Frontline Health
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Frontline Health
#107 - The Body's Decision: Understanding When and Why Pregnancy Happens
What happens when the body decides it's not ready for pregnancy? That's the profound question at the heart of our enlightening conversation with fertility coach Dora Thoma. Drawing from her personal struggles with PCOS, Hashimoto's, and gut health issues, Dora reveals why conventional medicine often falls short for couples struggling to conceive.
The truth might surprise you: fertility isn't a vital function from your body's perspective. When facing nutrient deficiencies, chronic stress, inflammation, or toxic overload, your body prioritizes survival over reproduction. This explains why seemingly healthy individuals can face unexplained fertility challenges – their systems are quietly managing underlying imbalances rather than supporting conception.
Dora's functional medicine approach transforms how we understand reproductive health by examining the entire body as an interconnected system. From environmental toxins (with the average woman exposed to 300+ chemicals daily through personal care products alone) to postpartum depletion causing secondary infertility, we uncover the hidden factors sabotaging conception chances.
Practical wisdom abounds in this episode – why protein-rich breakfasts within 90 minutes of waking stabilize hormones, how refrigerator water filters fail to remove fertility-disrupting chemicals, and the critical importance of natural folate instead of synthetic folic acid for those with MTHFR gene variations. For men, quality sleep emerges as a non-negotiable fertility factor, as testosterone production happens primarily during rest periods.
Whether you're actively trying to conceive or simply want to optimize your hormonal health, this conversation offers actionable strategies to create the internal environment where fertility can flourish naturally. Take control of your reproductive health by addressing what conventional medicine often overlooks – the foundation upon which new life can begin.
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Today on the Frontline Health Podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, kind of. Probably the no-brainer recommendation is to avoid like plague the folic acid and folic acid supplements, especially prenatal vitamins. That is number one, and obviously use methylfolate and methylated B vitamins in general, methylcobalamin for B12 and all that.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome back to the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion, where we share health news, tips and insights to help you take ownership of your health. I'm Evan Patrick. As always, Troy Duhl, founder and CEO of Centurion Health, is here with me, and today we're joined by special guest Dora Thoma. She's a fertility and hormone coach who helps women balance their hormones and get pregnant with sustainable nutrition and lifestyle changes. Dora, thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for inviting me, evan and Troy. It is a great pleasure to speak about this topic. It is my passion to speak about this topic. My passion is probably you can imagine, and it hits close to home because I've gone through my own challenges. So, yeah, I'm excited to come and talk about all these women's health and fertility topics.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us and kind of start out, if you don't mind, just giving us an overview of what fertility coaching involves and kind of how it differs from more of the traditional medical approaches to fertility issues.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, fertility coaching, especially specifically functional medicine, because this is where, kind of where my roots are, where I started from certification. I'm a functional medicine certified health coach, so my background is in the way that I was trained and it was in functional medicine. So functional medicine looks at a holistic view of the body and looks for the root cause of specific symptoms. And oftentimes couples, women and couples, when they're facing infertility challenges, they think well, I'm healthy and I've always been healthy, but why is this happening? And infertility or inability to conceive, or having an explained infertility, right, all those issues or they have a specific diagnosis. Particularly then it means that there is a root cause, there is an answer outside just well, hormones are out of balance or not ovulating, or so on and so forth. So we look at right, from a holistic standpoint, holistic glance of the whole body, what is it dealing with? And then we look for the root cause and we work from bottom up ensuring that the body has foundations that it needs to conceive naturally as possible. We obviously work with women that are going under fertility treatment, but it's about supporting the body, then preparing it for what is about to come, whether natural conception or fertility treatment and at the same time we want to understand and this is where comes education that fertility it's not just something that we decide one day, um, it's also a decision by the body, whether we want to believe it or not.
Speaker 2:And fertility is not, and conception and pregnancy is not a vital need for the body. The body always wants to look for survival, wants to make sure that it's going to stay alive and it's not under threat. But if there are insults, if there is sickness, if there are nutrient depletions, if the immune system is overacting, if there is immune immune system is overacting, if there are infections, if there's someone, any, any sort of imbalance that takes out takes the body out of that safe mode. It's going to prioritize that those vital needs first, not fertility. So when we kind of get an understanding of okay for fertility, it happens only when the body feels safe. Then we can finally look at that holistic whole body approach.
Speaker 3:Other things that, yeah, I was going to say that that is totally different from the normal way that when people go through fertility, they start chasing after symptoms as opposed to the foundational issues that are going on. And that approach of looking underneath the hood, if you will, and saying all right, what is happening in the body, what do we need to start to rectify and remedy in order to get their body to a place where it is in the best chance possible to become pregnant and stay pregnant is the key to the whole thing. So I really appreciate your stance and desire to go down that path, because I think that's where we've gone wrong within Western medicine for years now, years now. But what was it that kind of drove you to that functional medicine piece? Was that something you grew up in in Romania, where it was more of a functional medicine type background, or is that something that you picked up when you came to the States?
Speaker 2:It was a big top really. Obviously, I grew up in Romania. 24 years of my life I spent in my home country, obviously, you know, living in a post communist country that was developing, that was trying to kind of build itself from the top. We did not have, particularly from the beginning, the western foods and all the western um commonalities and commodities but um, so I, in a way, I kind of grew more with natural resources just because of the environment.
Speaker 2:But coming into in here in the united states, as I'm going through life and building myself up, becoming somebody right as an adult, as a young adult, I was starting to face more and more health challenges. So, going to the medical route, just kind of the traditional way, and I would still get answers Well, we need to put you on birth control, we need to put you on this medication, we need to, oh and just in your head, or we cannot do anything unless you want. You want us to put you on a medication for the rest of your life and so kind of those fear mongering approaches and they never felt right to me. They never felt right to me and I consider myself a very pretty intuitive person, so I just felt like it doesn't sound like it actually solves the issue.
Speaker 2:So my background back in Romania. My college degree is in accounting, so nothing to do with health. When I moved here in the United States, I started working in hotels, hospitality. I also have a postgraduate diploma in hospitality, so my world it was hospitality and then sales, and that burned me out and that's kind of the tipping point. Where I was, I had to focus on my health and then and that's kind of the tipping point, whereas I had to focus on my health, and then then that's where I've evolved and discovered the, the world of functional medicine, the world of medicine that makes sense.
Speaker 2:This is what I like to, how to say I like to to see it um, I like things that are, make, make logic, um, I think that's the background of math and science, that's right going back to accounting with making logic of things yes, and looking at numbers, um, but facing realizing having pcos, having or prosthetic ovarian syndrome, which is a very common condition in women uh, it's also a very common condition in women, especially trying to conceive, discovering that I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune condition to the thyroid, had pretty intense gut symptoms, gut issues that I had to work, and again the medical, the, the, the Western medical world could not give me an answer. And then once I stumble upon literally, um, functional medicine, just this, this complete different world just opened up and I was absolutely amazed and fascinated and just kind of dove into it and said this is my place, these are my people, this is where I want to explore more and be in it is.
Speaker 3:It's refreshing when you find that your body truly does make sense and it is logically built, truly does make sense and it is logically built, and there are certain things, when you have certain inputs or don't have certain inputs, that it seems to work really, really well. And understanding that, there you just have to start to look at it as a puzzle and put those pieces together. So kudos to you for doing that and your journey, as we've seen it and heard it today, so well done.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yes, dora, thank you so much for sharing all of that. You really have a fascinating story and I think it's so cool. It seems like we talk to people frequently who they have come from outside of the traditional medical framework and it kind of gives them a unique perspective because they face challenges of their own or they have had members of their family or friends that they've seen go through challenges that the typical Western medical model has not been able to to solve, and so it's really cool to hear you say all of that, and I'm wondering, as you work with clients to try to address some of those needs or challenges that they have, what are some of the most common fertility challenges your clients face and how do you help them navigate those hurdles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I typically work with any couple that is facing challenges. The most common ones would first be unexplained infertility, especially those hidden imbalances like nutrient deficiencies, chronic stress or low-grade inflammation that are not identified by the fertility clinic right. Especially, usually the unexplained fertility diagnosis is given by the fertility clinic once they've done all the testing quote unquote and they do extensive. So I don't want to bash onto it, onto the fertility clinic or doctors, they're doing amazing job at they're doing uh, but they're only focused on very specific things. But again, as I was mentioning earlier, our body doesn't work in silo. Our, our reproductive organs don't work in silo. Uh, our thyroid doesn't work in silo. No organ, no tissue, and the body works in silo. Our thyroid doesn't work in silo. No organ, no tissue in the body works in silo. So we have to look at the whole picture. So, looking at those things that are outside of the reproductive organs, very often we see some imbalances that once we address them, fertility comes back. Other things would be hormonal imbalances, that once we address them, fertility comes back. Other things would be hormonal imbalances. So this is kind of like the big umbrella with hormones PMS, short luteal phase, low progesterone levels, polycystic ovarian syndrome or endometriosis, irregular cycles, whether or not with PCOS, and we target that with nutrition and lifestyle shifts, sometimes additional testing and any of that. But just making sure that hormones are in the right balance because they work like a symphony Other things is kind of like my, my place.
Speaker 2:I love working with post women in their postpartum phase, um, that who want to conceive again. So one, they have their second, third, fourth, fifth, uh, and oftentimes they're depleted a lot of. I have a lot of clients who have gotten pregnant easily with two, one, two, three, and then they're depleted a lot of. I have a lot of clients who have gotten pregnant easily with two, one, two, three, and then they're trying once again. They're like why am I, am I feeling like this? Why I cannot conceive? I've been able to conceive before and no issues and it goes to postpartum depletion. Um, it's in our common, our modern world. We lost this understanding that pregnancy is very, very depleting, uh, uh. Pregnancy, as well as breastfeeding, is depleting, depleting the body with, from a lot of nutrients, and when it takes time to replenish that and it's not overnight, it's not in six weeks, it takes a lot of time and a lot of intention and having a brand new baby it. It just completely changes everything Other. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I was. I was just going to say you mentioned just a few minutes ago kind of nutrition and some of those things. How much does nutrition supplements, sleep, exercise, those type things of your clients, if they get that right, what percentage of them are successful and how much does that all play into the fertility piece as a whole?
Speaker 2:Well, they all have play a part, right? If we want to look again, my analytical brain always looks at charts and pie charts and anything like a graphic. So if we look at a pie chart, everything has a little piece of the pie. So if we have a little bit of not enough of nutrition, let's say, but too much of something else, then the balance is not well, it's not very good. So we need to put input enough in each piece so we can create that wholeness, that equilibrium and balance.
Speaker 2:Some people I do have clients who have an exceptional nutrition. It's not about doing perfectly, it's about following the 80-20 rule. So 80% following the general fertility diet with any tricks that they need, and 20% enjoy, enjoy a piece of cake, enjoy a vacation, enjoy whatever right so kind of allowing ourselves to live right and not to always restrict stress it's a huge thing and limiting beliefs. I think those are kind of the hardest ones to bring because again, our society has created this illusion in our minds that we need to push and, especially from a woman's standpoint, we are put into the situation that we always have to please, we always have to do things, we always have to do more to please XYZ and the people around us, whether boss, husband, family also, and then we feel bad and we feel responsible for not being able to carry, because that is the ultimate responsibility to provide a child.
Speaker 2:So those limiting beliefs, obviously this when I identify something in my conversation with my clients, I can kind of like scratch off and identify. Well, once it reaches a point I refer out. I'm not a therapist, I don't have any license in that, but it's about kind of identifying first, understanding, having awareness. Other things that can be sleep can be environmental toxins. This is huge. Having awareness. Other things that can be sleep can be environmental toxins this is huge environmental toxins. Although I've seen a lot of people making a lot of changes eating more organic, avoiding phthalates, parabens and chemicals in personal care products, but also, yeah, Just real quick.
Speaker 3:What are some of those environmental toxins that our listeners may have heard that and they're thinking, oh well, I don't live next to a power pole or I don't live next to some chemical cesspool. What are the more common environmental toxins that you're talking about that people can start to look at and go? Maybe this is part of what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2:Well, I always start with water, making sure that we have clean water. We are 60% water, our body is made of 60% and we drink a lot of water. We should be drinking at least an average eight cups of water every single day. It's more than food at the end of the day, if you think about it. So water is very important. It's one of the essential core elements that we need in order to support fertility, and in our tap water we have plenty of the chemical substances, heavy metals, um, that can disrupt hormones, can increase oxidative stress, which can cause damage to the, the ovum, to the egg, the female egg or the sperm, right? We do not want to, um, forget about that counterpart, the, the male part, right? So it always impacts. That's the beauty of talking about fertility. It's not just talking about only women. The same things apply to mostly. Most of the things are applied to men too. So, first thing is one heavy metals exposure, but also plastics, bpa and all their family. So I oftentimes, I always recommend to minimize exposure to plastics.
Speaker 2:At the same time, we talk about exposure to forever chemicals like pfas, which are found in water. Again, in tap water. It can be found in nonstick pans, it can be found in so many other things that are water repellent or nonstick, right. And then we have those parabens and phthalates that are found either in personal care products to preserve or to maintain the smell or because they're nicely smelling fragrances as well, since I mentioned smelling. They all contain a soup of chemicals that can disrupt our hormones, and of course it's. We know we are using a little bit of drop of this, right, how harm we can be. But we, especially women, we put on our body over 300 and this I'm quoting from, like I don't know, 2018 or something, uh, study, right, but probably right now it's even more, maybe, hopefully, it's less, I'm not sure, but let's round it up to around 300 chemicals every single day between personal care products, between things around air, the water, you know. So they add up, they add up one top of each other.
Speaker 3:That's a huge number. I knew that it was high, but I never knew that it was around 300. So, Evan, you got to stop using the pomade it's getting you man.
Speaker 1:Troy's been giving me a hard time about my hair care products that have those phthalates and some things in them. So I'm working on making some changes myself, which is something that we talk about a lot here. You know it's easy to get overwhelmed by kind of all of these environmental toxins and things that are out there. You know, I guess kind of the bottom line is there are a lot of things that are outside of our control, but we do know that there are certain things that are within our control and we like to encourage our listeners to kind of take ownership of their health and not worry so much about the things that they can't control, but do what they can do that is within their control. So I'm curious, you know, based on what we've talked about today or really any issues relating to fertility, what practical advice would you give to our listeners who are trying to conceive, who are trying to conceive.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, absolutely what you just said take it slow, don't try to make it everything perfect. We have things that are outside of our control and that is fine. We need to allow our body to be able to do what it's supposed to do, meaning, let's say, in the, in the example of environmental toxins, the body can filter and can detoxify. The goal is to minimize the loads, to lower the load of toxins and also bring in nutrients that the liver and the body are required to do what it's supposed to do, aka detoxifying or growing a healthy egg, or having healthy hormones, or maintaining a stable inflammation level or lowering oxidative stress and kind of keeping things calm and safe, like I was mentioning earlier. So that is definitely the first step From a nutritional standpoint. I always say prioritize protein-rich breakfast within the 60 to 90 minutes of waking to stabilize blood sugar and hormones. That means also having coffee after breakfast, not having coffee before breakfast. So getting some quality, good quality sleep, some quality, good quality sleep, at least seven to nine hours.
Speaker 2:Usually women need to get a bit of restful sleep. Obviously there can be lifestyle changes and tweaks can be done in the morning or in the evening to improve that quality of sleep, but at least getting those and not cutting those shorts, those hours of sleep which? But at least getting those and not cutting those shorts, those hours of sleep which are so important and especially for men. Men actually make their testosterone while they're sleeping. So sleep is so important for men and in my practice I've seen men dropping their testosterone very early in, like even 20s or early 30s, and having to take testosterone as exogenous hormone replacement that can kill fertility. So especially the men that are looking to get, having to have kids in the future, obviously reducing toxins. So really filtering the water with a quality filter, not just the fridge filter. Fridge filter only takes out chlorine but not all the other things that we've mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3:So do you have one or two that you recommend when it comes to a filter like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, my two favorite. I have more, but the top ones would be countertop is Berkey. I like it. It's a stainless steel container. It's a container, so it's a countertop, and it works with gravity. And another one is Pure Effect. It's cold and it goes under. It's a system that you hook it to the waterline so you can put it under the sink, on top of the sink, or they have a whole house system. This is kind of like one of the best. There are also reverse osmosis systems, but often with reverse osmosis you have to make sure that it's remineralizing the water and not stripping off all the essential nutrients.
Speaker 3:So what about those of us who say, hey, I've got a filter on my refrigerator, is that good?
Speaker 2:enough. No, that's not good enough good enough?
Speaker 3:No, that's not good enough. So what do you, what do you need to look for to say this is going to do what it needs to, needs to do to help us, um kind of take ownership of our water?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, we don't need to use the fridge filter unless, unless we we use I mean with a fridge filter it's tricky. We can say, well, you can put a whole house filtration system to filter in so all the water gets inside the house. But oftentimes fridges they have all sorts of tubes and those tubes often they grow mold inside so and it's hard to clean. So it's not only all the chemicals that kind of come in from the pipes but also what's brewing inside the unit. So I'm kind of I'm always kind of don't have a lot of wiggle room for and acceptance for the fridge filter. I would rather say, if you want to have eyes on eyes from the main filter, ideally have, have a like a sink or like a kind of top filtration system to get that quality water and then you can make your eyes or you can drink your water, cook with it and do all the things. So, yeah, not a very tolerable fridge filter, sorry, that's all right.
Speaker 3:No, we want to step on some toes every once in a while and that's what I need to hear, to be reminded of. We've got an under-the-counter filter system, which is good, but we still lean towards the refrigerator just because it's cold. But we need to be reminded of that. But one thing I did want to touch on. A lot of our listeners are familiar with MTHFR and that's part of their journey because we have a product that deals with that in Bump DHA and Bump Mini. But what do you have for advice for those people who are dealing with MTHFR? If you could give them one or two pieces of advice to kind of walk through that system with them?
Speaker 2:Well, kind of. Probably the no-brainer recommendation is to avoid like plague the folate acid and folic acid supplements, especially prenatal vitamins, especially prenatal vitamins um, that is number one. And obviously use uh, methylfolate and methylated b vitamins in general, methylcobalamin for b12 and all that um and. But on the on the other side, from a nutritional standpoint, it's always safer to go with food, food, food first. So, for example, folate.
Speaker 2:Folate comes from the. The thing is Greek, it's foliage, right, it's coming from the word foliage, which means leaves. So leafy greens are rich in folate. So if we increase our consumption of folate from leafy greens, we will support our genes to make better and to work better and obviously we'll support other systems. It doesn't just have that, right, and from an avoidance standpoint, always, always avoid or at least read ingredient lists, a lot of foods that are grain-based, or pastries, baked goods, anything like that, cookies, anything that is made of flour. Oftentimes they're enriched with folic acid and all iron and all those nice and nice animated and all other non-essential nutrients. Even on organic products, right, so it's not just because it has the label organic crackers, it means that isn't enriched. So always turn, flip the box, read the ingredients If you really want to buy that product, avoid the ones that says enriched flour.
Speaker 1:Dora, that is such great advice. You are speaking our language right now. We appreciate it so much for you to just share all of that and help get the message out there about those things, because a lot of people just simply don't know. Even you know. A lot of the health care providers that we work with are still learning the difference between that synthetic folic acid and the natural forms of folate that pregnant women need in their diets. So thank you so much for sharing that. This has been a great conversation all around. We really appreciate your time. Where can people find and follow your work?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They can find me on social media. I'm very active on Instagram. My handle is fertility to wellness. I obviously have a website, my. The website I say has the same name fertility to wellnesscom. I also have a physical office in McKinney, texas, so if anybody is a local and is interested to see me, I'm obviously available there as well, as well as virtual, of course, and I work with people all around the world available there as well as well as virtual, of course, and I work with people all around the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, dora. My pleasure, yes, thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to this episode of the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion. As always, we encourage you to go out and take ownership of your health today, because you are your best health advocate. If you enjoyed what you heard today on the podcast, please consider leaving us a review. We would love to hear your feedback and connect with you further. You can also follow us on Instagram X, tiktok and YouTube, and for safe, effective and affordable health and wellness products made in the USA, visit wwwcenturionhealth. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.