Can Detox Reverse Infertility? Clearing the Way for Conception, Naturally with Deidre Bloomquist

Welcome back. I'm sure you've probably heard me talk about the toxic soup we live in in this modern society, but we haven't actually dived that deep into solutions. So, I'm very excited in this new episode of Everyday Ancestral to be introducing you to my next guest, Deidre Blomquist. She's a functional nutritionist who founded Always Growing Wellness, a virtual practice that serves clients across the US. She's a functional nutritional therapy practitioner and a master restorative wellness practitioner who leads a team of practitioners that work with women to resolve a wide range of digestive issues and hormone imbalances, as well as a dedicated pediatric practice. She specializes in reversing infertility by restoring health through reducing toxicity. Deidre is also a published author. She authored the book Toxic Infertility: Detoxification Solutions to Improve Natural Fertility. So we are talking about getting pregnant. And your children. So please enjoy my next guest, Deidre Blomquist. I am your host, James Barry, and welcome to Everyday Ancestral. One of the biggest kind of elephants in the room is that we live in a toxic soup. We live in a, in a society, in an environment that is so much more toxic than it was ancestrally. You could kind of question, well, do the ancestral concepts even apply to modern society because of how toxic it is? How would you answer that question?

I think it does still apply. I think one of the big things that we're always talking with clients about is like, how do we actually get back to nature and what nature really intended for us and the way that our bodies are inherently designed to work and protect us? And so even knowing that there are so many toxins that all of us are exposed to on a daily basis, some of those are within our control and some of them aren't within our control. There's so much that we can do when we understand truly how the human body works and how it's trying to keep us safe so that we can support those mechanisms over time.

The thing though, I get caught up on, you hear about, you know, people are focusing on the science or they isolate their perspective. Like, I only want to focus on sleep and light or something like that. Right. But it's impossible to truly like factor one modality that applies within every situation because no one can test for all the toxic elements that each person is dealing with collectively. Usually you hear people are like, okay, I just want to focus on lead, or I just want to focus on glyphosate. It's like, but no, who's focusing on both? Because they're, they're all happening at the same time.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's no way to truly know all the things that we're being exposed to. There's over 80,000 different chemicals that are manmade that we're being exposed to. And that doesn't even begin to touch the heavy metals or mold or the things that we just don't realize are harming us yet and are toxic in our bodies. There's so many factors for this.

So how does someone navigate that though? Because I sometimes just, I mean, I've been in the industry 20 years and yet I still get kind of like stifled. I'm just like, I don't know what to do because they're saying one thing, but I know that that's not true. And it's such a grayer area than in the industry or even influencers wanna really admit.

Yeah, absolutely. The way that I think about it is we have to control the controllables. There's some things that we can control and there's some things that we can't. And so even if you were to live in a bubble and be thinking about everything in your home, there's still gonna be things that you are gonna be exposed to from a toxin burden perspective. So if there are things you can do, I'd be thinking about the big things. What are we drinking? What type of water? Are we consuming on a regular basis? How are we, how are we bathing in water? And what type of toxins are primarily gonna be found in, in water sources, knowing that water is actually one of the primary sources where we're getting exposed to toxins on a regular basis. But then also things like air quality in our homes, in our offices, whatever, wherever we're spending a majority of our time, and then the quality of the food that we're eating. And if you take a look at just those 3 pillars of water, air, and food, that's gonna take down toxin burden in a very significant way. And then from there, of course, if you do have health issues or things that are lingering or symptoms that you feel like, oh, maybe these are normal for the general public, but I don't want them to be normal for me, that's when it really makes sense to look at specific toxin burden in those categories of like metals and mold and chemicals and how they might be impacting your body and how honestly your unique body is really able to detox those things because everybody's different, even if we're all exposed to the exact same things.

That's such a good point. There's one element of, okay, what are the toxins in our environment? But the other is what is our body processing of those toxins? Yeah, that's such a good point. Let's dive into those 3 points. Let's provide some solutions for people focusing. Let's start with water. It's so interesting. I'm old enough to remember when bottled water came out. Like I distinctly remember, I remember growing up drinking from the faucet. You know, when we were traveling and we just stopped anywhere, and if you saw a faucet, you drank it. Could have been the most rusty, like, like caked over faucet, and we didn't know to think about it. We just like, oh, I'm thirsty. Water is water. Let me drink this. But clearly that is not the world we live in now. So let's dive into water.

So water in the fertility side of my practice, I often refer to as infertility water because there are so many different things that are in our water sources. When I'm thinking about tap water, in particular that are impacting our overall health. So we know that there are heavy metals that come in our water sources. A lot of this has to do with the way that water is purified, where metals are ultimately not removed in the purification process. But we also know that there's a lot of industrial chemicals as far as agricultural runoff that comes into tap water, essentially seeps into the ground, goes into the water, and it's just not being removed. But we also know that there's a lot of pharmaceutical drugs that are found in tap water. So things like antidepressants, And NSAIDs. But in my space, we're really thinking about the fact that there's hormonal birth control in tap water, but there are also medications like Plan B in tap water where women are taking this, it gets excreted through the urinary tract and then put down the toilet, and purification isn't taking these things out of the water. And so we're consuming these things on a regular basis, which means that we might have these impacts to our overall health that are completely unintended. Just by drinking tap water.

Wow. So you could be drinking tap water and actually be getting the pharmaceutical that's trying to support you in aborting a child, basically.

Exactly.

Oh my gosh. That is crazy.

Yeah. And most people just don't realize this because we don't think about the fact of like how we excrete this as humans and then it goes into the water source. I think there's this misconception that when we're thinking about the way that water is purified by our local municipalities, that they're taking everything out of the water, but that's truly not the case when you look at what they actually do to the water.

Yeah, well, I was just reading about fluoride as well, which I'd known about it for a long time, but this article was specifically focusing on how when they go to add it, they say they're only adding so much, but it's really hard to control. So they're most likely adding too much. And so even, even when we're adding things to the water, it's uncontrollable, let alone the things that are in there that we're not filtering out. So is the solution to not even use filtered tap water or what, what does someone do?

Yeah. Well, and you know, I think a lot of us do understand that we don't wanna be drinking tap water maybe directly out of the tap. And so most of us have it going through some type of carbon filtration system, whether that's a pitcher that we're using and putting water into, like the old Brita filters that were really popular for a long time, or even it going through the filtration system in our refrigerator where we have it like at the tap. And carbon filtration is going to be removing some things, but it might not be removing enough, especially depending on where you live in the country. So we know that if you go to the EWG and you look at your tap water score, you can see what's actually in your water. So that can be an incredibly helpful resource to determine what level of purification you need to do in your home. A lot of us do have things like chemicals and metals. When I looked at mine, there was huge levels. I think it was like 100 times the legal limit of chloroform. In my tap water. But then also a lot of us have a lot of radioactive substances depending where we live. So a lot of research shows that at least 70% of the tap water in states like Texas are contaminated with things like radium and uranium due to drilling in those states. The same is true of places like—

So we're basically getting radioactive, basically.

Exactly.

And so if that's the case, which of course is not gonna help fertility at all.

Not at all. And then we're thinking about bone health and osteoporosis and all of these. big scary diseases like cancer that we're seeing on the rise as well. And a lot of this can come from tap water.

I mean, I love that we're, we're highlighting these things, but the reality is most people won't even know how to read their local municipality's water. So have you found in your, just your experience, like, okay, this filter works really well and I recommend this one, or, or maybe you recommend a few, but have you found something that really does work?

Yeah, so we're looking for reverse osmosis for most people. So that's gonna be things like AquaTru or GrainFilt. Those are the, the 2 main brands that we often recommend. They're great water filtration systems if reverse osmosis is enough. The key differentiator there is if you do live somewhere where there are radioactive substances. So the way that I think about this is we know that drilling and fracking can basically release these radioactive substances. They come up to the surface in a lot of these states. So if you live in a state where that is an active practice or even in the past, so thinking about states like California is one of them, a lot of those substances are in the water. And if that's the case, then the only way to actually remove radioactive substances from tap water is through distillation. There's a company called MyPureWater that I use. We have a distillation system in our home where we distill about 5 gallons of water at a time. We put it in a glass container and then we bring it up until we drink it, and then we refill it with the machine. But we're actually distilling water in our own home to make sure that we're removing that. I live in Colorado, and when I moved into the house that I'm currently in, we got a notification from the water company saying that there was high levels of radium in the water and to be aware of it. So I was immediately like, we have to be distilling our water here.

There's so many questions coming up, but before I go backwards, when we reverse osmosis or distill, we're removing all the good stuff as well. So what is someone who's being that conscientious, what do they do?

We need to be putting minerals back into the water when that's the case, because when we are doing reverse osmosis or distillation, we're basically stripping it of all minerals and electrolytes. And if we're to drink those type of water, we're gonna become dehydrated. We need minerals in order to be cellularly hydrated. So this is a really important factor. So even if we're using things like fulvic acid or trace minerals, there's a lot of different brands on the market. I like, there's one called Trace Minerals, Utah Sea Minerals. Biofulvic is another brand I love. Cellcore has one that's, that's okay as well. There's so many ways that we can be putting minerals back into our water, but then also thinking about a mineral-dense diet as well, making sure that we're getting minerals somewhere, even if it's not directly in our water, is gonna help offset the effects of those type of water purifications.

Okay. And we're definitely gonna get to food, but now to step back a little bit, cuz I had made it sound like, oh, well, no one's gonna look at their municipality's water report. However, because you've just mentioned, you know, how it is kind of challenging to actually filter it out, then it really is important that we look at that because we need to know what's in it to know what filter to use, what, what process to use, as you just pointed out. So is there any tip that you have to reading that? What would you say are like the kind of like top 5 toxins that if you see this and you see it at this number or higher, You have to filter this out. 40% of you listening still haven't followed the podcast. Let's drop that to 20%. It takes 3 seconds and helps us reach more folks who need these conversations. Go follow Everyday Ancestral on Apple or Spotify, and let's stay curious together.

So I would say if you see any level of uranium or radium indicated in your water, those are radioactive and we need to be addressing those. The same would be true of cesium. as well. Cesium often gets kind of labeled as a heavy metal, but cesium is also used in a lot of radioactive, you know, explosions, for lack of better words. So a lot of people will have elevated cesium levels when they live in areas where they're being exposed to byproducts of World War II, for instance.

Oh my goodness. Okay. So like, you know, in Europe or something, you're gonna see that a lot. Wow. It's so interesting because no one's talking about this. People are all talking about like lead and microplastics, but no one's talking about like Radioactivity, you know, that's in our water. Oh my gosh. Water is a huge focus. You said then the next focus you would do is—

Is air purification in your home. So we know that the air in our homes is often more polluted and toxic than the air outside of our homes. Even if we live in a city setting where there is polluted air, part of this has to do with all of the things that are in our homes. Our furniture, our carpet, the paint, the cleaning products we use, the personal care products we use. And then of course, if there is any danger of some type of water damage or mold growing in your home, all of that gets put into the air. And if there's not proper air purification in the home, our lungs become the filter and we start to absorb a lot of those things. And a lot of these chemicals and even the, the mycotoxins that come from mold are so small that they can go directly through the alveoli in the lungs and directly into the bloodstream, which means that our lungs are no longer really filtering them in a huge way. And they're directly going to the bloodstream where they can mount an immune response, cause oxidative stress, and really cause a lot of damage very quickly because we don't have that barrier for selectively preventing what's coming in.

Which is probably why mold and Lyme disease are the 2 fastest growing ailments that's surfacing throughout the US.

Absolutely. And so we have to be doing some type of air purification in our home. And I think a lot of us think, well, my, my HVAC unit has a filter on it, but a lot of these don't have small enough particle of filtration to make sure that these things aren't actually coming into the air that we're breathing. So we really wanna be thinking about using HEPA filters in particular so that we're getting down to the correct micron size so that these things aren't coming through our home and they are being caught by a filtration system, at least to some capacity.

Is there specific brands that you're just like, these are the top 3, or what would you share around that?

Yeah, I love, you know, we have both Air Doctors in our home as well as Jasper air filtrations. They are very comparable depending on the, the size of the unit that you're using. Those are the top 2 that I often recommend, but they can be expensive too, right? So the budget on this can really keep a lot of people from doing air purification. So in those situations, there's still a lot that you can do. So for instance, you can buy a HEPA filter at Home Depot and you can put it on something like a box fan. Now this might be a little bit janky to do, but you can essentially like tape a HEPA filter to a box fan, run it so that you have air filtration system that has, is electrically powered, pumping air through it, is still going to be catching things on that HEPA filter so that it's not going through the air. You have some level of filtration, or we can even just think about, let's open our windows, right? So many of us live in very airtight homes where we're highly reliant on our HVAC HVAC systems to heat and cool our homes, where back in the day we just opened up the windows if it was too hot in the house or if it was cold, right? And so nature has, has a really great way of making sure that our air is safe. We have airflow, the sunshine kills mold. If we can just open up the windows in our home, even if it is a little bit cooler or hot outside, it makes a huge difference with air quality in our homes.

Yeah, it's such a great tip. I mean, it's one of the most natural things we could do, yet people have moved away from that. I even recommend people doing that in their car. Once your rainy season's done, you, you wanna roll down the windows all the way and just let the air seep in and let all the dust. And if you have a pet, like the pet hair, like just let it all exit your car. Cuz keep in mind, when your windows are up and you're just doing air conditioning, you're inhaling that stuff too, right?

Absolutely. And a lot of people don't realize that mold can even grow on, in the interior of your car. So sometimes we'll see that people have mold in their homes and that's what's making them sick. But sometimes it's also their cars. So we need to be airing these things out.

Right. And of course the filters themselves can start to grow mold if you don't change them now. And that's something I want everyone to consider cuz we have, we have the Air Doctor as well. And yes, they are costly, but it's kind of a one-time major cost cuz the filter lasts freaking all year, I think.

Yeah. They have a carbon filter and then a HEPA filter in there. And I believe the carbon filters have to be changed every 6 months, but the HEPA filter lasts a full year.

Right. So it's minimal. And, and I want us to all really start to reframe, like, what is the true cost of our health? Because we, we think like, oh, I'm gonna buy cheap food here. I'm not gonna use this there. And I'm gonna just skate through life and it's not a big deal because I'm, you know, being cheap and, or like I'm thrifting. Right. But then you get to 60, 70, and suddenly your hospital bills are just astronomical and you're like, oh, I guess it caught up with me. Right. So it's It's like we forget, we have this illusion that we're going to skate by and not have to pay the price. But the reality is you're either paying it now or you're paying it later. There's, there is no escape.

And to that point too, I see a lot of people who really want to jump to like the functional medicine side of things where they're like, let's do all of this testing and let's figure out what's going on, but we're missing a lot of these foundational pieces. And so these are the things that I really want people to be starting to think about before you jump into those more expensive costs. Get an air filtration. Think about the water source that you're drinking. A lot of times that's gonna make a huge difference so that you don't need a lot of those other things. Foundations are huge. And because they are some of like the easier things, people often skip that step and then they, they have to come back and like come back to the basics at some point.

Yes. And what brings us to our next principle, which is food, because I always am saying like, that should be the first thing people look at because it's the thing we do the most.

So we know that our produce is sprayed with a ton of different pesticides and herbicides, things like glyphosate and atrazine. These can impact a lot of different things in the body, the whole way that we're able to detoxify everything. So we know that glyphosate impacts phase 1 detoxification in the liver, which means that everything you come in contact with that has to go through phase 1, which, spoiler, is everything, has to go through that. And if that level is impaired, it just means that there's a stumbling block, that the liver is not going to be able to effectively metabolize and eliminate everything that we're coming in contact with. So if we can reduce glyphosate exposure, we know that the liver won't be impacted. But a lot of people also don't realize that glyphosate was originally patented as an antibiotic, which means that it's harming beneficial bacteria in the gut and lowering our overall immune function, mucosal health, and causing things like leaky gut long term. So if we can remove these type of things that are being sprayed on our foods, even if we're just thinking about produce to start with, or reduce the amount that we're eating, it's going to make a huge difference in gut health, which we know is so foundational for so many different systems in the body, the way that our brains and our neurological system can function, the way that we're able to detox everything. And so this is again one of those things where there is an investment in eating organic produce. It can feel like a high cost, especially I think in our day and age where inflation is happening and groceries are insanely expensive. But in the grand scheme of everything, if we're not doing this, even if we're doing all the right things to detox our bodies, we're going to be coming back to the same spot. So, this is really foundational for me as well.

Now, the thing that's frustrating to me is that, so depending on where you live, first of all, locality and season is determined really, right? For example, I'm on the East Coast now. Most of the produce is coming from the West Coast. And Even more so in the US nowadays during the winter months, it's all coming from outside of the US. You'll see it come in as certified organic, but it's completely different organic standards and it's not as actually measured as we would think. So how do you recommend we navigate organic when even that's of question?

Yeah, it is hard because I think there's a lot of things as consumers that we just aren't being informed on when we're buying produce, unfortunately. So I think as best as possible, if you can be buying organic That can go a long ways. If you can be working in a local setting where there are, you know, some limitations in terms of the produce in particular that you're getting, that can make a huge difference in like being in your community, knowing exactly where your food comes from, getting to know your farmers and their practices. And they may also have other resources as well in terms of, you know, if we are bringing things from the West Coast, then great, here are the people who I trust in that area as well. And then in terms of getting things outside of the country, it is kind of the Wild West, unfortunately. So as much as we can to be thinking and being mindful of those things, knowing that it might not be perfect. So for instance, one of the things that we will often test people for is for glyphosate and atrazine. And it's not uncommon that we'll see people come in and they say, I eat 100% organic, and we'll still see elevated levels of these toxins. So, you know, produce is one way that we get exposed to this, but it's not the only way that we get exposed to things like glyphosate and atrazine. It's also sprayed in, in cartilage and on lawns and in parks. And so it's in the air as well at the end of the day. So there's a lot of exposures, but we really just wanna be thinking about reducing that. So I know a lot of people get really hung up on like everything needs to be organic, and of course, please, by all means, get as close as possible, but we really just wanna be reducing it so that we aren't increasing the accumulation and the total load that we have.

So it's almost like if we had to tier it, like, okay, first choice is buy locally from an organic farmer that's, that you know is doing very specific practices because you can go to the farm and you can talk to them and you can Really like look them in the eye and find out what they're actually doing. So that would probably be tier 1, like first choice, you know? And then I guess the rest would really just be, okay, certified organic. And then ideally growing your own is maybe a second tier or first tier too. You made a mention of this earlier of like how we can use food to offset the minerals we're not getting in our water. I have to say, that's one of the reasons why I love organ meat. For example, in Areas where they don't have a grow season, like for example, in Alaska, organ meats are considered a fruit and vegetable because they're so, you know, nutrient dense and you can't get the vegetables and fruit for such a large amount of time during this season. How do you recommend organ meats to your clients? Because as a fertility person, I have to imagine you do recommend them, right?

Absolutely. It's not just people who are trying to conceive. We recommend them for children oftentimes because a lot of times parents are like, I'm worried that they're not getting the nutrition that they need. So the way that I usually think about this is we have a lot of conversations with clients about heavy metals and heavy metal toxicity, which is something that we see a lot of. But I think the way that a lot of people think about heavy metals is we just need to pull them outta the body. And that might be one strategy involved in removing heavy metals, but heavy metals are also going to be more dangerous in the body. When there are inadequate mineral levels. And we know that organ meats in particular are very dense in a lot of important minerals that we need as humans. And so when we bring those things in from a food-first perspective, it's going to offset the impacts of heavy metals, but it can also help to displace those heavy metals to actually eliminate them. So it's not just an either-or situation. We really want to be focusing on those on in the diet long term so that we If and when we do come in contact with heavy metals, whether it's, you know, you go out to a restaurant and you're drinking tap water, or you have something happen where you're gonna be exposed to heavy metals in terms of like medical procedures or anything like that, your body's gonna have the capacity and the nutrients that it needs to offset any damage there. So it's a huge part of our practice and something that we are often recommending as we're doing some detoxification work, but then also in that immediate preconception phase all the way through pregnancy with the hope that women will then just be introducing them with their children so that when they start solids on day 1, essentially with nutrient-dense foods as part of their palate.

Really what you're talking about is creating robust humans, whether it's women who are trying to get pregnant or the kids that they conceive, that we want people to be robust, that it's not about being perfect, but it's about being robust enough that, so that as we come into contact with these toxins, Our body knows what to do with them and, and can quickly, hopefully get rid of them. That is fantastic. Everything we've pointed out is gonna support that person who's trying to get pregnant, but you're about so much more than just helping people get pregnant. Talk a bit about the pediatric side.

So when I think about couples who are coming in and they're having trouble getting pregnant, I'm always thinking that there's a reason that this is occurring. Our body is designed to keep us safe. And so if there is something that is harming us internally in our terrain, Our body is gonna basically sequester resources so that we are in a good spot. So yes, we, we help a lot of couples get pregnant and that's a huge part of what we do. And the way that we work has come from my personal story. So I did a lot of work around gut health and I knew how important gut health was for children from conception on. So when I got pregnant with my little boy, I had a plan. You know, I hadn't taken antibiotics in years. I, I knew that I, I wanted to pass on good gut health. He was born at home. I breastfed him. We did a lot of skin-to-skin with both me and his dad. So we were thinking about gut health. And so I was very shocked around 9 months, he started getting this really intense full-body eczema. And I was like, I've done all the right things, right? All of the things that we in the holistic space think of, like, this would promote good gut health for him. What I figured out was I had actually passed on my toxin burden to him. In utero. And so he got everything that I had accumulated over 30 years of life passed on to him on day one, and it impacted him in a very unique way. What we do on the preconception side is, yes, we want to be thinking about toxin burden and getting people back to nature as much as humanly possible, supporting their inherent ability to detox. But this also tends to mean improvements in hormone health, which is the main reason that couples come to us. There's something going on with my hormones. How do we fix this? But when we impact hormones in that preconception phase, it also means that we're going to impact hormones all the way throughout pregnancy. So we can prevent things like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes. We can improve birth outcomes. You know, here in the US, the rate of C-sections is over 30% and growing all the time. A lot of that has to do with the fact that birth is a hormonal process. If hormones aren't able to facilitate that process because they already started preconception in a bad spot, it just means that we're gonna see increasing rates of C-section and therefore impaired gut health with kids. But then we can also really work on the, the child side of things too, knowing that if children don't have that huge transfer that happens, if mother's gut health is in a much better spot, children are gonna have less chronic health issues when they come into the world. So what we see now in our pediatric practice is we work with a lot of kids who do have digestive health issues and skin health issues. maybe behavioral issues, or they're on the autism spectrum somewhere. And so we see children with significant toxin burdens. So what we see compared to the fertility side of our practice is kids have 3 times as much toxin burden as adults do. They have a huge burden, and kids are great eliminators. So we see a lot more of what they're coming in contact with on a regular basis, but we know that a lot of that is actually coming from mom. So the work that we're doing in the fertility space is directly impacting kids. So I'm thinking about the fact, you know, we know that fertility is declining and a lot of research points to sperm health going down to zero in the next couple of decades. I want my little boy to be able to get married and have kids someday if he wants to do that. So I'm really thinking about how this is impacting adults long-term, but also their children.

Oh my gosh. You know, I just connected a dot based on what you said. I feel like so many parents, I'm thinking specifically like Well, my kid is not going to be able to afford the house I currently live in. So they're constantly looking at the future from a financial perspective. But what you're talking about is what about whether our kids are going to be able to be fertile or not? Like, what about the basics? Will they be able to have those basics? And I think that's kind of going over people's heads because we're so almost used to having The facilities, you know, of these basics. So that's kind of a scary future when your children don't even have access to these very human things like conceiving.

And that's the way that we think about these. We want adults right now to have a birthright to be able to conceive if they want to. And we also want our kids to be able to have that birthright. It used to be that we had to be really, really careful to prevent conception, but that's no longer the case in our, in our modern society for a lot of reasons. And it's only going to get worse for our kids if we don't do something about it now for them.

So you mentioned though that you passed on the toxic burden to your child. You're clearly not unique though. I mean, everyone must be passing on that toxic burden or passing on the loss. Like I know sometimes if you have kids too close to each other, you haven't had enough time to replenish your nutrients to conceive a second time. And so you might conceive, but that's, that next child is not getting the exchange of minerals and nutrients they need. I guess, how can people kind of better prepare to not pass on as much toxic burden?

Yeah, I think it is, you know, the way I usually think about this is there has to be some level of radical responsibility where I think a lot of people are starting to be more health conscious as they start to think about growing their families, especially if they do have health issues, but even if they don't have health issues, So even if you have no problem conceiving, you get pregnant on the first try, or that's what you expect because there's no hormonal issues— the thing I will say too is like both me and my husband have a very long history of being healthy people, exercising well, eating well, taking care of our bodies. So this is something that came really out of left field for us. If people can go into it with the knowledge that they have probably accumulated some level of toxin burden, even if it's not impacting them in any way, and to get really familiar with that and take care of some of these basic things like water, air, and food quality before they start conceiving, not on the day that they actually get pregnant, which is super common in our society, that makes it a whole lot easier to make sure that we're actually detoxing things. One of the things that we work on with a lot of women is let's take a look at your toxin burden, even if you are perfectly healthy. Let's just make sure that everything's in a good spot so that you don't have to do what I did, because I don't wish that on anybody, what I had to go through to make sure that my little boy's health got restored. And I didn't ever think that it would be that way. So I think a lot, a lot of times we just need to have a really honest conversation about the state of the world, all the toxins we're being exposed to, and assess our health with a fine-tooth comb, even if we feel good.

Do you think it's important for people prior to conceiving to get a genetics test? Because with a genetics test, or do you think it's just like, you know what, let's just assume we all don't process them very, very well and just do the work.

I think the majority of people don't just, they just don't process toxins very well. Genetic tests can be really helpful. So one of the things that we had realized in retrospect after everything had gotten resolved with my little boy is I had actually done genetic testing on both me and my husband. I have bad detoxification genes and no inflammation markers, and I don't have any signs of poor detoxification, but my husband has more genetics that create a susceptibility towards inflammation. Well, when you put those 2 things together in our little boy, it presents very differently than it does for us. So it can be very helpful. The biggest thing is we just don't know how our kids are gonna present ultimately. So sometimes we'll see siblings who have very different health presentations, even though they have been exposed to the same things, whether that be in utero from mom or in their own home from like a current exposure. Because, you know, some kids can be exposed to something like mold, let's say, and one child will have eczema, but the other one won't have any skin issues or digestive issues. They just have asthma sort of thing. So it really has to do with how their unique genetics allow for things to present.

I'm curious too, since you deal with a lot of parents trying to conceive, you probably are supporting them in conceiving, but then let's just say their pregnancy does not go as naturally as they would hope. How do you support those parents? Not only with protocol, like let's say they had a C-section and they got the antibiotics, like how are you supporting them there? But what about also emotionally?

So when we're thinking about something like a C-section. Great. We know that there's going to be antibiotics administered and that we may not have had that transfer of the microbiome via the vaginal canal. There's a lot of things that you can do if you have the tools prepared. So there is something called vaginal swabbing where you can basically prep kids with that same microbiome if you know that that's going to happen in the operating room. If you don't have that, there's things you can do after the fact too. And what we typically recommend is for mom who is being administered antibiotics, utilizing something like a probiotic can be really helpful in that short term. And then for baby, really just watching what happens. What we do know to be true is that oftentimes when there is that transfer of the microbiome, sometimes there's an overgrowth of bacteria. So even if there is an antibiotic that's being administered to baby, it's not always going to negatively impact their health. Sometimes it does, nothing happens because of the way that they are able to actually process that. And what their microbiome starts off with on day one. But then also from an emotional perspective, I think all parents are just doing the best that they possibly can. And a lot of times when I'm talking about toxin burden and things like that, I know it's very easy for parents to feel like, I wish I would've known this, but I already have kids. They're like 7 and 10, and the damage might've already been done. And the reason I'm talking about this is not to make anybody feel bad because I'm actually in that spot too. I learned this after the fact. Just like everyone else. And I wanna be able to get ahead of some of the people who maybe aren't there yet. But when we're thinking about things on the back end of things, the way that I always refer to this is I don't think that there's anything that isn't reversible. If there is a gut health imbalance, it can be reversed. It might take some time. It might not be a very quick fix. It might not be a month or 6 months. It could be years. But we can always see these things restore balance. And I truly believe in the body's ability to heal itself. If we give it the resources to do so.

That's such a great sentiment. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about stress because we just briefly touched on it, but stress is huge. I mean, let alone the expectations we have around birth, around parenting. Let's start maybe just with you and your husband. We did everything right. And yet our son was still burdened. I have to imagine that was a stressful time for you, right?

Absolutely. Very stressful. You know, I think for me, like, I really felt like a failure as a mom because I was like, I tried to prepare for this. And it was very hard for, I think, both of us because we tried to do everything we could. And then we also ended up like kind of going the conventional route as first-time parents of like going to the pediatrician. What do we do here? And the answers that they had weren't really helpful either. They wanted to do something like a topical steroid long-term, which has its own side effects. And so we were like, well, that doesn't really make sense. So it can be really stressful, I think, when those things do come up, and being able to just put one foot in front of the other can be really helpful. And knowing that our kids do mirror our nervous systems. So this is one of the things that, you know, I do talk with a lot of parents about when we're really dealing with some type of toxin burden or health concern with kids, or if they know or discover usually that there's something like mold in their home. That's really stressful to be thinking about the fact that there's mold in your home and there's something in this place that is supposed to be safe for you that is now harming your family. And it's easy to get worked up about these things. But if we can kind of take a step back and really focus on nervous system regulation and managing our stress response to these situations is going to mean that our kids are going to be able to mirror that. So we tend to see, particularly with moms, where moms are very stressed and they're high-strung and they're kind of on edge. And we see kids flare in symptoms in response to mom's stress response, even when they're outside of the womb. And so we know that there's this huge connection between parents and their children and the way that their health responds. So we have to be thinking about this and ultimately like reparenting ourselves every day as our children grow, because we're just growing with them.

Well, first of all, let's first honor the women because You mentioned how usually it's the mothers or sisters, and it, it really is true. Women are the absolute driver of health within a family. I don't believe anyone that doesn't attest to that because my experience as an entrepreneur, like it's always women who are the, the largest audience. They're always the ones that are coming in. They're curious. They're like, you know, I think there's something going wrong. And they're the ones that bring in this new idea around, hey, maybe we should look at this, right? So first of all, props to all the women out there listening that need some reaffirming of, you know, how they're contributing and doing better for their family. But secondly, we think about this a lot in our family as well. It's like there is a timing to things. Like you might not be feeling huge effects of having mold, but then suddenly you learn you have mold. And so it's very easy to increase the stress and feel like, oh my gosh, we have to deal with this right now. But maybe the timing is not right because you're in the process of moving or you're in the process of doing something that's taking up a lot of your energy. And so, how do you recommend people kind of manage the circumventing the timing and awareness around these things?

You know, I feel like the culture that we live in is very keen to say that once you have information, you need to do something about it. And that's not always the case, or we are always expected to be moving forward in some way. And sometimes that is helpful and sometimes it's absolutely necessary in families, but I don't think that it's always the case. So for instance, I was talking with a family who ended up finding mold in their home, and now they are living in an Airbnb short-term while their home is being remediated, but they're in that Airbnb now. And they're saying, there's definitely mold in here. So what do we do now? This is just the timing of it. Everything is going to be okay, but it's hard to feel that way when you're in that moment. Yeah. And so just trusting that, you know, we're thinking long-term about things. It doesn't mean that we need to make a change right now, even if there is a current concern or an issue. It can be something that can be addressed in the future. And I think that having less urgency and having the capacity to slow down and look at the full picture of everything allows us to make better decisions, especially for our families where we're not feeling rushed to do something in an urgent manner.

Yeah, and maybe prioritizing like, what's the most important thing to focus on right now? And, and I would offer too, like, the more that the whole family can get on the same page, and like that in many ways, that should be the focus, is, is never let the situation separate you all. Like, you know, separate your unification, separate the teamworkness of it. Like, to really, like, make sure that the core is the family.

Yeah.

You're stronger together than you are separate.

Yeah. And just like you said, I think a lot of times mom can be like the, the driver of health concerns in the family, but there's this equally as important role for husbands and dads where they are often trusting mom or their wife to make those decisions because they are more connected. And those 2 really do have to work together because if they're not working together, I can tell you clinically what I see in practice. If, if mom is on board with doing things holistically and dad is like, I think we should just go to the doctor and like whatever they say goes, it never ends well for the children in particular. So it really has to be a team approach, whether that's a blend of things, whether that's going one way or the other. It really has to be coming to that decision together, determining what the priority is for the family, even if that is getting some short-term relief in one area, knowing that they're gonna have to back up at some point in time and really address more root cause approaches.

Excellent. Well, this has been fantastic. Before I let you go, I want to check in around one thing. Am I right that you are an advocate of using castor oil?

I am.

Okay. I would love to just touch base on that because, you know, castor oil packs, they've been used for generations, but it seems like you've taken that knowledge to a whole new level. So what makes castor oil such a powerful tool in And how is it that you recommend it be used?

Yeah, I think castor oil can be used a lot more ways than people often realize. So castor oil supports natural detoxification efforts in multiple different organs. So we can be thinking about castor oil primarily for the liver, which is what most people are using it for in a liver pack directly over their abdomen. But you can also be using it over the uterus. So for women who have more like painful cramping or heavy bleeding, or just general, like, uterine detoxification issues. It can be really helpful there, but you can also use it over organs like the thyroid and endocrine glands. So there's a lot of research that shows that using castor oil directly over the thyroid can help with detoxification of things like heavy metals, as well as halogens like fluoride and other type of toxins that impact the ability of this gland to function appropriately and produce adequate thyroid hormones. So it can reduce things like antibodies. You can use it on the skin, you can use it on your face. So really thinking about anywhere where there might be a detoxification issue, you can use castor oil in those areas. Now, the thing I will say about castor oil is you wanna go slow with it. So I don't recommend slathering yourself in castor oil by any means because you might have a pretty nasty reaction where your body's like, we did a little too much too quickly.

What happens if you go too fast?

It can usually be a lot of different things. I usually see a lot of people give themselves diarrhea, honestly, if they go too fast. That's usually when you put it over your liver a little bit too long. It can, you can just move things a little too quickly and increase bile flow a little too fast.

You know, that was in the movie Stand By Me. I don't know if you know that movie, but back in the day they had the dream sequence and that's what they were drinking is castor oil.

Yeah.

To make everyone throw up.

Yep, absolutely. Same thing as like using it in the birth process where women drink castor oil to induce labor. Same concept there is that it can move the bowels relatively quick. But generally, like, you just wouldn't feel good. So if you like have something like diarrhea or you generally feel like you have like flu-like symptoms, that's what I would consider a die-off or a detox reaction. Your body's just trying to detox and it's detoxing faster than you have the capacity to handle safely. And so it just means you wanna back off a little bit and not push too fast.

All right. So before we end the castor oil conversation though, so for those that don't know, what is it? What is a castor oil pack like? How would they use it on these different organs?

Yeah, so a castor oil pack you can basically make on your own if you would like to. Some people use cotton or a flannel. You can also purchase a castor oil pack. There's a ton of them on Amazon, but you're looking for something that has an organic, natural material to use primarily. There's a brand called Queen of Thrones that we often use with our, and recommend with our clients who have more of like a tie so you can wrap it around your body. But essentially what you do is you're gonna put castor oil over the organ system that you would like. So if you're putting it over your liver, Your liver's on the right side of your body, just below your ribs, essentially a little bit over your ribs and underneath. Put the castor oil there and then put the pack on. Usually we recommend leaving it there for about 20 to 30 minutes to start. You can work up in time to wearing it overnight. It can help with sleep. But essentially what happens is the castor oil actually absorbs through the skin. We often forget that our skin is our largest organ, and so it can actually dermally absorb these nutrients. And it will promote detoxification in that organ system below the skin, essentially. So just work your way into it more than anything. Don't go too fast, but you can do that over your thyroid. They also, you can use the same type of pack over your thyroid, over your uterus. People would put it over their abdomen if they have more like GI issues. There's a lot of different ways that you can use it.

Yeah, it's, it's one of those, you know, I'll say ancestral practices, even though it's been used for what, the last 200 years maybe. So I'm not talking that old, but you know, old enough. It's kind of lost its way a little bit, but it's a really cheap and easy solution for a lot of things. So happy you talked about that.

And safe for kids too. They make kids' castor oil packs. My little boy is 4. He wears castor oil packs. He thinks it's super fun. No adverse reactions to it. It's a really safe way to support kind of this lifestyle of detoxification. So even if you aren't doing like a therapeutic detoxification protocol, knowing that we're all exposed to things all the time, we want to make sure that our livers are functioning optimally.

That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. I feel like this was an information-packed episode, and I'm so grateful for the work you're doing. I'm always saying our kids are the canaries in the coal mine. We have to support kid health because it's our future. And of course, the way to support kids is to also support their mothers and the family units that support them. So we have to be looking Collectively at every, at all of our health really. Can people that don't live near you work with you?

Yeah, we have a fully virtual practice. So we work with people all over the US and Canada. We're on Instagram. You can find us on Instagram for the fertility side of things at Reversing Infertility. And then our pediatric page is Always Growing Littles. We call all of our pediatrics our littles, but our website is always-growing.com and you can find all of our information regardless of what type of program you're interested in there.

And then your book, please share, you know, that title and where people can find that.

Yeah, my book is Toxic Infertility. It's detoxification solutions to improve natural fertility. You can find it on Amazon.

Perfect. Well, thank you again for your time. Keep it up. Thank you all for either listening or watching. I just hope that you're getting as much out of these episodes as I am. I feel like I am I'm getting clearer on what I need to do to bring ancestral health into my present, and I hope you are as well. So, stay curious and keep it ancestral. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's e-a-t-p-l-u-c-k.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.