Dr. Tabatha BarberI teach women how to fast their way to a faith-filled, hormonally balanced, fabulous life!

40s Pregnancy: Functional Medicine Secrets IVF Doesn't Tell #shorts

10 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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1:11

In this short dialogue, Speaker A questions the tendency of OB‑GYNs to push IVF as the default option for women in their 40s, asking what steps should be taken before even scheduling an IVF appointment. Speaker B responds emphatically that age alone does not mandate IVF. She describes a functional‑medicine approach she used with a 42‑43‑year‑old patient who had previously miscarried: comprehensive nutritional and food‑sensitivity testing, progesterone supplementation, and thyroid optimization—interventions she says conventional medicine often overlooks. Both the patient and Speaker B (who is also in her 40s) became pregnant around the same time and delivered babies a week apart, illustrating that functional‑medicine optimization can enable natural conception in the 40s and potentially avoid more invasive reproductive technologies. The speaker concludes by urging women to seek a functional‑medicine provider for this work‑up before considering IVF.

Chapters

There's just so much that I didn't learn as an OB-GYN that the reproductive, the REIs, don't talk about to the patients. And I really do feel like it's just this jump to get on the assembly line with IVF. So what would you recommend women do before they even go have that appointment if they haven't gone down that route yet?
Yeah, just because you're 40 doesn't mean you need IVF. Let me be very clear about that. I talk about a lot of cases in my book. One patient I was seeing, you know, she had had a miscarriage. She was, I forget, 42 or 43 at the time. And we— I ran her through the regular functional medicine protocol. We did nutritional analysis testing, you know, food sensitivity testing, got her on progesterone, optimized her thyroid, like all the what we consider basic stuff, I guess, but stuff that conventional medicine isn't offering. And we both got pregnant about the same time, which is so cool because we're in our 40s and we had these babies a week apart. And so it is very, very possible. Find a functional medicine provider who can do this workup because we can optimize your status and hopefully prevent the need for more advanced, you know, reproductive services.