Naturopathic Endocrinology: The Fertility Secrets Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby Making w/ Dr. Aumatma

“Women everywhere should know that they have reproductive choices….and that fertility is an outpouring of our vitality.  So if fertility is not happening it usually means that something is happening under the surface that needs to be addressed.”

- Dr. Aumatma

EPISODE OVERVIEW: I interview Dr. Aumatma, an award-winning naturopathic endocrinologist and holistic fertility doctor, as well as the best-selling author of, "Fertility Secrets: What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making."  During our conversation, Dr. Aumatma shares some great naturopathic fertility secrets, as well as resources and tools to support individuals and couples during their fertility journey.

In this episode we talk about:

• How traditional lab tests used by western practitioners don't always tell the whole story about your potential to conceive
• The truth of how age really impacts fertility
• The importance of addressing the underlying conditions that can impact fertility
• Her four step approach DDRR (discover, detox, rebalance, receive) to achieve pregnancy
• How to reverse the impact of hormones from birth control through detoxing
• What markers and indicators are most important in your fertility journey
• How to proactively extend and enhance your fertility life
• The benefits of an integrative approach to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)
• How lifestyle factors such as smoking, toxin exposure and more can impact the health of both eggs and sperm
• The effects of sleep deprivation and melatonin have on your fertility health
• How what you put in and on your body impacts your reproductive outcomes; and,
• …so much more!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Dr. Aumatma is a double board-certified Naturopathic Doctor & Endocrinologist, in practice for 15 years. Her holistic approach addresses the roles that lifestyle, diet and “state of mind” affect fertility.  She is also the best-selling author of Fertility Secrets: What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making, and has been featured on ABC, FOX, CBS, KTLA, MindBodyGreen, and The Bump as the Holistic Fertility Expert.

How you can connect with Dr. Aumatma:

• Instagram
• Twitter

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Reach out to work/train with Dr. Aumatma: www.holisticfertilityinstitute.com

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Transcript

EP.19 | Naturopathic Endocrinology: The Fertility Secrets Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby Making w/ Dr. Aumatma

Intro: Hey queen, I'm Faith Alaribe, the founder and host of the Sista Circle Podcast. Around here we have honest and real conversations about our health, mental health and wellness, topics that deeply impact our lives as women of color. And all with the mission to provide the information, tools and resources to fill up our wellness toolkits, make informed decisions and to allow us to thrive in every area of our lives. So, get ready to be enlightened informed and inspired. Go ahead and get comfortable queen consider this your official welcome to the Sista Circle.

Faith: Hey, Queen, before I get into the details about this week's episode, I want to share some statistics that I went across a few months ago. They actually led me to conduct not only this interview but also a few others. And they're all about the big F - Fertility. According to the ACOG, 12% of black women will have infertility compared with 7% of white women. Fertility rates among Latinos have fallen by 31% from 2006 to 2017 and that's compared to only 5% for white women, which is really leading to a big fertility gap. And that also means that black and brown women, like me, may face more challenges in achieving their dreams of motherhood. So, it's very important to me that I use this platform to plant seeds and provide listeners with resources and tools that you may not have known about or even considered and that may help you want to achieve your fertility goals. 

Okay, so I've got to be honest, this week's episode is so good. I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Aumatma, an award-winning naturopathic endocrinologist and holistic fertility doctor, as well as the best-selling author of Fertility Secrets - What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making. She's been featured on everything from ABC, CBS, and Fox to MindBodyGreen, and The Bump, so she must know a little something about fertility. Nevertheless, she's spilling all the tea on fertility and the conversation is relevant, whether pregnancy is the furthest thing from your mind, its top of mind, or something that you'd like to consider in the future. The information shared in this episode is so abundant. Now, let me give a few quick notes before we get into the episode. 

There are a few times that she does get a little woo-woo, but it's interesting stuff. There's also a statistic around IVF success rates just mentioned and I just want to note the ones likelihood of success with IVF is very individual. So, even when we hear different statistics, a woman's likelihood of success is based on several medical factors. So, when we hear dismal numbers, don't be discouraged to do what you need to in order to get your baby if that's what you want to do. And lastly, I want you to be sure to listen to this episode until the end because the gems that are dropped are dropped from the beginning, middle, and all the way until the end. And after you listen, I want you to do me a favor and think about three women in your life who might benefit from the information that’s shared here. And then, I want you to actually share it. So, let's go ahead and get into the episode. 

So, Sista Circle Podcast Community, I am so grateful and excited to have today's guest with us, Dr. Aumatma. Dr. Aumatma is a double-board certified naturopathic doctor and endocrinologist in practice for 15 years. She specializes in fertility and is the best-selling author of Fertility Secrets - What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making. Dr. Aumatma has been featured on ABC, Fox, CBS, KTLA, MindBodyGreen, and The Bump as a holistic fertility expert. So, Dr. Aumatma, welcome to The Sista Circle plane. 

Dr. Aumatma: Thank you for having me. 

Faith: Oh, my gosh! It's such an honor to have you here. So, let's get right into it. I always start my interviews with an intention. So, what is your intention for the women who will encounter your episode on the podcast? 

Dr. Aumatma: My intention is for women everywhere to know that they have reproductive choice, that they can choose to have a child or not have a child as they wish. And that fertility is an outpouring of our vitality. So, if fertility is not happening, it usually means that something is happening under the surface that needs to be addressed before you can have a child [unclear 04:50] fully. 

Faith: Thank you for that. So, who is Dr. Aumatma? Where are you from? And what is your mission? 

Dr. Aumatma: Well, I was born in India. I grew up in New Jersey. I've lived for many years in California, and I'm a fresh transplant to Houston, Texas. 

Faith:  Oh, you’re in Houston.

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah.

Faith: Awesome. Okay.

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, so that just happened like three weeks ago. It's really fresh. And my mission is really to empower women. Honestly, when I got into fertility, it was mostly because of my own story, and it was because I was with a partner, and I wasn't really sure that he was the right person for me to have a child with. I was actually pretty sure he wasn't, but there was something resting in the back of my head, and this is what I had learned in medical school, that our fertility drops off of a cliff at a certain age. And after that, we're screwed. And I was like, it took me 10 years to find this guy, it's going to take me another 10 to find someone else. Am I really going to wait that long? So, it really was that, that triggered me to start researching around, what is the latest on fertility? And what I really discovered is that a lot of even what I had learned in natural medical school is pretty not accurate as to what the research actually shows, and I walked out of that. 

It was a two-year deep dive into all the research papers, all the studies. And I was like, you know what? Our bodies are incredible. We have so much more than what doctors tell us, and it's time that someone take a stand for women, rather than for the medical profession or for kind of the status quo, is what I was calling at the time. So, that's kind of how I got into it, and it's really been my mission for the last 10 years to have women feel empowered in their bodies. That doesn't mean that you're going to, at 50, go and have a baby naturally, but it's not up to doctors to tell us what women can and can't do. I've seen women do incredible things and it's like our bodies are just amazing. 

Our human nature wants to survive and fertility is one of those things that is crucial to the survival of the species on the planet. So, we as humanity, it's really important to not give our power away to doctors that are saying, oh, you need to do this and that to your body to have a baby, but really take a step back and say, hey, if this is not happening on its own, what is it that's blocking it from happening? Because unless there's a genetic component to what's going on, which sometimes there is. I've met a couple of women that I was like, “Yeah, that's not something I can change, it’s your genes and nothing I can do about that.” But in general, most of what I've come across in my career has been, there's so much that's left undiscovered about our bodies, not only the female, also the man. It's just left to, “Oh, that's fine, we can ignore all of that.”

We need to focus on how to get you pregnant and our approach is the exact opposite. It's like all of that’s happening in your life, including the fact that you have a shitty job that you don't like, or you have a type-A personality. Not you in particular, in general. All of the things that we have experienced in our lives, I've traced some of it back to... this is going to sound a little woo-woo, but…

Faith: I like a little woo-woo. 

Dr. Aumatma: I remember a patient who was so deathly afraid of having going through childbirth. And I do this mind/body technique. So, when we got to that portion of our program, I was like, let's figure out what this fear is about, let's release this fear, and we trace back to a previous life that she had actually died in childbirth. And when we did that portion of the release, her body was shaking, she was lit. I was like, “Whoa, what is going on?” and then she released it and I kid you not, three weeks later she was pregnant.

Faith: Get out of here.

Dr. Aumatma: And she had a baby. She went through a natural childbirth. She was like, “It was easy. I was good.” 

Faith: That is fascinating. So, for the folks who are completely unfamiliar with the term Naturopathic Endocrinology, what is it? And as a practitioner, what do you do? 

Dr. Aumatma: What do we not do? So, Naturopathic Endocrinology - Endocrinology is a very, very Western term. That is basically a doctor that specializes in hormones that you might go to an endocrinologist for your thyroid, for example. But a naturopathic endocrinologist takes all of that conventional science as far as hormones and the understanding of hormones and puts it into the context of a body that doesn't work in silos. So, it's really this holistic approach to hormones that your thyroid is connected to your adrenals, which are connected to your ovaries. There's not a separation between thyroid and ovaries. And this is always surprising for people because they're like, “But what do my thyroid have to do with my ovaries?” It's actually accepted even in Western science to say, if your thyroid is low or sub-clinically functioning, it will impact the outcome of your pregnancy. 

So, this is a commonly accepted fact, but the fact that the hormone that the thyroid produces is T4, that hormone converts to T3, which is the active thyroid hormone. And the cutting edge of this is that there's another conversion that happens to something called T2, which is also a thyroid hormone that has receptors on your ovaries. So, when I found this out -- you can tell I'm a geek. 

Faith: No, I'm following you. I'm like, that is fascinating. 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, so we don't know what those receptors do, we don't know why there's receptors on the ovaries for thyroid hormone, but we know that they exist now. So, to me, in my head, it's optimizing every part of the connection to your ovaries and uterus is crucial before you even try to get pregnant. And sure, plenty of people get pregnant without this, but the way that I see it is, helping our bodies to function at an optimal state. Helps support not only our ability to conceive. That's nice. It also supports the health of the baby, and it's also going to support our postpartum health. So, how you feel, postpartum, is very much determined by, what was your nutritional level before you got pregnant? How are your hormones doing? How out of whack are those hormones? And how easy is it to be pregnant, stay pregnant, and go through that childbirth process? 

So, we are considering all of those pieces when we talk about naturopathic endocrinology, at least, in my practice, which is very fertility-focused. There are naturopathic endocrinologists that only focus on thyroid and their only specialty is to help support optimizing thyroid function, and often, those people will be looking at gut health, they'll look at inflammation, autoimmune conditions, viruses. There's so much in every piece of our organs or our glands that make hormones. That is not necessarily how our Western counterparts approach it. Most Western doctors are like, “Oh, your thyroid is not functioning, here is a thyroid prescription. See you later.”

Sure, there's nuances and making sure you have the right dose and all of that, but a naturopathic endocrinologist is going to take that to the next level and say, oh, let's actually address your gut issues, which are causing malabsorption, which are then causing thyroid issues. Or, let's get to the root cause that has to do with the virus. So, there's the natural, general, and naturopathic endocrinologist. There's probably about a hundred of us in the country. So, not a ton. 

Faith: Oh, wow.

Dr. Aumatma: Oh, yeah... 

Faith: It's only a hundred of you?

Dr. Aumatma: It’s a super-specialized thing. Yeah. 

Faith: Fascinating. Okay.

Dr. Aumatma: It might be even less than that, honestly. It’s a pretty extensive board exam that you have to go through, write up cases, you have to be in practice for a certain number of years specializing in endocrinology, so it's a process. It's not really like, oh you got out of school and then you did like a year, and then now you're a naturopathic endocrinologist. It's definitely more than that. 

Faith: Oh, wow. So, you are a specialist among specialists. Okay, got it. So, when we think about traditional fertility, it's kind of like all of the things that your doctor tells you that you should do, but when we think about it like a holistic approach to fertility, you talked about really getting down to the root causes of, why one might be infertile? But what is a holistic approach to just general fertility? What types of things might that include?

Dr. Aumatma: By general, do you mean the Western approach to fertility or the more natural approach? 

Faith: So, I'm interested in knowing more of a natural approach to fertility.

Dr. Aumatma: Okay. Yes, so the more holistic or natural approach to fertility really does, for me, in our practice, we've developed a system. Our system is, discover, detox, rebalance, receive. So, the four steps, DDRR, the first step is, discover and we've talked a little bit about that. It's probably the most important step and so often, people will come and say, oh, my doctor did every test under the sun, I'm good. It's unexplained infertility. And I'm like, yeah that still doesn't tell us anything, so we're going to go and figure this out. And they’re almost always surprised at how many other tests there are, so they'll come in with their basic blood work that their Western doctors did, and I'll look at it and I'll say, this is good. This is a really good start, but let's go deeper. Let's actually give you some answers of why you've been on this path trying to have a baby for five years and it's not happening.’

Faith: Can I ask a quick clarifying question? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. 

Faith: So, the basic blood work, you're talking about if someone were to go, to say like a reproductive endocrinologist, that's what they would provide, some basic blood work? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. 

Faith: Okay. 

Dr. Aumatma: So, the Reproductive Endocrinologist, for example, would start with, hopefully... I've seen doctors that don't even have done this, so hopefully, they started with a panel of what's called day three hormones. Those are the hormones that give, essentially, a screen of the most important reproductive-related hormones. So, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, anti-müllerian hormone, and estradiol. Those are the super basic foundation, really good starting point, really important, honestly. We use all of that data. So, we look at those numbers and say we can help you or we can’t help you. And people are also surprised though, like, what do you mean you can't help us? I'm like, “This is just not our specialty.” If you have a certain set of patterns on those hormones, that tells us certain things about where your body is at, and we're not about overpowering your body. 

For example, I just saw an application from a 48-year-old who has the pattern or the hormone picture of someone who's in menopause or she's peri-menopausal, she's heading towards menopause. And I was like, we can try to help her, but the likelihood that she's going to be successful is really low. So, are we going to say, hey, come work with us, come spend all of your time and money and not get the result you want? Probably not. That's not what we're about. So, our approach is like, let's actually look at those hormones and see, is this someone we can help or is this someone that's going to be better off going to get an egg donor or something like that? And for her, that's what I would suggest. So, we have those really honest conversations for free with everyone who's interested in working with us. So, we’ve already pre-selected or pre-screened the people that we know we can help.

Faith: And that's what the day three hormone does? 

Dr. Aumatma: That's the day three, yeah. So, that's the basic test. Then the second tier is the discovery phase, and that's really where we're like, okay, you're someone we can help, let's figure out how we're going to help you. And I can give you an example of that. And that was a new client who is 42 per labs, all of her day three labs looked great, but she hasn't been able to get pregnant for almost a year. And she's like, “I'm not sure we're going to do IVF. I'm not really passionate about it that much. I don't know that I want to do that, but I want to make sure that I do everything we can.” So, for her, I sat down and talked to her, actually almost three-hour consultation to do a deep dive in all of her body. Who like, tell me what your life has been about. Tell me about your periods. Tell me about your cycles. 

And I broke it down to, here are the two or three tests that I think are going to be really helpful for us to really take you to the next level of not only figuring out what's up with your fertility but also figuring out how we can get you feeling amazing all the time. She’s tired, she’s stressed out. She's been stressed out for years. So, my approach is like, okay, let's do some more… I call it progressive testing or functional medicine testing, which is really like, what's happening deeper in your body? How's your body functioning or not functioning at its best? And there are lots of different tests in that bucket. So, there's probably about 30 tests that we actively are choosing from, to decide which are the two or three that you need. 

So, now she's going to go do those tests and when I meet with her again, we'll have a really good perspective of, oh, yeah. So, here I thought your adrenals were out of whack and they were probably causing an imbalance with your follicle-stimulating hormone, so let's go and address your years of stress that you've been under. Let's undo some of that damage and heal your adrenals so that your body can feel more supportive. You'll probably have more energy and simultaneously, we're supporting you to meet your goal, just having a baby. 

Faith: Okay. And so, you do this discovery process, right? So, you do supplemental tests, you ask her about all avenues of her life, and then what happens? What's the next step? 

Dr. Aumatma: So, the next step with us is just detox. So, in the detox phase, we're really – often it's detoxing our life. So, there are a lot of reproductive toxins that are known and used in all kinds of products in our day-to-day life. So, we put makeup on our face, the average woman walks out of the house in the morning, or gets on Zoom in morning with 127 toxins applied onto her body. 127 toxins. And the skin is our biggest organ, it absorbs everything. So, if you wouldn't eat it, you really don't want to put it on your face because your skin is absorbing it all. So really, we educate a lot about, how do we detox our life, so that we're not being exposed to all this crap? Same for the men. They don't necessarily go to put toxins on their skin or whatever, but they're drinking it, they're eating it. They're eating out in foam or plastic containers. 

All of that is going to have an impact on their testosterone over-converting to estrogen. So, they're essentially signing up to have man boobs and non-functioning testicles because of the high amounts of estrogen that they're being exposed to. So, really sifting apart lifestyles to figure out, where are the key components where toxins might be seeping into our bodies and then negatively affecting our hormones, whether it be female or male hormones? And then, the second component is detoxing our food. So, we can use functional detoxes that help support our body to release old toxins that it's accumulated, but with fertility, we really have to do it in a way that doesn't deplete our bodies. So, we're really trying to conserve all of our nutrients while letting go of toxins. And that's a little bit harder of a process to do. A lot of people come in and say, oh, I've already done a detox. I've done a million and one detoxes and I'm like, “Great, and this is probably going to be very different because we're trying to renutrify your body while getting rid of toxins.’ So, we’ll do that process. And then, the third component is…

Faith: Before we move on to the third component. What is a functional detox? 

Dr. Aumatma: Well, so the way that I like to do it is using food and sometimes functional nutrient shakes. So, protein mixed with different nutrients that support the liver to get rid of toxins and then almost always will combine it with liver supportive herbs. And I'm a huge fan of green juices, so we'll add in green juice and potentially do a fast of some sort to facilitate the body to spill toxins, but the green juice is like hooking your veins up to IV of nutrients. One of the most potent things that we can have. So, all the chlorophyll that you get in a green juice, a green juice that's made properly, not the conventional stuff that's available in a store. But if it's made in the right way, it will actually give your body minerals and nutrients that we so desperately need, most of us do. 

Faith: Okay. Now I understand what a functional detox is. So, now we're on to step three.

Dr. Aumatma: Part three of the detox phase, which is hormone detox. And this is where we get into if you've been through an IVF cycle, or two, or three, or five like some of our patients, you've been exposed to high levels of hormones. So, what are we doing to clear out the effects of those hormones and how those hormones impacted your bodies? So, we have to get rid of that. And if you have been on birth control, which so many women have, the hormonal contraception will basically, you've been under the influence of hormones. For some women, for 15, 20 years, and often that is going to have us, a slightly negative effect, unfortunately, on fertility. Unfortunately, the research on that is, or hormonal contraception does not affect negatively fertility, it only affects – and this is what the research says. It only thins the uterine lining, which means that it makes it harder for the embryo to implant. 

What I've seen in clinical practice, is not always that. Yes, I see the thin uterine lining, but I also see that there are a lot of women whose bodies don't produce hormones very well. And the reason for that is they've been on birth control, so their body was like, well, I don't need to worry about making hormones because someone's giving me hormones. So, it just stops producing the hormones that it should normally produce or it's producing the hormones out of rhythm. Those are common things that I see that isn't necessarily supported in research yet. But I think it's still important to get rid of the effect that those hormones had on the body. 

Faith: Yeah. And so, how do you detox your hormones? 

Dr. Aumatma: There’s a protocol that I use, that is essentially like homeopathic remedies, individualized to what kind of affect your body had to the hormones. So, for some women, it's like, they get a ton of yeast infections. That's the effect. Some women, they have a thin uterine lining, they've had a bunch of miscarriages. So, depending on which thing, which outcome we're seeing in their bodies, we can kind of say, oh, well, this is the kind of homeopathic remedy that you need. So, it'll be individualized to what each person needs. 

Faith: That's awesome. And actually, I love the individualization of your approach to treating clients because I think that Western medicine is a very kind of like, one process kind of fits all approach to things. So, really, really good stuff. Okay, so we detox our lives. We detox our food. And then your hormones - is there anything else that women need to detox? 

Dr. Aumatma: No, that's it. Actually, one of the women that I met with this week, she's like, “Oh we live a super-clean lifestyle. Everything we eat is organic. We've done a bunch of detoxes.” And they had actually done pretty nice detoxing because they were coming from another naturopathic doctor, so they are like in tip-top shape. I was like, “Your detox is just going to be the hormones because you don't need all this other stuff.” So, we pick and choose what people need, but we can meet people where they're at. So, if someone's coming at a really high level, then we're just adding the little piece that we need specific for fertility. If they're coming from scratch, which is not abnormal, it's like they just haven't been advised otherwise. They're coming and they're like, “Oh, yeah, use like L'Oreal on my face and we live a detox lifestyle too.” Everything’s custom. 

A lot of people are like, well, I don't need to detox, and I'm like, well, let me make the judgment call on that because we don't know what your liver’s doing. We don't know what's happening in your body. We’ll know based on blood work that we do, whether or not you need just really intense detox, a gentle detox or what, something completely different and we'll figure it out.

Faith: Okay. So, you discover, you detox, you said, it's DD…

Dr. Aumatma: RR. 

Faith: Okay, so what’s the first R?

Dr. Aumatma: Now we’re on to rebalance. And the rebalance phase is going to be everything that we discovered, it's time to rebalance it. So, let's say we discovered thyroid issues, gut issues, and adrenal issues, then in the rebalance phase, the protocol for that person will revolve around getting their thyroid appropriate, getting their adrenal function back, and healing the gut. Actually, one of my clients this week, her cholesterol was off-the-charts, her blood sugar levels were off the charts, and there were some hormone imbalances. So, we did a retest, we started with some of those things early on, she detoxed, she did all the process, and then we did a retest. And her blood sugar went down to a normal level. I was like, woohoo, that's great. Her triglycerides went down, but her cholesterol didn't go down. And I was like, alright, so for you, we need to change gears a little bit and focus on lowering the cholesterol just a little bit. 

And then, the other component for her was getting her hormones improved and some of them had improved. There was one that I was like, I think we could still work on this one. So, then, in the rebalance phase, we're kind of tweaking as we go, so it's not a, here's your protocol, go do it. It's more like do your protocol, let's retest when it's appropriate to retest, and then let's reconfigure or realign if we need to. So, that will happen relatively often where we've started with something, some things work really well and the body gets into balance and some things are still needing improvement. In which case, we're like, okay, here's the few little tweaks over here that we can make. And then, at that point, our goal is always the fastest path to fertility. So, we do those tweaks frequently because we don't want to wait six months, and then now they're six months older and have all the issues that come with waiting six months. 

So, the fastest that we can take people through the process, we will. When we're looking at things, we say, here's what's out of whack. Let's address it and then retest. Some things are still out of whack, let’s readjust and tweak and get that right, and as quickly as we can get through the process, we want to get through the process. Usually, for us, we like to aim for five months, which is really, really fast. 

Faith: It is fast. I thought you were going to say the process would take like nine to 12 months. 

Dr. Aumatma: No. I discovered really early on that most people that are trying to get pregnant, they either don't have 12 months to wait, meaning they're a little bit older. They're like, 12 months, are you crazy? I want to go have this baby right now. So, there's that aspect. And then, there are the people that maybe have 12 months, but don't want to. They're just like, I'm anxious to have a child. I don't want to wait. So, fertility is this really weird thing where you don't think about having a baby. Most of the time you're like, please don't get me pregnant. And then, as soon as you're ready to have a baby, you're like, wait, why did it happen at all? [35:18] 

Faith: Exactly. It’s like, what is happening? I've been trying for two whole months and nothing, right? Yeah. 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. So, fertility has that unique urgency that not a lot of other health issues have, but I think we get pretty amazing results in five months. I've had people get pregnant in three months. Not by my choice. Sometimes we're like, okay, you're in a super rush, let's have you start trying at the 3-month mark. And they're like, boom, pregnant. I say this a lot but natural doesn't mean it takes forever. Natural takes forever if you're not with the right person who's going to help you and know how to test and tweak, and test and tweak. Then yeah, sure, it can take forever. There were times when I would see people that were working with acupunctures for like 3 years. I'm like, how did these acupunctures manage to keep you for three years? [inaudible 36:37] [cross talk].

Faith: That's a long time. 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, so it's pretty incredible. But I feel like it's amazing because I've seen this over the years, our bodies are amazing. You give it the right little ingredients, whether its nutrients or herbs and the body goes, oh, wow. Thank you. You listened. 

Faith: It's fascinating. So, I took a holistic approach to my fertility as well, and so it was fascinating to just see how things worked in my favor. Particularly, when I was told that the likelihood of my being able to get pregnant would be very slim to none. And if I were to get pregnant, it would likely be an IVF. So, I totally believe in a holistic approach to it. That's why I was so excited to have you here with this today. So, you gave us the first three protocols, right? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yes.

Faith: So, discover, the detox, the rebalance, and what's the final? 

Dr. Aumatma: The final step is received, and that's the mind-body component of the program. And we've kind of built it in. It used to be the fourth step, but what I realized is, we sometimes need to focus on that all the time. So, it's now in our program, as it's always happening, receive is always happening. We're always looking at, how do we get you out of being type-A? How do we get you more into your feminine energy rather than the masculine? How do we approach your stress from the aspect of helping you become more resilient in your body and adaptive to the stress that you have? Because on some level, we can't control that we're stressed, we're just always stressed. Most people are. So, how do we get our bodies to be better adapted to the stressors that we have so that it's not impacting our fertility? And like that component, I have seen sometimes is the harder more challenging component. 

If people are working with us, we have a weekly mind-body group. It's a pop-in, get the support that you need; and the people that come regularly are like, oh my god, it's literally the reset every single week for me to be like, oh, right. I don't have to be so stressed. I don't have to react or overbook myself and I can really focus on my self-care, filling my cup so that I can give to this future child.

Faith: Yes, absolutely. So, there are a couple of things that came up for me as you were talking about this mind-body approach. So, when we first started, you shared a story that you refer to as “a little woo,” right? You talked about you were working with this woman. Through this work, she was able to release this past life trauma, right? So, when you talked about working with this client, what were you doing? Was it like some reiki or what was it?

Dr. Aumatma: It's a system called, body talk/body intuitive, and it's a process of using biofeedback for me to communicate with the client’s energy. And essentially, I'm asking yes or no questions, and there's what I love about the system is that there's a map. So, I'm asking yes or no questions through a map. So, I'm saying, is it this? Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? And then, if it's this, then we get more specific and we go deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole until the body says, that's it. So, for her, it was instant. I think I landed on ancestral stuff. And then, I was like, is it her own ancestors? Or is it previous lives? And it went to previous lives. Now, I was like, how many lives ago? And it was like, if I remember correctly, it wasn't just her previous life, but the one before that. And then I was like, where was she? How old was she? What was happening in her life? So, it gave me all of the information. Her body has the stores and the memory of all of this.

Faith: Fascinating. 

Dr. Aumatma: And this woman is Catholic. So, [unclear 41:17] like, what are you talking about? 

Faith: I know that she probably went home and prayed something serious, to have that release.

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, but it's fascinating because I don't know that we know. I don't know if humans know if there are past lives or not. And I was like, it doesn't really matter if you believe in it or not. What is important is, if you don't believe in past lives, I was like, “You probably don't because you're Catholic, I get it. You can think about this as some energy that you picked up from a story you heard and embodied it to the point where it's stuck in your body.” And she was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I can get down with that.” And then allowing her body to release it and she got off the table and was like, “That was weird. I don't know what just happened. That was just super weird.” And then she went home and I talked to her the whole three weeks afterwards. I was like, “How are you feeling? Is anything going on?” She was just like, “No, I feel normal, nothing's changed.” 

And then, she got pregnant and I supported her through most of that pregnancy and she was like, “Should I be scared? Should I be afraid?” The whole time she’s like, “Am I going to die?” And I was like, “I don't think you're going to die. You're in a very different time, but do you feel like you're going to die?” And she's like, “No, I used to have this fear that was really real and I don't feel it right now.” And I was like, “Great. So, we've done our work, go have the child, you’re going to be fine.” And it's just really incredible how much that mind-body plays such a big component in fertility, in our ability to conceive, and also our ability to have a healthy baby. 

I can tell you another quick story. This one's cool too. This is not the woman; it was her partner. The man is 49 when I was working with them. First, when he came in, he's like, “No, I'm super healthy, everything's fine.” And all of his blood work checked out. He was fine. Every test that we did for him was fine. And then, I'm talking to the woman two months into the program and she's like, “Oh, he's in a lot of pain. He's just always been in a lot of pain.” And I'm like, “What do you mean pain?” And she's like, “Oh, he really can't sit. He goes from standing straight to laying down, and so his commute is on a bus and he stands on the bus. He can't sit down.” And I was like, “Huh, that sounds pretty severe. Maybe he should talk to me about that.” So, when I talked to him, I was like, “Why didn't you tell me? This wasn't anywhere on your paperwork. Nothing.” And he was like, “Oh, because I didn't think you could do anything about it.” And I was like, “Well, let's see.” So, I get him to lay down and I start doing the yes or no process, and what I traced it to was his fear of (a) being an older dad, and (b) he had this weird fear that the world was going to end and he was bringing a child into a world that was really about to end. 

Faith: Wow.

Dr. Aumatma: And both of those fears were held in his low back. And I was like, “Okay, that's definitely what's happening here.” So, we started releasing the fear on both levels. And I was like, “You have to stop watching television, no more news, no more catastrophic books, and podcasts, and every…” All of the media he was consuming was fear-driven. So, it was making his fear worse and then it just kept getting stored in the cells in his low back. I was like, “Okay, no more media that talks about this, you need to only listen to positive media.” And then the fear of being an older dad, we dived into that. He had an older dad, and his dad was 50 when he was three. He's like, “Oh, my dad just would never play with me and it was just awful. It sucked to be a kid to this older dad. So, I don't want to do that to my child.” We help to release some of that, six sessions, which took about two and a half months. And mind you, he was going to a chiropractor, acupuncturist, and osteopath every single week to deal with this pain. So, we did the sessions, six sessions later he's like, “You know what? The pain is gone. I can sit, I can stand, I can run, which I haven't been able to do.” 

Faith: Wait a minute. So, you're talking about, he did six sessions. In these sessions is when you're asking yes or no questions. 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, and then doing healings based on what the body tells me to do. 

Faith: What might that be? 

Dr. Aumatma: I don't even remember. It can be anything from, we need to hydrate the cells in a particular area to…, we need to release some energy, we need to do some emotional techniques to release stuff, we need to structurally rebalance the energy flow in the body. There's probably 80 different healing modalities packed into this one system. So, depending on where the body takes me, I do a session affiliated with that thing. 

Faith: No, it’s fascinating, the mind-body connection though. And I'm so happy that you're highlighting the importance of it because I mean just in thinking about the way that we think about ourselves, the way that we speak to ourselves, that then translates as to how we treat ourselves. Yeah, it’s so super important. 

Dr. Aumatma: It's incredible. So, six sessions later, he's like, pain is gone. I can lay, I can walk, run, I can do all the things that I thought I would never do again.

Faith: Drive, whatever. Yeah.

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, and then, literally two weeks later, his wife drops by my office and she's like, “I have something to tell you.” And I was like, “What? Are you pregnant?” And she’s like, “We're pregnant.”

Faith: Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Aumatma: After three years of trying. Having an IVF cycle failure. They had done everything. And to get pregnant so quickly, I was like, there's no science to tell me that the reason that they weren't getting pregnant was this guy’s fear stuff, but I can't tell you that it didn’t, you know what I mean? From the experience of, hey, we healed some part of this mind-body-spirit person. And then, right after that, they got pregnant. To me, that's a pretty like… yeah, it's probably that thing. Fascinating stuff, like their… I have a million stories. 

Faith: No, thank you for sharing. These are great stories. So, talk to me a little bit about this. And I know we are winding down on time. So, I want to make sure that I get started questions in. So, when you think about women who are in say their 30s and 40s, I'll say women over 35. What types of challenges might be unique to them? I guess I have four women who are over 35, right? But then I also have a question about women who may have had something like fibroids, or endometriosis, or PCOS, as those are common elements of women of color, right? So, I'm curious to know what your approach would be for both a woman who might be over 35 and the unique challenges for them, as well as the women who may have had both PCOS, fibroids [unclear 50:07], all those things.  

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. Let me talk about the women of color first because I think that there are a few things related to women of color. One is that women of color don't really get the same level of care or the same level of diagnostic fortuitousness to actually figure out why they're not getting pregnant. If they're not getting pregnant, a lot of the times it's like, “Oh, it'll be fine. You'll be okay.” And you're out the door and there's no conversation about, could you have endometriosis? It's often, oh, you have pain and it’s normal, here's birth control. Here's a pill. Here's Tylenol, Advil, whatever with very little like, hey, could this be endometriosis?

And endometriosis, fibroids, and PCOS are, as you said, more common in women of color. Different conditions for different women. But I don't have research to prove this. But I have a very big suspicion because of the mind-body stuff that I've done over the years, that almost every woman of color that I've worked with that had one of those three conditions almost always had ancestors that had been molested, sexually assaulted, abused, some sort of reproductive harm that has then been passed down through the generations. And the woman that I'm seeing in front of me is often holding all of this trauma for her ancestors.

Faith: In her womb.

Dr. Aumatma: In her womb. And that is like, it's so incredibly common, that it makes me wonder how -- Sure, fibroids have a hormonal component, endometriosis has hormonal issues. But how much of it is coming from the ancestors that hasn't been healed? And the fact that we could have the opportunity to heal this in our bodies, which Native Americans say, healing is going to impact your previous three generations and the next three generations. So, really, this reproductive healing has that, the scope of seven generations being healed in the process and that is the – man, I'm getting chills as I talk now. 

Faith: Me too. I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes, keep talking that.

Dr. Aumatma: I feel like that's our real work. Especially us, women of color, need to do that work and it sucks that we need to do that work. I'll be really honest, it sucks that it's on our shoulders, but we can view it as our ancestors didn't have access to this, right? They didn’t have the opportunity to heal this shit. We do now and we can heal it for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Why not? 

I think that, that's a big component and then there's the component of just being exposed to more toxins, more in that toxin bucket is all the reproductive toxins that are so common and so likely to impact our hormonal system, which then impacts fertility. I think it's just way too many things that hit, after hit, after hit and almost never is anyone sifting through all of that to get to, how do we heal all the different things that are happening? Yes, it can be a lot of work. Yes, it sucks that we have to do this work, but we can also view it as this possibility of changing the future. And the fact that we women of color that have the power within our bodies to potentially change the course of future generations is awesome to me. 

Faith: So, awesome, isn't it? It's a real opportunity too. So, yes, let's do the healing. 

Dr. Aumatma: So, that. And then, the other question was around women over 35. I said this a little bit in the beginning, but I don't buy into this whole fertility drops off of a cliff at 35. I haven't seen that to be true. What I see is, we need to treat all women, regardless of age, as individuals on a journey. And if we say, hey your hormones, I don't care how old you are, we have a 46-year-old that got pregnant naturally after going through multiple rounds of IVF and for her, her hormones didn't look like a 46-year-olds. So, do we need to worry about, oh, you're over 45 or over 35, and that means something about you? It doesn't actually. So, for us, we look at individual, look at their hormones in context of their age, and then make a judgment call about that person and our ability to get them to success. In general, there's probably a few things across the board that affect all of us as we age? 

So, we have toxins that we're going to accumulate in our bodies and the longer that we're in our body, the more toxins we’re accumulating. Common sense. So, the toxin burden is real, the stress burden is real. The longer we're in our bodies, the more freaking stressed we are. If you're 25, and you've been stressed for 10 years, that's slightly better than being, 35, and being stressed for 20 years or 45 and being stressed for 30 years. That impact is cumulative. It's not, oh, I'm not stressed anymore. I've never heard anyone go back on stress. Most of the time, we’re stressed and we're probably stressed. So, we need to focus on how to like, what are the tools that we have to heal all of this? Because the stress and the toxins definitely accumulate and affect our reproductive system. So, those two. And then, the third is kind of an impact of both of those combined, which is the decline in egg equality, and that's legit. 

There is a decline in egg quality as we age, and if we eat really well, sleep really well, don't get exposed to toxins, essentially, live in a bubble in the middle of the Amazon Forest, then we probably wouldn't have any of those issues. And we probably wouldn't have egg quality issues. But given the world that we live in, where we are, what we do in general, we're probably going to be exposed to all of those things and it's going to affect our egg quality, and likely affect the quality of our partner’s sperm the same way as it's affecting our eggs. So, as we grow older or age, those are pretty likely to happen unless we're doing something dramatic to make it not happen. 

Faith: Tell me if I'm incorrect. So, one of the things as I was doing my research in preparation for today, are you a practitioner of Mercier Therapy? 

Dr. Aumatma: I have trained in Mercier Therapy. Yes.

Faith: You have trained in Mercier Therapy. And so, is that a modality that you use for women with, maybe, who have had like a fibroid removal surgery or maybe for women with endometriosis? How have you seen that, if it all, beneficial for fertility?

Dr. Aumatma: It's amazing. I feel like the hands-on can be really, really incredible to make sure that there is good blood flow and circulation to the physical uterus and ovaries. I think that's really super important. And I think Mercier therapy is awesome. We also do something that we call low-level laser therapy and both of those go into our rebalance phase. The low-level laser therapy is basically using a cold laser on the uterus and ovaries to facilitate blood flow, circulation, decrease inflammation. Yes, basically, we've developed the protocols that we use, which tend towards making sure that there's good blood flow, circulation, and not the wrong kind of inflammation. 

There is inflammation that needs to be in the uterus but not the wrong kind. And then, the laser also affects egg qualities. So, the laser therapy is fascinating. They've done a lot of this research in Japan and Europe, and what they studied was basically women that had been struggling with infertility for nine plus years, which means they had tried everything possible, nine years of infertility. 22% of those women got pregnant without doing anything else. They just did laser, they got pregnant within six months to a year of doing the laser treatments. Sure, 22% doesn't sound like a lot, but 22% is the average rate of IVF success. 

Faith: Wait a minute. So, IVF success rates is only 22%? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. And it depends on age. Let me take a step back. It does depend on age. So, 30 to 35, your IVF success rate is closer to 35% and then the older you get, the lower that number gets. By the time you're 42, it's down to 3%. 

Faith: Really? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. So, basically, we're telling women, hey, you're older, spend $20,000 to have a 3% chance of having a baby. 

Faith: I’m like, Lord, I had no idea. But you know what? I will say this. What is fascinating is that I have a friend of mine who was 47 years old, she did one round of IVF and was pregnant that first time and I think her daughter is now nine years old. But she's one of that 3%. Fascinating. 

Dr. Aumatma: It's incredible. I think it's partly the numbers that made me go WTF. If I had that, those words sound like [unclear 01:01:42]. Like, what is happening? Are we really saying for women to spend $20,000 cycle, after cycle, after cycle? An average success of an IVF clinic is based on six consecutive cycles. So, they're not saying a three-person success from one cycle. There's a 3% if you do six cycles with us. So, that's $120,000. It just blows my mind. When I saw all of the numbers behind this, I'm like, wow. And to really ask the clinic that you're working with, what are your success rates? And I've seen clinics, numbers are very skewable, so you can change those to manipulate. I’ve seen one of the clinics that we work with, boast a 92% success and I'm like, yeah, that's not possible. I think the CDC should have every clinic in the country, every year they're required to report, so those are actual CDC guideline numbers. 

So, it's good to know. And I think that for everyone that we have worked with, and we worked with a fair number of women, the women above 42, 43, we often won't wait to try naturally, we might just say, hey, we've done everything, your hormones are great, we've addressed all the underlying stuff, go to the IVF clinic. And the IVF people often get upset, like, why did you wait so long? And our response is usually, just tell them to do the cycle and they’ll get pregnant on the first try because their body is at an optimal state, we've done everything in our power. It's like the IVF just clicks it all into place. The integrative approach, when it comes to especially older women, it's like, it could be an amazing blessing to not have to wait a year before you get pregnant, but you're like, hey, we did the natural stuff, we got as good as we can get, everything's optimized, all my nutrients are good, time for me to go get pregnant. 

And we had a 45-year-old that we did that risk with recently and she's 11 weeks pregnant. It's nice to have the IVF as an option. It's important to realize that it may not be the right first step. It's often sold to us as, oh, you did clove and you did IUI? It's time for you to do IVF. And even that is a little bit like, if someone talks to me about it, and I look at their numbers and stuff, I'm like, IUIs isn’t going to do shit for you? So, just save your money and go straight to IVF. Do what is likely to work. Not go through a certain step of processes just because the doctor said to do that. There are people that I've talked to that are like, I wouldn't do IVF, go straight to an egg donor. They’re like, “What? You are the natural doctor; you're telling me to get an egg donor.” And I'm like, “Listen, I see your body. I see your physiology. I see the numbers. Go get an egg donor.” And for me, it's not about what path we take to get pregnant. It's really like, we want to make sure that you get pregnant and you have a healthy baby. 

Faith: And you have options. 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, whatever we can do to support that, it is a great thing. 

Faith: Absolutely. What I would like for you to share, are two things. So, anything that you would suggest, whether it is supplements or things to consider, but you know, as women, whether they're in their late 20s, if they're in their 30s, or even those that may be in their 40s, are there any things or tools that you would suggest that they utilize to help kind of preserve their fertility?

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah. So, there are probably some foundational things that I think everyone can do no matter where they are, what their hormones look like. Make sure you are getting really good sleep every freaking night, as often as possible. So, when I was in my 20s, if you saw what I was doing you'd be like, you had a child? I have to say that to myself because I was either out partying till 4:00 in the morning or I was studying all night and I like go hard on both sides.

Faith: The turn-up was real in the 20s for sure. 

Dr. Aumatma: But if I knew then what I know now, it would be prioritizing our sleep is the biggest component. Sleep rejuvenates your body; you produce melatonin when you're sleeping and you have a good rhythm with it. The melatonin is actually the most potent antioxidant that affects your ovaries. So, the number of times I'm stressed out and I don't sleep well and I'm like, yep, we got to start with that. So, that is really, really important. The second would be really good quality food. As few process things as possible. If it comes in a bag, a box, or a can, it's probably not meant for you to eat. Simple! So, buy things that are vegetables and fruit, or beans, legumes, meat. Buy the unprocessed unpackaged stuff. And then, three would be drinking enough water. Dehydration is not great for hormone function or ovarian function, so you're going to have better results if you drink enough water. 

And then, as much as possible, staying away from toxins. I had someone reach out recently who was like, “I only smoked four cigarettes a day” and I'm like, “Yeah, and we're not working with you if you smoke, like fertility is just not going to happen.” She's like, “Well, I already had one baby” and I was like, “That's great. Good for you. I'm glad that happened. And we are not the right clinic to support you if you are smoking. We just can't.” The number of toxins that go into your body when you smoke, it's really hard to adapt for. So, smoking is off the table. A lot of people ask about pot. I don't have a personal opinion about it. I think that the research is very mixed. So, maybe, if you're going to do it, be very moderate about it and not go overboard. And then for men, it's probably impacting the sperm more than the eggs. So, the men might want to be a little bit more careful with the marijuana. 

And then, alcohol is probably worse for women. So, the wine, and tequila, and whatever is probably not great to consume. So, if you could do those four things as far as lifestyle, and then put in some stress management, self-care components will go a long way to supporting the cycle. But we are doing what's called the menstrual love challenge, which is basically this idea if we could eradicate PMS, wouldn't that be cool? PMS? What the hell is that? Most parts of the world are PMS. We don't have pain with our menstrual cycles, what are you talking about? And the reason is that they have anormalized this thing called PMS. 

So, in the US, we have this idea that we should be in pain and we should be emotionally wrecked when we're about to start menstrual cycles. But me and my co-host of this challenge, it's a free challenge, believe that if we took care of ourselves leading up to the menstrual cycle, so the two weeks of our luteal phase if it was more time for self-care, slowing down, being with our bodies, supporting our bodies to better adapt to stress, then we would probably not have PMS, the conventional type. If you have endometriosis and have PMS, that's completely different. But even that can improve with self-care. So, it's really two weeks of making sure that we're doing everything that we can to support our hormones. And when we do that, we'll have better menstrual cycles, which then support the future fertility if you're not ready to have a baby yet.

Faith: My last and final question. So, for folks who were like, you know what? Listen, I need to know more about my body. I want to know more about a more holistic approach as it relates to their fertility. Are there any tools, resources, support communities that you might suggest for women who wish to know more? 

Dr. Aumatma: Yeah, absolutely. So, resources. If you go to my Instagram, it's holistic_fertility_expert – holistic fertility expert on Instagram. We have at least two, maybe three freebies that are just available to the whole community. One is The Divas Detox Guide. We talked a lot about detox today and what it means and how to do it. I'm really passionate about us getting rid of toxins in our bodies and in our environment, so we give that away. It's an e-book that I think is really amazing. You guys tell me and let me know. And then, there is a lab test cheat sheet, which is basically taking the conventional labs that we talked about, the day three hormones, and actually teaching you how to interpret what those numbers are. Because most of the time, the doctor will see it and say, oh, yeah, everything looks fine, you need IVF. But if you actually know how to interpret it for yourself, then you might come with a different outcome. So, that. And then, the menstrual love challenge should be linked on there as well. So, I do a lot of community-oriented things that are just like, free, come, do it, hang out. Because the end goal is a whole revolution of women that are empowered in our bodies and feel good about being in a female body. 

Faith: I have one last question about the resources. Are there any go-to books around our reproductive system that you would suggest?

Dr. Aumatma: One book that really impacted my life and changed all of this for me was Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup. She has one chapter on reproductive health and fertility that I think is amazing, and I think every woman should read that. It's a really fat book, but read the fertility chapter.

Faith: For sure. So, you mentioned it before, but for those who are interested in connecting with you, your offerings and your services, how can they do so? And then, I'll also ask the question, are you only able to support folks now, in Houston, Texas? Or can you support people anywhere?

Dr. Aumatma: Worldwide. Worldwide baby. You can connect with me on Instagram, holistic_fertility_expert. And we do support people everywhere. And I'm licensed in California, so I can be your doctor if you're in California, but if you're outside of California, I can't be your doctor. But being a doctor is very gray anyway because everything that we do has to do with coaching and trying to help support a healthier lifestyle and all of that. So, we have courses. People can just say, hey, I don't want to work with you. I just want to do your course. It's a 30-hour program that is curated for you. 

So, you can do the course, you can work with us just for like initial kind of, I want to figure some things out, but I don't necessarily want to come into a whole process. And then, we have the people that are like, I need to get pregnant, I need your help to get to the end goal, and we coach people to do that. So, most of our stuff is more coaching than it is like a doctor-patient relationship and we want to empower the women to go talk to their doctor about, hey, I need these tests, or I need these hormones, or whatever. You can work with your doctor on that stuff, and we can just be the guidance to support you to get the right answers. 

Faith: I like that a lot. We'll listen, Dr. Aumatma, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you here with me on today. And I just hope that this message resonates with the women that will encounter it. So, thank you so much for joining us on today. 

Dr. Aumatma: Thank you so much for having me. This is awesome. 

Faith: Thank you. 

Outro: So I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, be sure to follow or subscribe to the show to make sure that you never miss a new episode. And also be sure to share the episode or podcast with another queen who might benefit. And before I go, I need your help. Please be sure to leave me a five star rating and review wherever you consume your podcast, this way more women are able to find the show and access the information that we share here. Also, if it's on your heart to buy me a coffee, any support that you're willing to provide to help me sustain this podcast is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, you can always follow us on all social media platforms at the Sista Circle Podcast, as well as via the website, thesistacirclepodcast.com. With love, Faith.