March 12, 2014 — Victoria Maizes, MD

with Kelly Brogan, MD

View book on Amazon.com

This week’s show features an illuminating conversation between two medical doctors, one integrative and the other a functional medicine practitioner, on reproductive health and maximizing the odds of conceiving a healthy child.

Show Highlights:

1. Couples can sometimes be too utilitarian and goal-oriented when it comes to conception. Conceiving and carrying a child is a deeply meaningful, mystical process. Our ability to honor the spiritual nature of the journey can make a huge difference.

2. Difficulty conceiving may be a signal from your body that it’s not the safest time to make a baby. Addressing your health issues more broadly may be the key to conception. This may sound obvious but a goal-oriented approach sometimes loses sight of this.

3. The show contains a very important discussion on the role of environmental and dietary toxins for overall health. Two medical doctors share their favorite resources and a laundry list of possible culprits worth eliminating. A few faves:

• • HealthyChild.org’s Easier Steps to a Safer Pregnancy
  • EWG’s Skin Deep app. Scan your personal care products and check their safety scores before buying.
  • UCSF’s Toxic Matters

4. ACOG is now suggesting that pregnant women avoid pesticides, pumping gas, and using plastic. But you don’t want to wait until you’re pregnant. Cleaning up your body and life should start before conception. How many months prior is the bare minimum? Listen in to find out the magic number and the reasons why.

5. Victoria explains the perils of exposure to endocrine disruptors. She says all plastics are suspect, even the so-called safer ones. She urges us to get the in habit of carrying our own high quality, filtered water in glass, ceramic, or stainless steel. She also raises troubling questions about exposures of dairy products during manufacturing and storage.

6. Victoria’s book helps women make smart individual choices, but it shouldn’t just be up to individuals. What can people do?

• • Call your Congressperson or Senator and ask for meaningful reform to the Toxic Substances Control Act. Most of the chemicals in use today have not been evaluated by the EPA individually (let alone synergistically).
  • Make educated purchase decisions; collectively, we can change the marketplace.
  • Support ideas that help to evaluate technologies to assess food as it is sold on shelves.
  • Question the role of Big Food as it buys up organic brands.

7. Is gluten causing your infertility? Read Kelly’s latest article Gluten Got Your Baby?

8. For more great information, see Victoria’s fertility self-assessment test and follow her on Twitter @vmaizes.

Radio Show Intro and Guest Bio:

The emotional and financial toll of infertility is overwhelming. Couples report feelings of frustration, shame, social isolation, jealousy, and exhaustion.

Ten to fifteen percent of US couples are infertile.

About 11% of women have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term (impaired fecundity). About 7.5% of sexually experienced men under 45 see a fertility doctor during their lifetime. (CDC, Infertility and Public Health)

What can we learn from the best information available today on infertility?

• • What are the major drivers of infertility?
  • Are there natural strategies?
  • Can couples improve their prospects for conception through lifestyle changes?
  • How about supplements?
  • What do traditional medicine practices have to teach us?
  • Three changes to make today if you are looking to conceive this year.

Kelly Brogan engages infertility expert Victoria Maizes in a candid, evidence-based discussion on the various ways women can prepare their bodies and minds for a healthy conception, pregnancy, and birth.

Victoria Maizes, MD is the Executive Director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and a Professor of Medicine, Family and Community Medicine and Public Health, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She is a recognized leader in integrative medicine and lectures worldwide to academic and community audiences. A graduate of Barnard College, she received her medical degree from UCSF College of Medicine, completed her residency in Family Medicine at the University of Missouri, and her Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. ODE magazine named Victoria one of the world’s 25 intelligent optimists in 2009. In 2010, she co-edited Integrative Women’s Health, published by the Oxford University Press. Her newest book is Be Fruitful: The Essential Guide to Maximizing Fertility and Giving Birth to a Healthy Child (Scribner, 2013).

Kelly Brogan, MD is Medical Director of Fearless Parent and mom of two. She is board certified in Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Integrative and Holistic Medicine. Holistic living, environmental medicine, and nutrition are the bedrock of her functional medicine practice. She serves as medical advisor to GreenMedInfo, Pathways to Family Wellness, and Fisher Wallace. Kelly holds degrees from MIT and Cornell Medical School.