes.
When it comes to improving ovulation and regulating the menstrual cycle, certain dietary supplements can be a game-changer. One thing to keep in mind is that those with PCOS may be magnesium deficient, which can impact androgen levels and menstrual cycle regularity. That’s why it’s important to choose a prenatal vitamin that includes magnesium (bonus points if it’s in the form of magnesium glycinate, which is easier to absorb). So, when searching for the best prenatal vitamin for PCOS, make sure to look for one that contains this important mineral, along with other key nutrients that can support reproductive health.
Here are some of the Fertility Supplements discussed in the episode:
Pre-natal for women trying to conceive – 15% off PRC code 292660
All ThereNatal products are tested and certified under strict systematic review and meta-analysis. They are free from dyes, and certified gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian. ThereNatal Core is meant for women trying to conceive. According to ThereNatal, Core is a “preconception supplement that provides the optimized dose of nutrients for preconception and early pregnancy with higher vitamin D, lower iron, and methylated folate.”
Pre-natal for women over 35 trying to conceive – 15% off PRC code 292660
OvaVite is similar to Core, except that it’s geared more toward women over 35 who are trying to conceive. It’s specially designed to work on the egg, where all life begins. According to ThereNatal, “OvaVite contains highly bioavailable CoQ10, to support healthy egg quality in women in their mid-30s and beyond.”
Pre-natal for pregnant women – 15% off PRC code 292660
Finally, we have the ThereNatal One, which is for women who are already pregnant. This all in one vitamin contains the perfectly curated amount of essential vitamins and minerals to support a healthy pregnancy. ThereNatal states “ThereNatal One provides the optimized dose of nutrients for pregnancy including DHA, folate, iron, iodine, and vitamin D.”
Join us in The Cysterhood, a community of women learning how to manage PCOS & lose weight, Gluten and Dairy Free! (bit.ly/The-Cysterhood-Membership)
While Tallene is a Registered Dietitian and Sirak a Personal Trainer, this podcast provides general information about PCOS. It is not meant to serve as fitness, nutrition or medical advice related to your individual needs. If you have questions, please talk to a medical professional. For our full privacy policy, please click on the following link: (bit.ly/PCOSPrivacyPolicy)
All right, babe. Let’s take a moment to correct our posture. Take a deep breath and have some pure spectrum CBD. Sure. Hey Cysters CBD can help with acne inflammation, anxiety asleep, and so many other PCOS symptoms. I personally take it throughout the day to help keep my stress hormones nice and low. Not to mention I sleep like a baby every night and I don’t wake up fatigued at all.
Open your mouth, please. So I can give you a serving. Now, hold it for 60 seconds. Head over to pure spectrum cbd.com and use the code, the sisterhood one word for 10% off. Can I stop now? Nope. You got 30 more seconds. Hey everyone. Today on the podcast, we’re going to talk about fertility with Dr.
Marc Ratner. We go into details about how IVF works and its success rate for women with PCOS. We also talk about prenatal supplements and why it’s important to pick the right type of prenatal based on where you are in your PCs pregnancy journey. We even discussed prenatal options that are available to you. Hope you enjoy. Hello sisters. Welcome to this episode of the podcast.
We have Dr. Marc Ratner back on the back on the podcast. And today we’re going to talk about fertility with PCOS. We’re going to talk about Dr. Mark Ratner’s experience with treating IVF patients as well as how to help women achieve fertility through natural supplements that are over the counter and much more for those that don’t know. Dr. Marc Ratner is a fertility doctor.
He is the inventor of Avast Atol and Theralogix and Dr. Mark Greiner. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Scott. Of course. So we should just start, start off the podcast by asking you first, could you tell us about your experience working with IVF patients who have PCOS? Sure. So women with PCOS who are hoping to conceive are faced with the obvious challenge of not really being able to predict when they’re going to ovulate.
Okay. If their periods are extremely irregular, trying to time intercourse, trying to figure out when they’re fertile, when they’re not becomes near impossible. And so there’s really two approaches that that one can take. One can try to restore a more predictable ABI Latori kind of schedule. Okay. In which case, if there are no male factors. In other words,
if the, if the male partner’s fertility is normal, you know, in any given month, here’s a statistic that you may not know in any given month of trying where the male and the female, the man, and the woman both have normal fertility. The chances of conception are only 15 to 20%. So this is why we say, when we say what’s infertility,
you know, is a couple infertile. Technically the definition is a full year of trying to conceive without a pregnancy. And so now that’s basically when we then suggest, okay, go start seeing some professionals. Okay. Typically the first doctor that that is on the list is going to be the women’s OB GYN. But in the case of a woman who has PCLs and extremely irregular ambulation,
irregular periods, it’s not going to be a mystery as to why she probably hasn’t conceived. And so one approach is to try and restore normal, regular Menzies and have her ovulate on a very, more, much, more predictable schedule, but that does take patients. And so it’s not something that can happen typically as quickly. And sometimes doesn’t happen as quickly as treatment might occur and,
and ovulation might occur in a fertility clinic. Now, fertility clinics have basically two trips that they use. They’re not really tricks to techniques where they can put the sperm and the egg together. Okay. One technique is called intrauterine insemination. They call it IUI for short. Okay. And I UI is sort of a, it’s a upgraded sort of version of the old Turkey based or technique.
Okay. Basically you, you put, the woman typically is gonna be put on medication, oral medication to try and stimulate oblation. And then when the woman ovulates a specimen is collected from the guy and he produces a specimen. They process that specimen and they inject it up through the cervix and into the uterus. So it’s intra uterine insemination, one IUI cycle.
One attempt at IUI is usually gonna have about a 15% success rate. Okay. So in theory, you may have to try for a few months of doing IUI before statistically, you and ended up with the pregnancy. Okay. IVF, on the other hand, for individuals who are sort of unfamiliar with what is involved, IVF actually involves extracting eggs from the woman’s ovaries and then taking sperm,
the guy gives sperm and a specimen. And then in the lab, the sperm and the egg are put together. Yeah. So once they put it back together in the lab, and once it’s like successful there, they put it in the woman’s body. Correct. Well, typically what happens is I’m sorry. Say it again. Sorry to break it down.
It’s typically because the woman isn’t able to ovulate and like release the egg herself. Yeah. But they also want to try and increase the chances for a successful cycle. So under normal circumstances, when a woman ovulates, she makes one egg each month that she ovulates one egg is produced. Sometimes it’s from the right ovary. Other times it’s from the leftover a okay,
rarely, a woman might produce two eggs. And if they both fertilize, she’s going to end up with fraternal twins, not identical twins. Right. But typical month, a woman is going to make one egg. Okay. When they do IVF, they give the medication to women, to the woman to make her ovaries just go into like crazy overdrive.
Okay. So that during that month that she’s taking those medications, her ovaries might make 10, 12, 15, 20 eggs, while both at the same time, they watch those eggs develop using ultrasound. And then when the eggs are ready, they extract them with a needle procedure. Woman has to be under anesthesia for that. And so they extract those eggs.
Now in the lab, you’ve got 20 eggs and they’re floating in a dish of fluid. And under the microscope, they either just pour the sperm into the same dish and let the sperm actually find the eggs and fertilize them on their own. Or there’s a technique that’s called. I C S I intracytoplasmic sperm injection. And what they do in the lab in that case is they take the egg under the microscope.
They hold it still and they put one sperm and they inject one sperm into that. And so if you’ve got 20 eggs, all you need is twenties perm. So the 60 technique is really good for guys who have extremely low sperm counts, where you can only get maybe a few hundred sperm, but whether you allow the eggs to fertilize naturally in the dish,
in other words, under the sperms on power, or you inject the sperm, typically you’re going to get about a 70% fertilization rate. So if you start off with 20 eggs, you’ll probably end up the next day with under the microscope, you check them the next morning, 14 of them have fertilized. And then they put them back in the, in the incubator and they check them 24 hours later.
And as the eggs develop over the course of several days, you’re going to lose a few along the way it was now you got embryos, okay. And maybe on the first day, it’s only four cells. And the second day it’s eight cells. And then by the third day, it might be 12 or 14. So the, the embryo is,
is growing. And typically they then wait until either anywhere from day three to day five of embryo growth, and then take the embryo and put it back into the woman’s uterus. So that technique in VR, in vitro fertilization, IVF, okay. Depending on the woman’s age, the best centers around the country, some, some centers have fertilization at birth pregnancy rates between 50 and 60% of cycles will result in a pregnancy.
Okay. But it’s, it’s expensive. It carries certain risks. There are drugs that you have to take by injection. Okay. The fertility drugs for an IVF cycle, the woman has to, you know, take injections. So IVF has some real advantages, but it’s not the only solution for women with PCOS. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the 50 to 60% for some women,
they may be like, oh, that’s like a, I have a 50% chance of getting pregnant. That’s probably better than what I’m doing now. But I think what’s really important to highlight is like, like being patient waiting for, waiting for like things to come to fruition, like results, like being patient with what You’re doing. Right. Well, the,
the, the key thing to recognize here is that whether it’s IUI or IVF, neither of those techniques address the underlying issues in women with PCLs. Okay. And so what are those underlying issues? This gets back to the things we talked about in the last podcast. Okay. Insulin resistance, excess testosterone in the bloodstream. Okay. All of those metabolic issues make a pregnancy once it’s achieved riskier.
Okay. So women with TCOs, here’s a perfect example, women with PCLs when they do get pregnant, they’ve got three times the risk of developing what’s called gestational diabetes. Okay. Now, gestational diabetes means that late in the pregnancy, the woman actually becomes diabetic. Okay. And having PCOS and having sort of preexisting insulin resistance makes the risk of gestational diabetes much higher.
Okay. And so a woman who just goes through IVF and they don’t think about the underlying insulin resistance, and they don’t think at all about these metabolic issues, she’s going to have greater risks. And in fact, it’s been shown. So for instance, going back to the Unasa tolls, a woman who she say, she’s going through IVF, a woman who takes Avastin tol,
and then continues over Vasa tall. And she takes the apostle tall during the time of IVF. Not only are the chances of a successful IVF cycle better, but if she continues it through her pregnancy, her risk of gestational diabetes drops in half. So addressing the underlying metabolic issues in women with PCOS is something that is real important. Even when somebody, even when a couple may be going through IUI or IVF,
Definitely the, there isn’t enough resources in mainstream medicine for the women with PCLs to know that they can achieve fertility through addressing the underlying issues. Oftentimes they’re handed birth control. And then the next thing they’re handed is Clomid. And then if that doesn’t work, they show up at the IVF clinic, they’ve run out of patients they’re exhausted. And maybe they had no idea that there were other solutions before this.
Can you tell us about their experience once they show up at the IVF clinic and how, you know, how they’re process, what their state is And what experiences like for them? I think that the safest thing to say is that it varies widely. There are some IVF clinics that take a, a really well thought out holistic and multidisciplinary approach to women with PCOS.
They have nutritionists, dieticians on staff. They, you know, they, they talk about weight management. And in fact, there are many IVF practices that, that have BMI limits. In other words, they won’t allow a woman with a above a certain body mass index to undergo IVF because of the increased risks. That’s a bit controversial in the field because Can you expand on why it’s controversial?
Because you told us earlier, and like, it’s, it’s really mind blowing when you, when you hear about this. Well, look, it’s controversial because there’s data, I think in both directions, there’s data that basically does say that women who have a very high body mass index, obese women have slightly greater risk of undergoing, okay. They have greater risks of a poor response to some of these medications that have to be used.
And the other thing is that the chances of a successful pregnancy are lower for women who have very high BMI. Now, the fertility world is one of the only specialties in medicine that actually sort of has public grading. Okay. And what we mean by that is that there’s actually a website and, and you know, any individual who’s looking around for help in the fertility world should know about this website.
It’s. So it’s called the society for assisted reproductive technology or SART S a R t.org or J. And you go to the SART website and it’ll say, there’s a, one of the dropdown menu says, find a clinic. And so you drop down and you pick your state and it opens up a list of all the fertility clinics in that particular state.
And each clinic has to risk, has to report their data to start. And so you can actually compare, let’s say you live in a state and it turns out there’s 12 different fertility practices in that state. Their data is reported in a standardized way. So you can say, okay, women from the age of 26 to 30, what’s their pregnancy rates.
And you can look at this clinic versus that clinic. Okay. One of the things that is the mark of, of a better fertility clinic is how, what their rate is of what we call high order births. Now, you know, every so often there’ll be a story on the news and there’ll be like a big press conference at some medical center somewhere.
And there’s, you know, a bunch of doctors and there’s a woman who’s now just given birth to septuplets. Okay. And it was like, oh my God, you know, the babies are all in the NICU and everybody’s doing well and everything. And in the fertility world, everybody is just shaking their heads. And the reason is because that’s a disaster,
okay. It almost never happens naturally. It’s always because of drugs or fertility treatment. So, you know, the optimum. Okay. Remember the Octomom. I mean, it’s a number of years already. I think our kids are teenagers by now, but this is a woman who had IVF and gave birth to eight babies at the same time. And she happened to see a crazy IVF doctor who put,
you know, like six embryos in and two of them split. And, you know, it was like really nuts. So the point here is you can go to the star website and they will tell you how many of the deliveries, how many of the cycles, the couples that went through IVF ended up with twins or triplets. It used to be that the mark of a good IVF center was how low,
not only the pregnancy rates, but how low was their rate of triplets or worse? You know, there was three babies, four babies, five babies at a time. Okay. Now we’ve reached a point where it’s twins are worse. Okay. You don’t want the, the, the push in the IVF world at this point is Singleton birth. In other words,
one baby at a time, because the risk of a woman who has two to a woman having twins is significantly greater than having one baby at a time. And then once you get the three babies for babies is just off the charts. So the point is you can get all of this information from the SART website. Okay. Yeah. And compare clinic.
I’m sorry, go ahead. I was just, I was just gonna mention, so like, when you consider that there is some sort of a website that has all the data that now the IVF clinics know that whatever results come out of their clinic is going to impact the website. So one day see a woman with high BMI, or maybe they’re going to know,
oh, it’s a higher risk. Oh, if this doesn’t go my way, it’s going to affect our numbers. It’s going to affect our possible, I mean, quote unquote sales, if you want to say that way. Yeah. I mean, That, that, that’s, that’s a little more cynical view of it, but that in the back,
listen, that has to be an, in a consideration in the clinic might listen. There’s there’s. The other thing is this, if you look at the start data for most clinics, when they, and they break it down by the woman’s age. Okay. Once a woman is past the age of say 42. Okay. What do you, two 43?
The pregnancy rate for, for an IVF cycle is in single digits. Okay. It’s really low. Okay. And so most, if not every IVF clinic, every, every fertility practice has an upper age limit where they would allow the woman to do IVF with her own eggs. And the reason is, yeah, your numbers are, the pregnancy rate is so low.
It’s just unethical to tell a woman. Yeah, sure. Come on. Well, you’re 44. We’ll, we’ll try and get some eggs from you and see if we can do an IVF cycle and get your baby, you know, the chances of that succeeding or tiny. Okay. And so what typically will happen is past the age of 42, 43,
most IVF practices will only allow a couple to use donor egg. Okay. And then, then there’s an upper age limit for how old a woman can be before. They’ll say, listen, even with donor egg, you know, once you’re past, let’s say, I don’t know, 48, 49, you know, then you’ve got to use a surrogate.
Okay. You got to find somebody else to carry the pregnancy because the risks are too high. So they’re balancing all of these factors in an IVF clinic. And unfortunately when we PCO S there’s the additional consideration of their metabolic issues that underlie, you know, their fertility problem. So you can’t look at it in a vacuum, you have to look at it more holistically and,
and, you know, make sure the woman’s taking a really good prenatal, make sure the women’s vitamin D level is good. You know, and again, a woman who has PCOS and wants to try and restore normal ovulation, if she’s in the hands of somebody, of a, of a, of a physician or a clinic that is taking that sort of more global holistic approach,
and she’s not pushing the age limit in terms of egg quality, you know, the problem is that once a woman gets past the age of say, 36 37, you start to see a decline in the quality of the eggs that she’s producing. It’s not that she won’t produce an egg. And obviously it’s just that the quality of the egg, the genetic material inside the egg starts to become less reliable.
And so the ability of that fertilize and grow into an embryo becomes compromised. That’s why women over the age of 37, 38 people think, well, I’m 40, but I’m still getting my period. That’s not the issue. It’s not whether or not you’re, oblating, it’s the quality of the eggs that you’re producing each month. Okay. So as I was saying,
when, when a woman is older like that, and you’ve got to be careful how you define older, but for women past the age of say 36 37, beyond that, you know, you, you don’t have the luxury of saying, Hey, let’s work for six months to try and get your ovulation regulated. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s typically,
you know, you want to press ahead and women With, PCLs also struggle with a quality and oblation, just like women who are over that age limit. So are there supplements that they can take to help with their egg quality? And I know there’s a great prenatal supplement that can help while trying to get pregnant. Speaking of the underlying issues, I think this is a perfect segue into like how they can actually Get down to the root cause.
So I think most women who were thinking about conceiving are aware of prenatal vitamins, and this is particularly an issue for women with PCLs the prenatal vitamins that if you go to the, the corner drugstore or you go to Amazon and you look for a prenatal vitamin, the prenatal vitamins that are sold for the most part are designed for women who are already pregnant.
The nutrient content of those prenatals includes things like extra iron. Okay. Because when you’re pregnant, as you get into your pregnancy, you need more and more iron as the baby grows. Many women late in their pregnancy become iron deficient. Okay. And so, you know, the government’s reg I’m sorry, the government’s recommendations as to how much iron intake there should be,
right on a daily basis is much higher for a woman who’s pregnant than it is for a woman who’s not pregnant and just getting her period every month. Okay. You know, and then the iron recommendations for men who don’t get a period every month and lose the iron that way are even lower. Okay. What’s that they’re lower than, than the recommendations would be for a woman.
Right. I see. Okay. Yeah. So the point I’m getting at here is a woman with PCLs who may be trying to conceive naturally, okay. Using Avastin at all, perhaps to try and restore a normal, you know, regular periods. She needs to be on a prenatal. Okay. And we’ll talk a little bit about some of the other nutrients that are typically going to be in the prenatal and why they’re important,
but the key is she doesn’t need extra iron. In fact, too much iron is going to be bad for her. Okay. Not only is it constipating, but it can cause stomach upset. There’s even some data that shows that excess iron causes increased oxidation of the egg and damage to the egg. So you don’t want during a preconception timeframe when you’re not pregnant yet,
you don’t want a prenatal designed for pregnancy and virtually every one that you can buy on Amazon or at the corner, drugstore is designed for women who are already pregnant. So it’s got lots of iron in it. And it’ll typically contain DHA, which is an omega three fatty acid. And DHA is a perfectly great. I mean, it doesn’t present any dangers,
but the point is that it makes the prenatal much more expensive to have DHA in it. And you don’t need the DHA until you’re pregnant. Okay. It’s sort of a one size fits all type of approach. In other words, what we did, if there are logics, but we did a number of years back is, you know, we focused on the fertility market.
Okay. And what we realized was that women who are going through fertility treatment, where they may be in treatment for three months, six months, nine months trying to conceive, maybe they’re going to go through multiple cycles of IUI. Maybe they’re trying to conceive naturally with intercourse. They don’t need all that extra iron. They don’t want to be taking a gestational.
We say a prenatal for pregnancy. We call that a gestational prenatal cause best station is nine months during pregnancy. And so we develop prenatal vitamins that are focused on women who are trying to conceive. So it’s got lower amounts of iron. I mean, this is especially important in a woman. Who’s not getting her period. Okay. If you’re going months without a period,
technically during those months, you shouldn’t be taking in all that extra iron. You’re not losing the iron because you’re not getting your period. And so our prenatals are focused on, on women trying to conceive and especially PCOS women trying to conceive. And so then the question is, are there you, you asked a moment ago, are there other nutrients that can help with egg quality and fertility?
And the answer is yes, there, there are. I will say that the, the nutrient that probably gets the most attention from obstetricians in terms of prenatal vitamins is what’s called folate or folic acid. Okay. And the reason why folic acid or folate, which is sort of the activated form of folic acid, the reason why that’s so important is because if,
if a woman is deficient in her levels of full, late in her body, the risk of having a baby with what’s called a neural tube, defect goes up, neural tube defects are things like spinal bifida. Okay. And it was recognized probably 20, 25 years ago that if you supplement adequate amounts of folic acid or even better activated folic acid, which is Foley,
you can dramatically reduce the risk of having a baby with spinal bifida. So most obstetricians are focused on that, but we’ve been trying for years to also try to get them to focus on vitamin D because a typical prenatal is only going to have maybe 400 units, 800 units of vitamin D. Yeah. And just not just not enough. Yeah. It’s really important for ovarian function,
correct. Vitamin D absolutely. It’s not only important for ovarian function and for, and for women with PCOS, but once you’re pregnant, having a normal vitamin D level in your blood is, is critical. Okay. So vitamin D is one of the only vitamins where you can go into your doctor’s office and get a routine blood test to check your level of vitamin D in your blood.
We call that test a 2,500 HD, okay. Or 25 hydroxy D and it’s inexpensive. It’s a simple tube of blood. And they basically can tell you whether your vitamin D level is super low or it’s in the normal range. And the point is that having a normal vitamin D when you’re trying to conceive, improves your chances for conception, but then once you’re pregnant,
having a normal vitamin D level lowers your risk of preeclampsia, it lowers your risk of bacterial vaginosis. These are complications of pregnancy. It lowers your risk of a preterm delivery of a premature birth. Okay. So vitamin D is critical for normal fertility and normal pregnancy, our prenatals, because they focus again on the fertility aspect of things, or preconception prenatals have 2000 units of vitamin D,
which really kind of separate them out from everybody. Else’s sort of prenatals. And the gestational prenatals are, we have prenatals both for before you conceive. And then once you’re pregnant and the prenatals that we have for once you’re pregnant, they’ve got 3000 units of vitamin D per day, along with DHA and other nutrients that are important once you’re pregnant. Yeah.
So getting on a good prenatal for somebody who’s trying to conceive is absolutely critical. You do not want to wait until you’re pregnant. This is a real problem. That whole thing with folic acid and spinal bifida, that part of the baby’s spine finishes development eight weeks in. So by the eighth week of pregnancy, the spine, the spinal column is, is finished through the fusing.
And so the risk of spinal bifida after eight weeks, you’re full light level. Doesn’t matter. It’s too late. So you’ve got to have good foliage in your system before that time. So you need to start a prenatal when you’re trying to conceive, don’t wait until you’re pregnant. So it’s a real problem. A lot of women, they walk into their obstetrician’s office.
They haven’t been taking a prenatal vitamin, and they’ll say, I think I’m pregnant. Okay. Now that’s not an issue with a lot of PCLs patients, but the point is you want to be on a prenatal before you can see. Yeah. I love How you’re, it’s like a very specific to the, to the needs. Is it before getting pregnant or is it during the gestational period because you want to be specific to what you need.
Like, you don’t want to take everything under the kitchen sink just to get pregnant because it’s not a lot of, it may not be what you need and you’re going to pay like an arm and leg extra when you could just get that one specific thing to get pregnant first and then move on to the next stage of supplements. If one other nutrient, I should mention getting back to your question Saraca and that is a specific nutrient that can improve egg.
Quality is coenzyme Q 10 co Q 10. And this is especially important for women past the age, say 35 36, because the, the decline in egg quality in the genetic material, inside the egg, the DNA that decline in DNA quality can be slowed. And the egg quality improved by supplementing with coenzyme Q 10 in the months prior to conception. And so our Theralogix,
our preconception prenatals is basically two of them. Okay. There’s one which is called core and it is one tablet a day. Okay. This got 2000 units of vitamin D. It’s got the a thousand micrograms of methylated folate. It has the amount of iron that you want prior to conception. Okay. And it’s one tablet a day, and it’s pretty inexpensive.
The other preconception prenatal is that same core tablet, plus coenzyme Q 10 in a soft gel, actually it’s two soft gels with that core tablet. So you’re not only taking the core tablet with all those vitamins and minerals, the D the full eight, but you’re also taking coenzyme Q 10 to improve air quality. And so that prenatal is called overbite that is intended for women over the age of 35,
36 years of age. I see. Okay. So if it was for someone maybe a bit younger who’s air quality might not be as low, they would go for something like thera core. And then if they, It’s just, it’s just cool. Called core theory, natal theory, natal core core. Yeah. And then overbite is the one for women past the age of 35,
36, either one of those would be perfectly sort of appropriate for a woman with PCOS. Who’s trying to conceive. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And we should mention that when, if their logic has a great support line. So if scissors, if you want to call and ask them direct questions about the core versus overbuy and where you are, like,
they’ll be very happy to help you with, with You support you through your pregnancy process. Yep. Yep. Yep. And There’s also melatonin, correct? Melatonin. Yeah. Yeah, no, Yeah. I was gonna, I was going to bring that up, but you know, sometimes it seems like, oh my goodness, you know, there’s all these different things that I take and what shouldn’t I take?
Yeah. So melatonin, you know, everybody always thinks about melatonin as being, just for sleep. You know, I’m going to take some melatonin because I can’t get to sleep at night. Right. And melatonin is a really interesting compound. Technically it’s a hormone. Melatonin is actually produced in our brain. We make our own melatonin. And technically it’s intended to sort of make you sleepy and your brain starts to make melatonin when the light level drops and you’re supposed to get sleepy from it and go to sleep.
Melatonin is also a very strong Annie oxygen and anti-inflammatory, and just as a totally sort of, paranthetically complete aside here, it has dramatic benefits in immune health. And a study was published two weeks ago by the Cleveland clinic, which, you know, the Cleveland clinic has this huge healthcare system in Ohio. And so over the course of time, since the past six months,
they’ve done something like 400,000 Kuvan tests. And so they took all the data from those hundreds of thousands of COVID tests. And they did this computer algorithm and extracted the data to see which patients that came in for COVID test had a positive test and, you know, had had COVID and who didn’t and what were the risk factors and what they discovered was people who were taking melatonin had a 32% reduction in risk of testing positive for COVID.
So, I mean, and actually then they even stratified it further individual. African-Americans had a 52% risk risk reduction. So melatonin does some very cool stuff. But one of the things he actually does is it helps ed quality. And it’s been shown that melatonin plus an ASA tolls are better than a NASSA talls alone. So melatonin is pretty inexpensive stuff. I mean,
you can, yeah. We, we make a very high quality melatonins called saratonin. You may be seeing the pattern here of thera a lot of their products, but, and it’s actually very important to, to look for a, a high quality product. There was actually a study published two years ago, out of a university in Canada, where they went out and they bought,
I think, 30 melatonin products in north America, you know, sold over the counter and they had them tested and they found something like 70% of them were mislabeled that the amount of melatonin in each dose was incorrect, not what they claimed on the label. And like something like 25% of them were contaminated with serotonin, which you do not want in a,
in a pregnancy or a fertility timeframe. So you want to get, if you’re going to get a melatonin product, and actually, if you want to get any type of fertility supplement or prenatal vitamin that’s over the counter, you want it to be independently content certified. Yeah. Okay. So because yeah, the supplement industry has more than its share of fly by night,
bad actors. And so there’s two programs. Might’ve mentioned this in the last podcast, there’s actually two nonprofit programs in the United States that will certify the content, content, accuracy, and purity of dietary supplements. So one of those products is sorry, one of those programs is called USP and the other one is called NSF. Okay. There are logics we’ve,
we’re actually the very first company to ever go into the NSF program. 18 years ago, every one of our products goes to NSF content certification. And so I believe our third Tonin is the only melatonin product that’s independently content certified in the United States. So that’s something, if you’re going to go to the drug store and you’re going to look for any kind of dietary supplement,
you really should restrict your, your choices to something that either has the USP logo or the NSF logo on it. That way you’re getting what you think you are. Yeah. It’s amazing. No, that was, that’s a great overview of fertility IVF and the other options that women with PCOS have. Yeah. The ins and outs like the struggles that a lot of people go through when they,
when they go through IVF clinics, as well as supplements that people can buy over the counter from their logics. For those listening, we’ll put the links in our bio or in the podcast description. And you can use our code for 50% off on those products. But I mean, it was a great episode. Thank you, Dr. Mark grander, and for explaining everything so well,
like Always heard enough. Take care guys. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye okay. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to come check out the sisterhood. It’s my monthly membership site, where sisters just like you are learning how to move through the stages of PCO S from Sage one cold and alone at the doctor’s office to stage five, nailing the PCs lifestyle,
gluten and dairy free, get ready to finally feel in control of your body again. Yeah.
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