HPV, Fertility, and Pregnancy Planning – and Managing HPV During Pregnancy

Are you worried about how high risk HPV could be affecting your fertility and future pregnancy? Well, in this video, I'm going to be sharing everything you need to know about high risk HPV and how to protect and even support your fertility and pregnancy. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson. I am a naturopathic doctor and midwife and women's health Expert for over 25 years. Welcome to the How Humans Heal podcast. And today I want to specifically focus on HPV and fertility and pregnancy. Everything you need to know. Because I hear from thousands of women every year with this specific concern and maybe these are some of the questions you have. They're asking me, is it okay to get pregnant when I'm testing positive for hpv? Is it okay to get pregnant if I have abnormal cells on my Pap smear result? What if I'm already pregnant and then I find out that I have HPV and abnormal cells? What can I do during pregnancy and even during breastfeeding to protect myself from high risk HPV and HPV related cancer while also being safe for my baby? And another common question is, is it possible to pass the high risk HPV to my baby either during pregnancy or after pregnancy? So what do you say? How about we cover all these questions because I know how worried you must feel in this situation. As a woman myself, I'm a mom, I'm a grandmother, and again, I've been helping Women for over 25 years. So I really understand what you're going through. I know it can be so scary when you go to the doctor's office and they do the pap smear HPV test and then when you get the test results back and maybe even need to do a colposcopy and the doctor says, well, maybe there's low grade cells called CIN1 or maybe there's higher grade cells like CIN2 or 3. If it's lower grade cells, maybe it's high risk HPV with no abnormal cells or with ASCUs or CIN1. Those are more low grade scenarios. And so your doctor is likely to say, wait and come back in a few months. But if you're at a time of your life where you're like, hey, wait a minute, I'm wanting to get pregnant. I don't really want to wait and see if this becomes an issue. I would rather move forward with my fertility plans, right? Or maybe you just feel like, I don't want to just wait and see if it becomes cancer. I would rather protect my cervix and protect my body. I don't want it to get worse and become CIN 2 or 3 and then need a procedure. Or maybe some of you, it is CIN 2 or 3 and you're feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm really worried about having a procedure that might cause damage to my cervix and affect future pregnancy. Or maybe some of you have already had to have procedures, either procedures or conization.

Procedures to remove abnormal cells that may impact your ability to carry a pregnancy. So these are all different scenarios that I hear about and I'm happy to connect with each of you about your individual story. But I want you to know that I'm going to be touching on all those different possible scenarios. And more than anything, I want you to know that there's so much I can do to help you. I have helped women in every one of these situations that I just mentioned to successfully get HPV to negative, heal your cervix and be able to even support you to get pregnant and prevent a miscarriage and have a healthy baby and to be able to clear HPV and prevent it from coming back during this fertility time of your life. So I want you to know it's possible. Women I've worked with over the past 25 years have proven that it's possible and they have encouraged me to share it with others to say this is possible for you too. And I know you're not going to hear about it in the standard doctor's office. Don't be surprised that your gynecologist is not trained in this. Even oftentimes naturopathic doctors are not trained in this. This is something that I have developed a specialty in over the past few decades. And so it's something that, and as a midwife, I'm an, an herbalist and nutritionist, I'm able to specialize in helping you how to do this in a way that can keep you safe, your baby safe, and also help you to get HPV to negative and keep it negative. So I hope that already gives you some hope. And please know you can always reach out to me. You, you can go right to my website@doctordonnie.com do Dr. D O N I.com or the HPV section of my website is at clear hpv now.com you can email us, call us, set up one on one sessions with me and, or work with me in an online program and I can guide you every step of the way. So I just want you to know that you're not alone. You're not alone in any of this. And there are absolutely things that we can do to help that are research backed, science based and also clinically based. And more than anything, what I like to emphasize is that it's all about supporting your whole health. What's amazing to me is that as I help women to clear hpv, I often find that it actually improves their fertility. They so often, as women are going through the process of getting HPV to negative, they then oftentimes will call me and say, oh my gosh, I got pregnant. And I wait. It was way easier than I anticipated. I had been trying before and wasn't successful. And now after going through the HPV protocol, all of a sudden they're getting pregnant so much faster. And so I started really looking at why that is. And I also do have fertility protocols that I work with women with, even separately. And what I see is some of the same parallels, some of the same things I do to help to clear HPV also helps to improve fertility. So we want to go into that a little bit today as well. So let's see. So here's the thing to understand is.

When you are say you find out that you're dealing with high risk HPV and perhaps abnormal cells before you're pregnant, before you get pregnant, and you're wondering what do I do? Can I get pregnant? So the answer to that question is you. It's not considered that you should not get pregnant. The one consideration with that is if you have more severely abnormal cells like CIN2 or 3, I would say it's a good idea to address those CIN2 or 3 abnormal cells before getting pregnant if possible. Because think about it as once you start into pregnancy, which is nine to 10 months, we're not going to be able to do a procedure to remove abnormal cells while you're pregnant. So it's if you know you have CIN2 or 3 or abnormal cells, it would be better to address them before get pregnant, getting pregnant if possible, because you don't want them to get worse during pregnancy, if at all possible. Now sometimes we don't find out that you have abnormal cells until you're already pregnant, in which case we go into gear of protecting and preventing those cells from getting worse during pregnancy. And I've helped women to do that as well. So I want you to know that whatever your situation is, we can help if possible. And there's abnormal cells, let's address them before you get pregnant. And if you're already pregnant, then let's get going and prevent them from progressing. So that that's not worse by the time you have your baby. Okay? We want you to be already having it cleared by the time you have your baby. And I can report to you many, many cases where that's what happened. A woman just in the past year called me right when she found out that she had high risk HPV and and she had mild abnormal cells CIN1 and then within a few days she found out that she was pregnant. So already she was pregnant and dealing with CIN1 at the same time. And so what we do is we immediately go into help with my miscarriage prevention protocol. And so I helped her immediately to go into preventing miscarriage which is something that I've developed over the years as well. And it involves nutrients and, and self care as well as making sure you have adequate progesterone to prevent a miscarriage and adequate folate to prevent a miscarriage. So we go right away into helping to prevent miscarriage and then as we continue on into the pregnancy we start to introduce nutrients and homeopathic remedies that are safe during pregnancy, including diet changes and other things self care that we can do during pregnancy. So she continued to do that through the pregnancy and when she had her baby then she went in for a follow up Pap smear and HPV test and the abnormal cells had completely gone away and the HPV went to negative. And then she had her healthy baby daughter. So it ended up to be such a beautiful year long process of pregnancy and delivery and at the same time clearing HPV to negative. So I want you to know that that's a possible scenario and it's about you have your prenatal care provider who is helping you during pregnancy and then I work alongside to help support with nutrients and homeopathic remedies and support to prevent miscarriage all along the way. So if you do have CIN 2 or 3 and it's before you get pregnant I want you to know that there's your doctors like that is held you about getting a LEEP or what some in some countries called a let's procedure or sometimes they might talk about a conization or cold knife biopsy. I want you to know there's also a treatment called escharotic treatments and escarotic treatments I offer through my clinic and have for 25 years and find them to be very successful. But it's important to make sure it's a good fit for you and but if this is something where you're really wanting to avoid having a procedure on your cervix, and you'd rather use an herbal nutrient approach that doesn't cause damage or scarring to the cervix, then you can reach out to my office and we can talk through how I can support you to do the escarada treatments. And I help women from around the world to do this. So no matter where you're listening from, if this is something that you feel strongly about, avoiding a procedure and being able to use this herbal nutrient treatment instead, then just reach out to me and I can help you. So that's the option if there's CIN 2, 3 and you need to address the abnormal cells before pregnancy, if possible. We don't do escharato treatments during pregnancy. So if the abnormal cells are still there after pregnancy, we could also come back to that option. But again, on many cases, it's completely cleared by the time we get to the end of the pregnancy. So if one thing I want to cover is if you have a LEEP or cone biopsy, the concern is that especially if you have to have repeat procedures and it can cause scar tissue on the cervix or the cervix, if part of the cervix is removed, then it can be hard to maintain a pregnancy. Meaning it's harder for the cervix to stay closed. Right? The if the uterus is above the cervix. So if the cervix is not staying closed, then it's harder to maintain the pregnancy in the uterus. And so I want you to know that your practitioner, your doctor, your gynecologist, you are or your midwife will have access to a procedure called a cerclage, which is a way to hold the cervix closed during pregnancy to prevent a miscarriage. So I want you to know that if that is the scenario where you are wanting a pregnancy and you have had to have procedures, then definitely talk to your practitioner about a surclage to help prevent a miscarriage because of because of the cervix needing help to stay closed. Are you feeling overwhelmed and afraid of the HPV virus? Feeling like you have more questions than answers and your doctor's office is just telling you to wait and see and you're not okay with just to wait and see if it causes cancer? Well, I'm Dr. Donnie and I'm a women's health and HPV expert. I've been helping women for over 20 years to understand HPV and understand what you can do to protect yourself from the virus. Us now and into the future. There are actually research studies to show that diet and lifestyle, nutrients and herbs can effectively help us to clear the virus to negative and prevent it from coming back again. So I created a free online class. It's called the Secrets to Clear HPV Masterclass. And if you just click the link down below, you can log in and listen to that class and in under an hour learn the myths and misconceptions, we're going to break those myths and I'm going to teach you the facts you need to know in order to achieve a negative pap smear result. I look forward to seeing you over at the masterclass. Let's see. So that covers that concern. Also in terms of the question of can you pass HPV to your baby? So there's a very low rate like when we look in the research and there are continually research studies coming out evaluating this. There is a small possibility of HPV being passed to the baby during a especially during a vaginal birth. It's way less during a cesarean because just imagine it's when the baby's coming through the vagina and the vagina is where the high risk HPV is located that there's a very slight possibility of the baby being exposed to high risk hpv. In most cases, the baby's immune system is able to clear the virus right away and it never is an issue.

So that's why it's. Your doctor may not even mention it. You know, that gynecologist or obstetrician likely won't even mention to you that there's a concern about vaginal delivery. There's other is like with herpes virus that is more of an issue and they make sure that you are on treatment for herpes or cover any herpes outbreaks because there's a concern about the baby being exposed to herpes during a vaginal delivery. With HPV, it's a much lower likelihood and lower risk concern. So that's why your doctor is not likely to even mention it. There's some slight possibility that it could stay with the baby and become an issue, but it's such a low likelihood that the doctors are usually not trying to avoid a vaginal burst in order to avoid exposure to hpv. I always feel like, hey, my whole focus is on helping women to get HPV to negative. So if you're worried about that, then the best thing is to to follow my protocol to clear HPV to negative either before pregnancy or during pregnancy. So now the virus is gone and negative by the time you Deliver your baby. It we have not seen that it's possible to pass HPV to the baby while the baby's in your uterus. And it's not possible to pass HPV to your baby through breastfeeding or by sleeping next to your baby. That's not going to be a way to transmit HPV to your baby. It would only be potentially from through the vaginal birth and delivery. So I don't want you to be worried if you already have your baby. Many women say oh my gosh, am I going to be passing HPV to my baby now? You're not going to pass it through breast milk. You're not going to pass it by sleeping or holding your baby or hugging your baby. That's not how high risk HPV is transmitted. It's transmitted through contact in the vagina, in the genital area. Okay? So that's how high risk HPV is transmitted. There's also low risk hpv which low risk HPV is not associated with cancer risk. It is associated with genital warts or other warts on the body. So that's a whole nother topic and I'll do a whole nother video all about low risk hpv. And, and we can talk more about that at that in that video. So let's see. I'm hoping that I've answered your questions. Let's talk more about what that looks like to help protect yourself during.

Fertility planning before you get pregnant, during pregnancy, during breastfeeding, what are the solutions? What are the things you can turn to to protect yourself and get this HPV to negative. Because right, if you think about it, even if you have abnormal cells and you have them removed or if you have low grade cells, I can definitely help your cervix can heal, right? That's amazing thing is the cervix, just like you grow new skin on your body all the time, you can grow new cells on your cervix. So if we get the virus load to drop, then your body can grow new healthy cells and slough off abnormal cells and completely heal your cervix. So I want you to know your cervix can heal. I see it all the time. If you're before pregnancy, we can even use vaginal suppositories to help with that. The vaginal suppositories that I've developed include nutrients and herbs that support the immune system, that are anti inflammatory, that support the microbiome, the vaginal microbiome that are even directly antiviral and, and when we use these suppositories vaginally, we can help drop the viral load and help improve the health of your vagina. So then your microbiome and your immune system can protect you from HPV and can help your cervix heal. At the same time, while you're healing the vaginal environment, you're also improving fertility because it's known that if the vaginal environment is disrupted, if the microbiome is disrupted, inflammation, so on, that that also can affect fertility. So again, while we're healing your vagina to prevent hpv, we're also improving your fertility at the same time. So we can use vaginal suppositories when you're not pregnant. And this can be wonderful and such a good tool. And then at the same time, during pregnancy, we don't use vaginal suppositories, but we are still able to clear HPV even without the suppositories during pregnancy. So the other things we can do, I look at it as I go through a whole, I call it a ladder of intervention. We start with self care. What can we do to help you taking better care of yourself? And I can go into more detail about that. We also go into diet changes. How can we help you feed yourself better? And most often your practitioner is not likely to mention self care or diet in any kind of relationship to hpv. But I can tell you that it's absolutely related. So this is such an opportunity to improve how you're taking care of yourself, how you're feeding yourself. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting enough recovery from stress? Recovery from stress is huge because what happens is as we're exposed to stress in our daily lives, which we all have some stress from work and family and, and financial stress and so on, what happens is as we're exposed to stress and even, especially when we're exposed to stress, that becomes traumatic, it affects our immune system. So then our immune system is not as able to protect us from hpv. This stress and trauma can also affect our microbiome. So then it's disrupting our vaginal environment, making us more susceptible to HPV and fertility issues. And also this stress can affect our hormones, which can also affect our fertility. So if when you're under a lot of stress, it basically turns off the ovaries and so you're more likely to have menstrual related symptoms and decreased fertility. So as you can imagine, all of these things, then as we address them, help improve your fertility. Right? If we help to make sure you're getting enough rest. Our bodies heal while we're resting. We fend off viruses while we're resting. Our hormones are working while we're resting. So we need to get seven and a half to nine hours of sleep every night. If you're not getting good sleep, then I have a lot of resources to help you to get back on track with getting good sleep. And sometimes it's just prioritizing it, communicating with the people in our life to say, I need to get in bed so I can get enough sleep. Also, diet. If, if our diet is lacking in very important nutrients like iron, B, vitamins and protein, then that's going to affect our ability to get pregnant. It's also going to affect your susceptibility to high risk HPV virus. So we need to look at your diet and say, and even look at your blood work and figure out are you depleted in nutrients? Let me help you get your nutrients up. Let's help adjust your diet so that you're getting enough protein with every meal. 20 to 30 grams of protein, whether that's plant based protein or animal protein. We just need to get some protein in at regular intervals. We also need to be making sure you're hydrated, are you getting enough filtered water, you know, so that you're avoiding toxins and you're getting good hydration with water and electrolytes. So as we do this, already your, your body starts to notice, your hormones start to shift, you start to already have better ovary production of estrogen and progesterone, which helps with fertility and it also helps with protecting you from hpv. We also start seeing an improvement in your digestion and there's a well known connection between the digestion and vaginal health and fertility as well. So we want to be going, hey, how do we feed you nutrient dense foods and avoid processed foods that are filled with sometimes pesticides or sugars or sweeteners or who knows what in these packaged foods. More we want to stick to how do we get whole foods, actual fruits, vegetables, proteins, that's actual food that your body knows what to do with so we can help you digest it, get your bowels moving, get your microbiome back on track again. And so this is going to make a big difference in the way you feel and also in your fertility and your ability to protect yourself from high risk hpv. It's so worth it. Even if desiring a family and pregnancy inspires you to make these changes. Right? Because otherwise we tend to, as women, we tend to sort of procrastinate and dismiss all of this and say, oh, maybe I'll do that tomorrow, maybe I'll do that another day. But I'm telling you, when you can go, okay, starting today, I'm gonna. And it's not about perfection. It's not about being hard on ourselves. Actually what it's about is learning to be more gentle and loving of yourself and saying, I don't have to be perfect. I just need to each day, little by little, learn how to make sure I'm getting protein and make sure I'm getting sleep, make sure I'm getting hydration, make sure I'm getting good quality food and avoiding toxins as well. Because when we're exposed to toxins in our food, air, water, personal care products on our skin, that also impacts our fertility and our ability to protect ourselves from hpv. So you can go through a process little by little of replacing your skin care products, your makeup, you're making sure you have air filters, water filters, so that you're in choosing organic foods. So you're reducing your toxin exposure. And as you do, you're improving your health overall, including fertility and immune function. So I hope this starts to give you a sense of. These are some of the key areas that I guide you to address. Some of this you can do on your own. Starting now, just even from watching this video, right? Go. Okay, where can I begin to start to make these adjustments to give my body more of what it needs? And then if you would like more help, then please don't hesitate to reach out. Because I've developed meal plans and recipes and self care routine planners to help you to. Because it's sometimes it's hard to change these habits, right? As humans, we get into habits and we tend to like go doing the same thing all the time. And sometimes we think that it's about going making to an extreme change. Like so many women will say to me, well, I do I need to be fasting? Do I need to be exercising more? You know, like we're willing to push ourselves so hard, but sometimes we can overdo it. Like if we're fasting too long, it actually triggers our cortisol stress hormone and can turn off the ovaries and turn off the immune system. So it's not about pushing ourselves too hard because that actually can work against us. And it's not about being too hard on ourselves because that can work against us. It's about how do we find that perfect. Almost like a Goldilocks moment where we find that perfect sweet stuff bot in the middle where we're just gentle and loving toward ourselves and yet each day noticing hey, how can I take an another step in the direction of taking better care of myself, learning from what I'm going through, listening to my body on little by little making adjustments toward take. You know, doing what your body needs in order to function at its best. And that's why I develop online programs and write books like the book you see over my shoulder, the Masters Dress. Reset your house book so that you can have access to a lot of different resources whether you like to read or whether you like to watch videos. I'll put more links to more videos down below or if you like to connect with me one on one. All of those are options to help you on this path. I really want you to know and again, this is based on having helped so many women over the past 25 years to be able to clear HPV to negative. Because again, your immune system has the capacity to clear HPV to negative. It's called a TH1 part of our immune system. And then your immune system has a memory. We can create memory cells so your immune system remembers how to protect you from HPV going forward. So even if you're exposed to the same or a different partner with hpv, then your immune system is going to be able to protect you when we really help you to recover from what you've been through, get your immune system back up to where you need it to be, get your microbiome working for you, your hormones balance your stress recovery going and as that starts to happen then your immune system is going to know how to protect you even if you're re exposed. So it's not just about exposure. It's not just that you're going to be passing it back and forth. That's not the way it works. I've worked with so many women who are it married in relationships and having sex with their partner because they're working on fertility and they're able to get HPV to negative, heal their cervix, go from even CIN3 completely hear those their cervix, avoid procedures, avoid cancer and be able to have a healthy pregnancy without a miscarriage and to even go on to have a healthy baby and breastfeeding until not have HPV come back again. One of my patients just messaged me. She's now 45 years old. She she contacted me when she had CIN2 3 and before she was trying to get pregnant. So we started down my protocol including the diet Changes. We, we figured out her food sensitivities based on a food sensitivity panel that I recommend. She started making diet changes. We started in with the escarada treatments, and next thing she knew, she was pregnant at 44. And she was like, whoa, how did that happen? I, I wasn't. I, I've been, you know, trying to get pregnant for a long time and just out of nowhere, right? It happens. And so she then was able to go through the housing pregnancy and at the end of pregnancy, be able to be HPV negative, no abnormal cells, a healthy baby. So again, I just want you to know that this is what women are able to do when you get into the mindset that it's possible. And I know that at the doctor's office, they're not going to give you that. They're going to say it's not possible, there's nothing else you can do. So just know that if you're hearing that, that's a perspective based on their experience and their training. My experience in training shows me that it is possible. And so I want you to know that, and I want you to know that you're not alone there. I'm here to help you. So just reach out to me if you need help with this and I will guide you every step of the way. Another aspect that I mentioned, just briefly, is about folate. I also specialize in MTHFR methylation issues and this is an important overlap is to understand that both with abnormal Pap smears and with fertility issues and miscarriage risk is this issue of MTHFR and methylation. So just know that if that if you know you have an MTH of our gene variation or you know that you have questions about methylfolate that you can absolutely find more information on my website. And I'm happy to guide you every step of the way. We can definitely help to optimize your methylation no matter what your situation is. I've worked with the. The most challenging situation, so I'm able, I know I'm able to help you too. We can get the full right folate for you at the right dose to heal your cervix and to prevent a miscarriage and to help you with a healthy pregnancy. So.

Just if there's anything else I didn't mention, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you so much for joining me here for this video on helping you through healthy fertility, pregnancy, breastfeeding, even while dealing with hpv, helping you to clear HPV and preventing it from coming back. Again, thanks for joining me at How Humans Heal. If you haven't already subscribed to join me for the next episode, then I welcome you to join me and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Thanks for listening to How Humans he feel. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review and for more resources, visit drdonnie.com.