In this episode of the Natural Fertility Podcast, Dr. Jane Levesque, a naturopathic doctor and natural fertility expert, dives right into the intricacies of early pregnancy. Drawing from personal experiences and professional insights, Dr. Levesque offers practical advice on optimizing fertility and navigating the first few weeks of pregnancy. This episode covers the essential steps that you need to know, from setting up a support system and understanding critical physiological processes, to the importance of proper nutrition and mental well-being. Tune in for expert interviews, case studies, and actionable tips to support your fertility journey naturally. If you’re facing infertility, pregnancy loss, or preparing for a new chapter in life, then this show is for you.

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STOP wasting time and suppressing your anxiety. Let's navigate your fertility journey together, so you can feel more confident and prepared for this next BIG chapter of your life. In Fertility 101, you'll join Dr. Jane, the creator of the Maximize Your Fertility Program, to learn how to enhance your fertility naturally. Participate in bi-weekly calls with Dr. Jane and learn alongside a private community of women on similar journeys.

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Key Takeways

00:31 Infertility and Miscarriage Support

04:36 Support System Importance

06:38 Building a Support Network

14:16 Factors Affecting Pregnancy

17:50 Avoiding Toxins During Pregnancy

19:52 Sauna Usage During Pregnancy

21:24 Pregnancy Exercises

22:55 Pregnancy and Digestion

Memorable Quotes

"The first couple of weeks are about setting up your support system. Even if you've had five miscarriages, you should still have a support system because women, when they feel more supported, their nervous system is more regulated, and the outcome of having a live birth is much higher."

"You need to nourish yourself so your body can nourish this embryo and do what it is physiologically designed to do. Respect the fact that it's a really difficult process. The deeper I go into understanding the physiology and biochemistry involved in ovulation, fertilization, and implantation, the more I'm in awe with the process of pregnancy."

"Focus on being present. Whether it's playing with your dog, watching a movie, or going into nature, it's a time to go inward and do some self-reflection. This helps clear emotions and connect deeper with yourself, which is crucial for your mental and emotional well-being."

Connect With Dr. Jane Levesque

Website - https://www.drjanelevesque.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drjanelevesque/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DrJaneLevesque/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@dr.janelevesque7319

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This isn't the time to really try to fix anything. And a lot of the times what, you know, women will say, I don't want to do anything to cause a miscarriage. So unless you're like binge drinking and punching yourself in the stomach or doing really excessive exercise, there isn't really anything that you can do right now, in this moment in time to cause the miscarriage. Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility. I want to change that. I'm Doctor Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 09:00 a.m. for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you, you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life. This show is for you. All right, ladies, today we're going to talk about mastering the first couple of weeks of pregnancy. This is a hurry up and wait kind of period. You have peed on a stick. You've confirmed that you're pregnant. Maybe this is your first pregnancy, maybe this is your fifth pregnancy, everyone is going to feel very different. I think it's really important to acknowledge what you feel when you find out when you're pregnant because of course, your past experiences or even your friends and your family's past experiences are going to, I don't say hinder, but they're going to impact the way that you acknowledge your pregnancy. If you've had miscarriages, if you've been trying for years and this is your first pregnancy, or maybe this is your third or fourth pregnancy and you haven't had any issues. And it's like I said, everybody's going to have their own feelings about it and I think it's really important to unpack that. I've had women tell me that they feel guilty, feeling happy because they've had friends that are struggling. I've had people tell me that they get super anxious when they see the pregnancy test because they've had 2345 losses. So there's a lot that pregnancy test is going to bring up for you. But I want to record this episode to help you understand kind of what are the best things that you can do in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy. Pregnancy to help you make the most out of this time. Because when you look at the physiology and the biochemistry of everything that's happening in the female body during the first couple of weeks of pregnancy and even during the entire pregnancy, let's be honest, during the entire pregnancy, it's fascinating. But in the first couple of weeks and a couple of months, there's some really critical steps that are happening and the communication that's happening between the mom and the embryo. Right. The endometrial lining and how the implantation happens in the communication within the cells and the separation of the blastocyst into. Right. Because there's an inner and an outer part, and the inner part becomes the baby and the outer part is then becomes the placenta and other supporting organs. It's honestly, I'm in awe. The more that I study this stuff, it's really, really fascinating to. First of all, I can't believe that we're all here sometimes because it's like, wow, so many things have to happen in order for the pregnancy to be successful. And then the awe part of, like, it's incredible that our body just knows how to do this and it just does that. And of course, there's a lot of things that can go wrong. But what I've been doing recently is really digging into the research to understand the physiology of everything that happens from, you know, not just in the menstrual cycle, but then for that ovulation to occur, for the egg and the sperm to meet and to connect and to fertilize and then to move down into the. Into the uterus and then for that. For that blastocyst to actually implant properly and to start development. The more that we can understand everything that's involved in that process, then we can understand when things are maybe not going the way that they should and why didn't they go the way that they should. So then we can address it appropriately. But this is really for. Hey, you have a confirmed pregnancy test. What do we do now? You hurry up and wait. So the first thing that you want to do, obviously, is you want to book an appointment, whether it's with your bdez or GP, where they should be taking a blood test and a urine test. Sometimes it's just a urine test. It really depends. But essentially they're doing the same pregnancy test but in their office because they want to confirm that you are pregnant. What I say the first couple of weeks are about is setting up your support system. Even if you've had five miscarriages, and they all happen really fast. Or you should still have a support system, because women, when they feel more supported through their journey, their nervous system is more regulated, and the outcome of having a live birth is much, much higher when women don't feel supported. And I think, you know, there. I can't remember the study that said that, and the percentage was really high. It was like 65 or 80% more likely to have a live birth when the woman was supported through her journey. I think it's a crime when you're ob or your GP or whatever specialist that you're working with doesn't seem supportive, or they'll say things like, wow, wait until. Till week seven or eight to see if you miss scary. I mean, it's crazy, but that's what they'll tell. Some. Like, my patients tell me these stories, and my heart breaks. It's like, what do you mean, wait if you're going to miss scary or not? There's so many things that are happening in these first couple of weeks where we could support you guys. We can support women through these periods to even help prevent a miscarriage if necessary, depending on what's going on in the hormones and, uh, you know, in the nutrient status. So make sure that you have your support system set up. The OB could be one of them. Midwife. I'm a big, you know, advocate for midwives. They're not all the same. You do still have to interview them. I've had a patient who they thought that midwives is going to be the best, and they were really excited, and they just didn't connect with her. But the OB was really great, and so it was weird for them to switch because they're so, you know, they were so natural in their approach, and they really wanted the midwife to work. But it's like, hey, guys, if it doesn't jive, like, it doesn't vibe, it doesn't vibe, you know, you got to move on. So making sure that you do feel supported is going to be huge, especially if you're around already, kind of prone to anxiety and overthinking and second guessing yourself and worrying. You want somebody who's going to anchor you and help you answer questions without spiraling you further into anxiety. The next thing that you want to do, and this should be done through the OB, you know, through the midwife or your GP, is you want to get some blood work done. So at minimum, obviously, they do the HCG to confirm the pregnancy, and then you can retest it in 72 hours. So to see if it's increasing appropriately. But what I really like to test is I really like to make sure that the progesterone levels are where they need to be. And, uh, that's at the very minimum. And then ideally, we would do just like a CBC and a thyroid panel so we can see what's happening with the thyroid. Cause thyroid function is really, really critical in that first little bit of the pregnancy. I mean, honestly, for the first 20 weeks of the pregnancy, the baby doesn't, is relying on your thyroid gland for the thyroid hormone. And so if you already have a sluggish thyroid, and then now we have a baby that's also going to use up that thyroid hormone that your system already has a hard time doing, we see can that can set us up for disaster and, you know, increase our chance of miscarriage. So you want to make sure that you get a blood work almost. I don't want to say as soon as possible, but as soon as possible, because I want to see where those progesterone levels are. And if they're low, we want to be watching them very, very carefully. So, like, 15 is the minimum. Ideally, you want to get in the twenties and the thirties, and eventually it's going to be over 60, over 70 once you're pregnant, and especially once that placenta forms and kicks in and starts to help produce the progesterone. But, you know, I've had many patients, and one of them who, Christina, who has been sharing her journey on social media, it's. It was insane how much we had to fight her doctor to prescribe her progesterone, despite the fact that her progesterone was low. But if she wasn't working with me, I don't think she would have advocated for herself as hard as she needed to. And literally, I was like, go to another doctor. And she would go to another doctor, and they're like, oh, yeah, you totally need progesterone, or you totally need thyroid medication. So it's crazy sometimes where you go to a professional and you expect them to know what to do because they're in, they're professional, they're an authority. They went to school for 810 years, and they were just non supportive whatsoever. And I, you know, just kind of brushing off the patient even though it's her third pregnancy and she's, you know, predisposed to miscarriages, all that jazz. So really, really important. And again, one of the reasons that I'm recording this podcast, because we. I believe what we did with Christina to support her thyroid and her progesterone in that first half allowed her to sustain the pregnancy. If she didn't have those things, would, you know, do we know if that pregnancy would have been sustained? Unfortunately, that's not an answer that we can know, but it's also not a risk that I want to take. I always put myself in my. In the shoes of my patients, and it's like, well, I would want to make sure that I'm doing everything that I can to support my body through this incredibly complex and difficult process that it's doing and not, you know, not leave any leaf unturned. So if you truly understand, you know, what is it that's important? Progesterone levels are important. Thyroid levels are important. The HCG is not so important, but we want to see if it's doubling. So a lot of the time, sometimes it's really sluggish, the way that it's increasing. So we can tell that, hey, this pregnancy might not stick, but the reason that we want to know that, and it's never just the HCG on its own. We want. We also want to look at the progesterone, right? Because a lot of the time when that HCG is not doubling, not tripling, not increasing as fast as it should, it's because the other hormones are not doing that job either. And so it's. The whole system is just struggling. And then for Christina's case, it's like her thyroid was really struggling. Like, her TSH was at 5.4 or something, and so she needs this. Like, her thyroid needed the support. And it was mind boggling that a lot of, like, it was two or three different doctors that were like, no, no, we don't specialize in this. I think you're fine. Just sometimes the thigh would go see wire when you're first pregnant. And then as soon as she got into the endocrinologist office, they were like, oh, my God, you need to be on thyroid medication ASAP. You know, again, it's like, guys, we got to do a better job. So this is why I'm educating you, so you can advocate for yourself and you can find the right support system because, you know, we can experience so many unnecessary losses and so much, you know, unnecessary pain because of. We just didn't know, and we expected the docs to know, and they just didn't support us the way that we thought they would have. This is unfortunately where we are, so hence the education. Okay, now, once you've set up your system, meaning you've contacted. You know, there will be the midwife. You're starting to set that up. Sometimes there's wait lists for midwives, things like that, and then you got your first blood work in the books. I really just need you to nourish yourself as much as you can. I don't want you to continue to test yourself. And literally, like, sometimes women will continue to test the pregnancy test because they want to confirm, oh, my God, am I pregnant? And, you know, you're overthinking every little symptom. Oh, I have a little bit of spotting. That might means I'm going to miss scary or my progesterone is low. It might mean that, but it might also mean that it's implantation, you know, bleeding a little bit. And that can happen for two days. It can happen for a week and can happen for two weeks. I've had a patient who also developed a hematoma at the same time. So it's kind of like this blood pocket between the uterus and where the embryo is implanting. And so she was spotting through her entire pregnancy, and it's, like, really difficult to go through that. And, you know, every time she went for the ultrasound, the babies are fine. Everything is great. She had twins, but she was spotting all the time, and so it would trigger a lot of anxiety for her. And I think it's really, this is why having that support network is really important and then being as objective as you can, because it's really hard to tell what's what because the body is working so, so, so hard right now, and it's going to do things that are not by the textbook. And just because it's not by the textbook doesn't mean that it's going haywire. It might be a very healthy pregnancy. We have to be objective, and we have to look at each individual person in terms of understanding what's happening. There is some data that we can also look at in terms of your temperature and how much it's rising, your sleep quality, your heart rate. There's a lot of stuff like that that's going to go really haywire because the hormones are high and the body is doing a lot of work. There is, you know, a suppression of your immune system because of the implantation. Right. The body has to accept a foreign DNA, which is now this fertilized ovum that has developed into the blastocyst. So there's lots that's going on, and we kind of need to let the body do what it's designed to do. This isn't the time to really try to fix anything. And a lot of the times, what, you know, women will say, I don't want to do anything to cause a miscarriage. So unless you're, like, binge drinking and punching yourself in the stomach or doing really excessive exercise, there isn't really anything that you can do right now, in this moment in time to cause the miscarriage. It's very much out of your control in this phase. Right. So if you've experienced multiple miscarriages, just know that there's pro. Like, there's coagulation issues that could be happening. It could be an embryo that's not dividing properly. So now you're looking at the quality of the egg in the sperm. It can be an immune system issue, right, where the immune system is dysregulated. So every time there's a foreign DNA in the system, the body just attacks it and gets rid of it. So once you're pregnant, there's nothing that you yourself, in this moment in time, can do. Like I said, unless you're, like, punching yourself in the stomach and drinking a bunch and just being really aggressive with your body. Right. Like, training really hard and whatever. Not eating enough caloric restrictions and not sleeping enough. Other than that, there's nothing that you can do. Like, you're in God's hands, is what I like to say. And the best thing that you can do is just nourish yourself, take care of yourself, regulate your nervous system, block as much negative energy as you can, because you need to just let your body focus. Your body's working really, really hard. And if your mind is racing and you have to deal with certain situations or certain people. I laughed with this with one of my patients. She works, I think, in, like, project management, and she has this Kevin guy who always needs something, and he's always sucking energy, and it's like she was going in for IUI or IVF. I'm like, you can't hang out with Kevin. Like, Kevin cannot bother you, so get the Kevins out of your life when you just find out that you're pregnant. And I laugh, but it's like, those people will leach your energy without even knowing that they're doing it. So you need to put this boundary in this block because your body is focusing, and you need to let it do what it needs to do without getting, you know, mentally caught up in, oh, my God, am I doing something? It's like that anxiety just drives our nervous system up even higher. So get the. Get the. Kevin's out of your life, right. Get the people who are, and sometimes it's family, unfortunately, sometimes it's coworkers, sometimes it's friends. But you'll know somebody who's really draining your energy. Make sure you're really mindful of that. Eat as nutritious foods as possible. Lots of protein, lots of good veggies, things that are easy to digest, lots of hydration, like we talked about in the previous episode. And you want to avoid toxins with a capital a. Like, avoid toxins as much as possible. A lot of the issues that we're seeing in the fertility now is absolutely due to the toxic world that we are living in and the impact that it has had on our endocrine system, on our, like, our entire physiology. The nutrient depletion, the microbiome, you name it. The timing of the exposure and the effect that it can have is very critical. So when the baby is first developing just this kind of cluster of cells and taking in all of this information, this is probably the most dangerous time to be exposed to toxins because it literally drives into the DNA and can change the way this is, the epigenetics, if you will, change the way that your methylation works or the way that your endocrine, of course, that's going to impact your endocrine system, inflammation. And so the more we can be, I don't want you to be fearful of living. You don't need to live in a bubble, but what you do need to make sure is that you are drinking the cleanest water possible, that you are getting the highest source of food possible, that you are not putting any toxic products on your skin, that if someone smokes around you, that they are not smoking around you. You are not hanging out around any people who are smoking. You are not putting perfume on your body with chemicals and toxins. This is really, really critical to avoid, because we cannot detox once we're pregnant, but we can avoid. And so it's really, really important to avoid toxins, because like I said, that nervous system and the development of all the cells is so, so critical. I want to make sure, like, you should be doing that through the entire pregnancy. But in that first little bit, especially, I know there's some exposures that we can't control, if you will. But this is why, hey, we don't drink alcohol in the first half of the pregnancy. I mean, you shouldn't be drinking alcohol, period, when you're pregnant. I know, they're like, oh, a glass of wine, it's fine. It really isn't. You guys, it really isn't. I hate that people have accepted these. Oh, but it's just once or it's just this. No, it's not fine. We have to cut this stuff out. It's not good for us. There's zero benefit to alcohol, smoking, processed food and sugar. We have to get the stuff out of our systems because it's absolutely impacting our hormones. But then when you're pregnant, the foundation for your baby. So if you are the kind of person that was doing detoxing, uh, you want to make sure that you stop any kind of detoxing. So whether it's Castro epoxy, red light therapy around, you can do red light therapy on, like, your face and your thyroid or your limbs, but nothing around the liver or the uterus. No saunas in the first trimester. Again, when I work with my patients, I'll change their protocols based on what's going on for them. So I very much help all of my patients go through pregnancy and postpartum. It's, I don't take anybody I don't know pregnant yet, so I don't have my optimized pregnancy program that's public because I need to really know and understand the case so then I can support through pregnancy as opposed to, like, I've never met you, I don't know what labs look like before you were pregnant or what the issues you were facing. It's really hard for me to support, and I'm nothing comfortable with that because obviously I want to make sure that I, the goal is to bring a healthy baby into this world. So I do change things based on a case by case basis. But saunas in general, first trimester is a no go. Some women will be able to go second and third, but very dependent on the case. Any detox teas or detox supplements, anything that's really, like, invigorating the system, if you will. We need to make sure that we stop. But of course, you continue to do your prenatal. A lot of my women are, you know, on colonial, on good probiotics, ubiquinol, even glutathione at a lower dose, and other supporting nutrients, whether it's things like selenium or zinc, b vitamins, it's really highly dependent on what's going on. So you definitely want to take those types of nutrients in. But anything that's stimulating detox or herbs for that matter, that are going to push the liver or even support the gut, the herbs, we want to back up, back off when we're in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy, you do still want to have some movement. I think a lot of women kind of go and they hold their breath for the entire first little bit of pregnancy because they're just waiting for that first ultrasound, and then they're waiting for the check marks to, okay, it's still good. Okay, it's still good. It's still good. And you end up holding your breath for, like, three months. And, you know, a lot of my patients who either struggled to conceive for a long time or had a lot of miscarriages are just like, I'm not going to move, move. Like, I'm just going to sit here and then I can't do anything, then there's no way I can cause the miscarriage, right? Because you just don't want to feel the self blame and the shame that comes with it. And I having a, like, miscarriage, that's the first thing I thought. It's like I did something wrong, right? My body failed me. And in reality, that's not, you know, that's not what it is. And there's a lot to unpack there, and it's probably a whole other episode. But what I don't want you to do is hold your breath for three months. You need movement, right? We need blood flow. You don't need, it's all about balance. You can't have too much blood flow, but you need blood flow. You need to go for walks. You need to do some stretching. You need to just move your body. Like I, when I did Crossfit, I still did crossfit. I just really altered what I did. So instead of doing really heavy squats, I did body weight squats. I still did push ups, but I would do them from a box instead of, you know, on the floor. I stopped doing sit ups because those were uncomfortable. But I, you know, I would do gluten bridges to help improve my core. I would go for walks instead of runs. I would sit on a bike instead of doing sprints on the bike. You can still and should still be moving. And I bet, like, I can guarantee it that you will feel better, especially if you're used to exercising. And even if you're not, it just helps to, blood flow will help to move the hormones, will help to move the digestion. Cause we can get a bit more constipated in the first, I mean, during the entire pregnancy for sure, but in the first little bit because is the body getting used to the higher levels of progesterone and that peristalsis slows down, so then you're, you know, your guts are just not moving as quickly. Point being is I don't want you to hold your breath for three months and you need to move. Sitting and doing nothing is worse than going out for walks and gently moving your body, you know, doing stretches. There's lots of prenatal yoga, and you might feel silly doing prenatal yoga when you're six weeks pregnant, but it's beautiful because it's just supportive of the pelvis, floor, and the core, and it's not intense. So it doesn't really matter how pregnant you are. The whole point, and, I mean, you can do it for postpartum as well. They'll have postpartum yoga with slightly different exercises, but the idea is that you're just moving your body and getting, you know, getting that blood flow around without overstimulating it. Right. It should all be about, I need to nourish myself so my body can nourish this embryo and do the thing that is physiologically designed to do, but have respect for the fact that it's a really difficult process. Like I said, the deeper I go into understanding the physiology and the biochemistry that's involved in ovulation, fertilization, and implantation, the more I'm like, how are we even here? So it is a really complex process, and there's a lot of things that can go wrong. We right now is not that. It's the sit, hurry up and wait period. You don't know if your body has exactly what it means and if that embryo is truly a good embryo to move on, you know, to develop into a fetus. So mentally and emotionally, you guys, the big thing that I'll say is, like, you need to focus on being present and whether it's playing with your dog or any pets that you have, maybe it's watching a movie or a comedy show to kind of distract yourself. Maybe it's going into nature and going for walks. If you already have a kid, play with your kid. It's really a time to go inward to do some self reflection, see what's coming up for you. There is going to be a lot of emotions that's probably are coming up, and that's not a bad thing. This is a chance for you to clear it and also just to connect a little bit deeper with yourself, because a lot of my women had no idea that they were feeling this way until they were put up to the test. And it's like, that's okay. It was there. So now we need to bring it out and we need to help you, you know, manage it and process it and deal with it. So you can release stress from your nervous system, right? Your nervous system is picking up on a lot of stuff and immune system has to be down regulated and nutrients are needed over here and methylation, there's a lot going on. So if we can just take a breath and get out of our own way, let our body do you know what it's designed to do? It will only help you and support you for what's to come. Because of course, the outcome can be that you are going on to have a healthy pregnancy, or it can be a more unfortunate outcome where you're not holding on to that pregnancy. And those are, you know, that's a different conversation. And I have some podcast episodes around miscarriage and how to deal with that and how to know and how to support it. And we'll continue to record more content. But just know that in these first couple of weeks, if we can really just focus on supporting yourself, nourishing yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and really building a supporting network around you, it's going to help you get through whatever it is that's going to come in the next couple of weeks or months or even years, that's the foundation. So I go I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn more about my program, maximize your fertility or fertility 101, please connect with us on instagram ectorjanelevesque. I'm happy to always connect and answer questions and see if I'm the right person to help otherwise. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. To read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode, visit drjanelevesque.com podcast. And if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took two minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review@ratethispodcast.com. doctorJane the reviews will help with the discoverability of the show, and who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and let's make your fertility journey, your healing journey.