Erica Hoke breaks down chemicals that harm fertility, especially phthalates and parabens in personal care products. She names specific ingredients like propylene glycol and polysorbate 80, then walks through easy swaps: body wash, conditioner, laundry detergent, toothpaste, hand soap. She references the EWG and links these toxins to infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, and gut health.
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Morning, sorry about that. Me on my live on Wednesday, you know that we were talking about toxins and, and, uh, infertility, to avoid toxins and how to prep for pregnancy. Sorry, I'm getting all kinds of notifications. Computer for my tech is not working. So I think that we are good now. Let me just take a look. Okay. We talked about on Wednesday, I'm not going to go through the whole shebang here because we've got a good minutes and that's it. That's all I'm going to keep you forever, um, is two things we talked about. Laundry products and laundry products and toothpaste. So, uh, there were a few chemicals that I told you to watch out for. I gave you the EWG, which is listed here in this video as well. And today we are going to talk about, um, some other chemicals to avoid and especially where to get this message out because it's marketed for fertility, right? And so, on to that for just a second. But the other chemicals that we are— phthalates and parabens, okay? Phthalates and parabens can be found in a lot of products. So what I would recommend that you do is that you start with the things that are easy for you. When you're thinking about eliminating phthalates and parabens out of your personal care, your shampoos, your body washes, body washes and things like that. So body wash, let's just— a good example. So covers your entire body, all of your skin, and, uh, your skin absorbs the chemicals, whatever you're using, within minutes. It goes into your bloodstream and through your entire— So parabens and phthalates are hormone and endocrine disruptors. So we know that we don't wanna have that happening while we're trying to get pregnant, right? Especially if we have unexplained infertility, we have other disruptions going on like endometriosis or PCOS, we don't wanna mess with that in any way. So you wanna avoid them and start with your body wash. That would be a good place to start. If you absolutely love your body wash and you can switch your conditioner. Start in the places that are easiest for you. That's always where I'm going to tell you to start, not the hard— easy ones, okay? Those are the ones that are going to be able to stick to and stick with the longest, okay? So like the nitty-gritty commercial lubricants out there, talking about detoxing, there are lubricants marked targeted towards people pregnant that are absolutely full of chemicals that are not only great for your— seemingly horrible for, for your fertility. They contain propylene glycol, which is listed as like a PEG, PEG-10. They are listed as they're listed. Uh, uh, there's, there's a chemical that's an ethyl, uh, glycolol. Can't say that. Like, that is actually, um, I was looking at my notes and I actually didn't write that chemical down, but when I was doing my research on these, um, these name brands, and I'm not going to mention them just for liability reasons, but these name brands and it's that our fertility-seeking couples that are fertility safe, they might have a married OB-GYN or, or what have you, and they actually have this thickening agent in it that binds with water. And this agent, which is harmful to sperm, okay, um, a lot of have polysorbate 80, which is not good. It's a preservative and it's a carcinogen. So you want to— and I teach you, and here's what I want you to think about. If you are childbearing age, and this is not in any way— I want you to understand that we have to get to the root clapping because our body is meant to function a certain way. And if the plumbing is not working, or why the plumbing's not working, right? So if you are having vaginal dryness and you're reproductive age and, and, uh, you're needing a lot of— there might be a source of hormone disruption there that you need to take a look at. Um, progesterone and estrogen disruption, something like that. So you want to take a look and see if you can solve the problem the root, using as a Band-Aid fix, and they might just be contributing to your infertility. Okay, so I did this whole shebang, Wednesday's video and today's— today, Friday's video, um, in one blog post. You can check it out if you want to see the entire list of ingredients and, um, 5 ways that you can just start with, again, laundry detergent to toothpaste, hand soap, lubricants, and personal care products like body wash, um, to get started and get you on track. So if you missed an event in my free Facebook group on Wednesday night about infertility and gut health and how these chemicals affect that and why you should be avoiding them and helping your gut rehab through leaky gut syndrome, because that's where I'll start. All right, I am overtime again, and I hope you have a fantastic week. Again, healthy you.
