If you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year and want this level of detective work on your case, apply to work with me and my team here: drjanelevesque.com/application.

It takes about 5–7 minutes to complete. If we can help, we’ll invite you to a free Fertility Clarity Call with one of my team members. On that call, we’ll go through your story, see what’s been missed, and walk you through our simple 3‑step Clarify → Correct → Conceive process that’s helped over 70% of our clients finally bring home a healthy baby.

Episode Summary

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Elissa, one of the practitioners on my team, to break down a viral claim that keeps circulating online: “the man builds the placenta.” We explain what’s true, what’s oversimplified, and what actually matters clinically when it comes to sperm quality, placental development, and pregnancy outcomes.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Methylation affects health across multiple generations.
• Preconception health is crucial for both partners.
• Sperm carries epigenetic instructions impacting offspring's health.
• Lifestyle choices affect fertility and placental health.
• Nutrient absorption is key to optimizing fertility.
• Emotional support balances masculine and feminine energies.

About Dr. Jane’s Practice

I’m a Naturopathic Doctor and Natural Fertility Expert. My team and I work 1:1 with couples who’ve been struggling with infertility for 1+ years to get to the root cause of their fertility issues so they can conceive and bring a healthy baby home, using advanced lab testing and personalized protocols.

Our mission is to make science-backed, natural fertility care the standard so more couples can build healthy, thriving families.

If you want this level of support on your own case, apply here: drjanelevesque.com/application

Hi guys, welcome to an episode of Natural Fertility with Dr. Jane. I am Dr. Jane and today I'm joined by Dr. Elisa, one of my practitioners. We are in the running for the top downloaded podcast episode today. And you have a hot topic that you wanted to talk about because it's popping up on your algorithm. And when you suggested it, I was like, heck yeah, let's break it down. Let's hope people understand.

Good.

Yes.

Yes, so we always talk about the things that are relevant that keep popping up in our life. So I feel like I'm having a lot of these conversations about like, what is the man's role in, you know, fertility and like, does he build the placenta? Like I keep talking to other Kairos and they're like, you're in fertility now? Like, have you seen that viral video of Marsha Schaefer talking about how he built the placenta? And I'm like, yes, how much time do you have? Like, can we dive into it?

Yeah. So we're going to dive into that. And I think it's not even the role that the man has in the fertility, but the rule that the male sperm has in the pregnancy and that we're not going to layer it into the health of the child because I want to say that's obvious. And there is a lot more studies that are showing in terms of the methylation and the glitches in it and how that impacts generations to come. the

Correct.

issues that we can see with even depression and mood and how that was connected to the father's methylation pattern. So there's a lot more of these kind of generational, tri-generational studies that are coming out, but we're going to really dive into like, is the, what is the role of the sperm through the pregnancy and how much of it is true that like he builds the placenta versus what else, you know, what else does the male sperm do? So jump into it. Let's start.

Mm-hmm.

Let's get into it. So yeah, half true, half not true, right? As far as when we're looking at what the sperm does and if it does build the placenta, yes, 50 % maternal DNA, 50 % paternal DNA builds the embryo and then the embryonic tissue builds the placenta. But depending on the health of the man and obviously the health of the woman,

what is that embryonic tissue gonna look like? So diving in a little bit deeper to, yeah, how does that happen?

Sorry, I'm drawing a blank here.

No, you're good. So we have half of 50 % maternal DNA, 50 % paternal. And then what is the paternal genes? This is where I think the research is that the paternal genes are influencing the growth of the placenta. So it's the genetic drive that's making that placenta, but the actual tissue is still going to be 50 % maternal, 50 % paternal.

Yeah, and so I have this conversation with my patients a lot when we're looking at like the deeper testing and Like how much work does the egg have to do? So when the egg and the sperm meet right they have to Take the dna from both sides combine create that new that new

structure essentially. And so the egg is going to be working really, really hard in order to make corrections and make changes because the body wants an ideal environment.

Right? So if the egg is working really, really hard because the sperm quality is not as good, then we have things like implantation issues and you know, going into what the environment of the uterus looks like and all of that is really important. And one of my clients was like, oh, that sounds familiar. The egg and the woman are doing all the work, but it's, you know, what the man is delivering.

He

Yes, I mean, it is the process of creation is largely put on the woman because it is the woman's body that is doing that. So I think this is why women feel kind of the quote unquote heavy burden of it all. But what is important to understand is this kind of feminine and masculine energy is in order for the woman to

Mm-hmm.

be able to step into her feminine energy, which is the energy of creation and intuition and trust and, you know, essentially just following through and letting go and surrendering. She needs a strong masculine presence. And what we've noticed, and this is something that I, you know, I can speak closely to because this was a very big pattern for me and I still can get stuck in it.

is where I actually take on the masculine energy very easily. I become the doer, the go-getter, like the I force things as opposed to step back and let my body do you know what it's designed to do. Now it's not just when I'm not just talking about in pregnancy but in the career driven world. So women are now building their careers, they're waiting, they're traveling, they're wanting to experience life etc etc and of course there's nothing wrong with that but when

we get stuck in that fight in that masculine energy and then in that fight or flight, we almost get upset that like, is my body not doing what it's supposed to be doing? Well, the feminine energy is very different and it's very soft. And for most women, like I have clients who are like, I don't even know what that is. Like I've never experienced that. I never had women around in my life who were like that. My mom is, you know, always drove the house. Like my dad wasn't even around or my dad was just kind of present, you know, just kind of there instead of actually

guiding, protecting the family. So that's the component where I'm like, yeah, the woman does a lot, but in order for her to do a lot, she needs this really stable, grounding energy, which should be the masculine energy.

Mm-hmm.

and I see a lot of men who don't understand that role because the women are overpowering their own masculine energy and so then the male kind of withdraws and then there's a lot of toxic masculinity stuff that's going on and the male part I think is just as important to help the women get to that place but the woman is going to do most of the work. There's no doubt about that.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm, which is you know that shows up on on both sides right like like lifestyle wise but then also when we look at deeper into the science of it we're like that feminine and masculine role has to show up in that implantation portion and It's hard it's hard for a lot of people, know, especially nowadays like you said where were

so hyper-focused on our careers and our lives and all of that, but when you look at the nitty-gritty, that shows up in the science as well, which is a new concept to kind of think about.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the, basically, if we look at the paternal genes, they will promote the growth of the placenta, but the paternal genes are still going to drive 50 % of the development of the DNA. And so if we take it to like fertilization and what happens in the zygote, which is just two cells, and then it goes to the blast, you know, and then it multiplies the blastocyst stages where most of the time in IVF,

if you have done IVF or done research on that, know that that's when they will retrieve or sorry, that's when they will actually do the implantation. But it's when the egg in the sperm meat, the egg will clean up any DNA damage like you were saying, Dr. Lisa, and then the fertilization will happen. And within that fertilization, there's a lot that happens within the methylation. So methylation is like this foundational component to having

not just successful fertilization, but honestly, the download that that zygote is going to take from both the mom and the dad. And then it's like its own independent structure. As soon as it's two cells and there's theories that it's like, that's when the soul comes in, like the soul comes in as soon as it's, it's its own, it's downloaded the genetic code and then it goes. And so the problem is what is it downloading? If it's in

you

you

Mm-hmm.

The beautiful thing is, and you're going to talk about this, is like we can test methylation. We can look at the actual methylation cycle and it's not just your MTHL-phar gene. And then it also the nutrients that are involved in making methylation run smoothly. So then when that egg and that sperm meet and it's the embryo, the zygote, you know, your baby, it's not even an embryo yet, but it's downloading the genetic code of the information.

Hmm.

that's happening from all of the preconception care you're doing. And then from there, like you were saying, the 50 % maternal, 50 % paternal, the methylation a lot of the times is gonna drive, because there's such a high demand, and obviously the environment and all the nutrients that are involved in that is gonna play a really big role.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, want to get too like scientific, but I just want people to like understand like what actually happens. And sometimes if you don't understand why you can't get pregnant, if you just look at what has to happen during pregnancy, then you'll go, I get it. Like that's why my immune system condition, my autoimmune condition is preventing me from getting pregnant because it's actually an immune reaction. So if my immune system is already fucked, I can't have that immune reaction that I'm supposed to.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah?

Right. And so it goes back to like lifestyle and the health quality of your health is going to directly impact that. So when we look at the methylation, that shows us a lot about what your lifestyle is and things that you might not even be telling us. Right. So that's, you know, the obesity factor or, know, the metabolic dysfunction. How are you detoxing? Like, is your body able to take in environmental toxins or other things like the world we live in? We walk around, we're getting toxins all the time.

He

How does your body process that and release that? Exactly, right. So lack thereof, if your methylation process isn't working optimally and that all directly impacts the quality of your sperm, which goes back into when the sperm meets the egg, like how hard is the body having to work or the egg is having to work to repair that?

or does it hold on to all of it?

Yeah. I love what you said that, cause all the review case studies with you and I have not sat in front of these patients for two hours and gotten to know them. And I will look at their labs and I'll be like, is she digesting anything? Like, is she sleeping? Is he like what's happening? Because you could tell that it's like this process is really strained. Why?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and then sometimes you have to look at deeper testing to understand why that process is strained. Like you said, environmental toxic load. Sperm can become this dumping ground for toxins because anything that your body produces and whether that's a stool, urine, sweat, tears, your breath, like we're detoxing all the time and then secretions. So for women, it will be vaginal secretions and for men it won't be the seminal fluid.

Mm-hmm.

your body's just going to try to get things out. You know, it doesn't, that it doesn't want in there. So yeah, we can tell through the testing, you can't really hide, you know? And when I look at the methylation side by side, this is where I get, you know, for one partner and the other, this is where it's fascinating. Cause you can see that they're either very opposing or very complimentary, but depleted in the same areas. And so

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

then I know, hey, when the egg and the sperm tries to meet, they don't, and there's this demethylation, remethylation that's happening, know, the methyl groups are rearranging themselves, essentially because you're depleted in the same things. The body doesn't have enough. And so it can't, even if it regroups itself and tries to correct itself, if it doesn't have the nutrients, doesn't.

Mm-hmm.

you if it doesn't have the material, it doesn't have the material, it can't do it. And so then we're looking at whether that's a chemical pregnancy or no pregnancy at all, you know, other implantation failures. You can see it.

Right?

Mm.

Yeah, and toxins, inflammation load, all of that impacts it, like not just the quality of your sperm, but the quality of your seminal fluid, because that's also the uterus is being exposed to that. And that's almost like a priming ground for, you know, the embryo to implant, because it's a foreign object, right? Like it's new. And that goes back to that autoimmune or that immune response in the female's body, where if you don't have good

quality sperm and seminal fluid, like you're not optimally priming the uterus for implantation of something that feels like it's foreign to the female's body. So it's important that inflammation, gut, infection, all of that is not present to optimize that process.

Yeah. And you know, this is something that I learned very recently, but essentially you can have, you know, we can look at the vaginal microbiome and we can see what's going on in the vaginal microbiome. Obviously you can look at the uterine microbiome. That's a lot, you know, that's, that's a bigger surgery, but you look at the vaginal microbiome and the mistake that I made where I would just assume that, okay, if we see something in the vaginal microbiome, like a urea plasma, we need to treat both.

Mm-hmm.

and we do, but that male might have other things that he is working through that we are not aware of. So, you know, stay tuned, but I'm looking at the seminal microbiome panels and how we can test that because the other layer of that, if I see in the vaginal microbiome, like the staph or the E. coli, that's really high, that's actually likely coming from the seminal microbiome, which means

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That's why she's having all the autoimmune reactions or where she's just having, you know, an autoimmune system that's flared because she's getting sensitive. And if you're thinking about the ejaculation, like that's, that's going in there, you know, it's, it's going inside the body and the woman has to work with that microbiome that there's a lot of meshing of the microbiome, if you will, that happens during intercourse. It's the deepest, you know, the most, the deepest share, if you will.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So yeah, like you have to look and understand what that microbiome is doing on both sides and see where the mismatch is happening and who's triggering what and who needs a little bit more help clearing because I've had, you know, male patients clear something really quick and the female patients are still struggling and vice versa.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a whole comprehensive look at everything too of how that's interacting with your gut and your microbiome and the sandwich of your reproductive organs in between the two. so you gotta look a lot deeper on both sides of the partner to make sure that that's optimized, absolutely.

Yeah. So a big component that we wanted to talk about is that, you know, the sperm is not just bringing DNA. It is bringing these epigenetic instructions. And if you're new to, there is the genetics and then there is the science of epigenetics, which is you can change the expression of genes based on your environment. So certain environments will turn certain genes on and off in, you know, it's interchangeable. So you can have

an environment that's very toxic, highly inflamed, know, pathogenic, all of that stuff that will turn on certain genes that are more associated with disease. And then it will turn the other genes off that are associated, you know, with lower risk of cardiovascular health and all that jazz and then vice versa. So the epigenetic instructions is where that's really, that's what the sperm is carrying. And I talked about this with, you know, other practitioners on the podcast.

when we say things like IVF can bypass male fertility, I just think it's the most ignorant thing you can say. It's like, because you're choosing the sperm, you're telling me you have bypassed his crappy methylation, his toxic load, his obesity factors. Like you haven't passed that. You've just chosen the best out of the, you know what I mean? Like you're just picking out the best.

Yeah.

I don't even know the analogy here, it's like you're digging in crap and then you're trying to find something that's good. It's like, what are you talking about? You haven't bypassed anything. So I don't know if you want to talk about the kind of the obesity and the metabolic health that the influence that that will have on the placenta.

you

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so just to kind of touch on what you just said something that I've heard dr. Nicole say multiple times is genetics loads the gun But your lifestyle in your environment pulls the trigger so

you can have a gene expression, but how is your lifestyle and how are you turning that on? And then what are you turning on to pass down? And so to go a little bit deeper into like the obesity, like looking at like your body and how hard is your body working? And when we have extra weight, our body has to work a lot harder and that directly affects the methylation. And so the metabolic disorder and all of that,

we're passing down that we're building that inflammatory state right from conception, which does impact the placenta, which does impact the uterine environment. Correct. Yes.

Like that's what the zygote is gonna download, right? So like when I was talking about that download sequence, it's like that's gonna be downloaded into the embryo. So the state and the health of the male before he conceives and the state obviously, we've said that preconception care is the most important thing that you can do. Cause that download happens on day two. It's like you don't even know you're pregnant.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

on day two and then it goes. So yeah, it's a big deal.

And something we've talked about before too is like the sperm turns over every 70 to 90 days.

you can do the back end work and you can clean up the environment of your body and create better sperm, create better quality sperm. It may not happen in that first 90 day period that you're having that turnover, but it's really important to look deeper so that you can take those next steps to know what you need to clean up essentially.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think it was the study Sobre.

2014 human reproduction. That's where they look the paternal obesity that's associated with ultra methylation and imprinted genes in offspring So the father's metabolic health will influence placenta gene expression before implantation even occurs I think if we just like sit with those papers and this is what you know drives me nuts because The IVF clinics and I have some you know IVF docs that pop up on my feed and they'll be like yeah We can bypass male fertility issues with IVF

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

IVF and it's like what about this stuff? Right? And so I guess there's truth to the fact that yes you can bypass fertility issues but what we're looking at least for this generation in this couple but if we zoom out and we look at well what are we really doing here and you know when I started to specialize in fertility almost six years ago now or

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, six years ago now, I said, I don't want to help people just to get pregnant. think that's over. Like I had zero issues getting pregnant with my first and that pregnancy rocked me. And then how difficult that postpartum was. And I didn't even realize how difficult it was until I was out of it. You know, it's like, and then all the stuff that I know my daughter now has to work through because I had zero idea what I was doing. It's like, it's not just about getting pregnant, like getting pregnant.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

is the very beginning of your journey. It's about having healthy children, building generational health, actually being able to enjoy your family instead of being sick all the time or having sick kids. That's really painful. I've seen a lot of people in my practice, and I don't know if you saw kids, but having sick kids is probably one of the most painful things you can go through as a parent.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and the placenta is the, you know, the first like thing that's like feeding your child. Like that's where your child is getting all of its nutrients. And so to have like a strong environment and strong like start is super, super important because like you said, we do see that translate into, you know, the babies and childhood and what these kids have to deal with like later on in life.

Yeah, we just never connect the dots. Yeah, and I think that's what we're here for. And again, I think we can all say like...

No.

Katie and I just had a podcast where it's like there's so many things that we wish we did differently, you know, especially for our first babies, because it's literally you're just stepping in blind. And that's part of the reason that we're here is because we want to teach so then you don't have to go through the same pain cycle, but also know that as a human, we're always doing the best that we can. It's, I want people to really tune into their intuition and not like trust anyone blindly, including us.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

We go through a rigorous interview process to make sure that this is a good fit because I'm not interested in just sitting and taking your money if I don't think I can help you. That doesn't feel great for me at all. I hate it, actually. When I'm like, I told you this thing, you couldn't do it, or we don't, no, I want you to find the right practitioner. And so if you're sitting in front of someone and you feel like you're either lied to or you're just another

you

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

person on the conveyor belt, if you feel like you're being ripped off, it's like it's because you are. And it's not because these people in front of you are terrible people. It's like that's just the system that they have. And so if we want to break the system, then you have to be an advocate and say, I don't want to be part of the system anymore. And that's okay that this is how you're treating it.

You

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

your patients, it's just not what I'm willing to settle for anymore. And then I'm going to go and find someone else. And I promise you, there's other people out there. It's just, we kind of say, well, this is the only clinic that's the closest to me. And it's like, yeah, we got to have stronger, you know, we have to have stronger parameters than this clinic is really close to me.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that's, you know, to the leads to the next point of like, we, this is a 50 50 process and we want to work with both partners because it is important for the male just as important for the female. But society paints this picture like you spoke on before Dr. Jane of the females doing all of the work and you know, she carries the pregnancy, she delivers the baby. It's like.

Yeah, she does. But also, it's very important for both partners to not only be present, but want to fix that process. And I think that's something I really loved when I met you was that it's like, it's not just the female. And that's what I had been struggling with in practice was I'm just meeting the females. I'm just treating the females. But this is just showing how important it is for both partners to be present in this process.

Yeah, think we can kind of like if we look at pregnancy as this like really big success, because I genuinely do like every time you see a pregnant woman, was like, good for you. Like you're amazing. Do you know how much you're doing? But you know, every time, like if you think about someone getting an award, they'll never be like, thank you. I'm really great that I got this award. I worked so hard. What do they usually say? They're like, I've had a team of people behind me that have helped me get to this point.

Yes, absolutely.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

And when they say you need a village to raise a child.

The truth is it's like you need a village to help the woman go through pregnancy because it's a lot and there's a big strain that happens on the masculine energy and it should once the woman is pregnant because the woman goes into a highly vulnerable state. She's going to be tired. She's not going to want to be out. She's not going to be able to cook. She's not going to be able to do all the things that she was able to do. And so the masculine energy has to come over. And so when I envision a woman who has had a successful pregnancy, I know she didn't do it on her own.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I know she had a team of people supporting her and I actually see it as a big red flag when the woman gets pregnant and the male just go done and he checks out because if that shift doesn't happen, I know she's not going to be like, she doesn't feel that support. And sometimes she has a hard time verbalizing it. And I just had a couple who they unfortunately miss scary, but I don't want to say fortunately, like that was such a big shift for him. He realized that it was a chromosomal issue.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And I've seen him change in three months more than the past year that we've been working together. It hasn't even been three months, it's more like two months. And the guy is completely different. And that's what makes me feel so much better as a clinician and more certain in the next pregnancy for the couple, because I see how much it has clicked for him. It wasn't just this donation he gave, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's your entire being and how you're showing up for this woman and the safety that creates in her nervous system in this team effort versus the mom-child dynamic. Just putting that out there, if you have the mom-child dynamic, you don't have room for a baby because your husband is a baby.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You don't have room. You only have so room for the mother's energy. And maybe that's your husband, or maybe that's your siblings, or maybe that's your parents. I can't tell you how many times I'm like, you're already using up all of your maternal energy. That's why there is no room. And so if you want to create room, you're gonna have to tell people how to support you and who do they need to become so you can bring this life into this world.

Unfortunately, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely and to never discount the process of pregnancy and childbirth at all, but it is it is important Like you said that mental emotional component of your partnership and then how you feel throughout your pregnancy, too So that's the female health but also the male health and like the science that we just spoke on of like building the pregnancy inside The woman's body is gonna impact how she feels Throughout that pregnancy as well, you know if there's that metabolic

He

or infection or high levels of inflammation. We see where we have patients come in and it's, they're trying to have their second baby, but we're like, how was your first pregnancy? And that gives us a big window before we know anything about them of what we're probably about to find.

Yeah, yeah. always say like pregnancy just brings things to the surface. It doesn't cause them, but it will definitely bring things to the surface and whether that's pregnancy or postpartum period, because the body is constantly doing the best that it can. And if it doesn't have what it needs, it's.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

gonna send out stronger and stronger signals. And this is where we have this, I am broken or my body is just, I need to suppress the symptom where instead it's like, why is the body throwing me this signal? Like, why do I have such severe postpartum depression? And then you look at the levels of inflammation or you look at thyroid, you look at, you know, liver and gut health and you're like, no wonder you're so depressed, like no wonder, you know, your poor body. And so if we can take that, like your body,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

is your best friend, like it is your home. It's always telling us, you know, something is off. I just think we've set like such a low standard for health now that people are like, I'm healthy. And I'm like, are you, do you live on this planet?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then they don't realize, yeah, and then they don't realize until they feel better how terrible they felt before.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about the sperm causes preeclampsia.

Yeah, so not directly, we're not directly causing, but right, but the pre-eclampsia is a placental disorder. And so going back to...

Not directly. Not quite right.

What is the quality of the placenta? What is the quality of the DNA that came in that's building the placenta? Which is, you know, 50 % him or even, you know, there's some studies that are showing that he may have a little bit higher of a, what's the word I'm looking for? A little bit higher of the influence. Yes, influence, thank you, on the growth of the placenta. And so again, how she feels can be different.

influence.

actually correlated or related to what the health was and what things looked like of the sperm prior to the building of the placenta. Yeah.

before.

Yeah, I think, in this is where I don't think we can separate it. I think we'd love to, but I don't think we know enough. And so

Mm-hmm.

Right.

To say that there's only one factor that causes preeclampsia, I think is again undermining the whole process and how big it actually is and all of the different components that happen. But we know that the DNA fragmentation is gonna have a big role on the quality of the embryo, therefore the implantation, the miscarriage risk, and the development of the placenta.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

but there's also what are the nutrients that the body has that it's working with.

in order to be able to build that placenta and in order to obviously build that baby. Again, I'll go back to like, if you don't understand why you're not getting pregnant, if you dive into the research of understanding what has to happen during pregnancy in all the nutrients that are involved, then it's almost like the answers are right there in front of you. And I think it's really powerful to like dive very deep into understanding the methylation and like,

Mm-hmm.

just vitamin D like or coq10 it's literally like you know it's a list it's vitamin A and vitamin E and all these B vitamins and zinc and vitamin C and then you're like so why don't I just take all those things and then cover my base ground and it's like why don't we do that Dr. Lisa why don't we just take everything that the body needs in theory

Mm-hmm.

Well.

Well, yeah, in theory, but also we don't know what your specific body needs and where there are lack of nutrients or what other parts of your body are impacting why your body's not either absorbing the nutrients, if you're just getting rid of the nutrients or like you have to go one step behind it where you can load up on your supplements, but you might actually just be overwhelming your body if that's not what your body actually needs.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah, I I think it just creates a mess to be honest. I mean, coming from somebody who used to do that, okay, you guys like, I share these things. So you don't have to make the same mistake. But sometimes we have to go through our own process. You know what I mean? Like, no, let me see if it's different for me. And it's

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

There is so many nutrients and if you just try to supplement everything, you will absolutely overwhelm your body. And like Elisa, you were saying, how do know you're absorbing it?

how do you know there isn't like iron is a really good example? What if you need iron? But the reason that you need iron is because you have this crazy infection in your gut and or in your blood and now you're taking iron and you're feeding that infection and just it's crazy. So how many, if you're listening to it and it's like, yeah, I've been on iron supplements for forever and my iron is still not going up.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

feeding it.

Mm-hmm.

I know, I know it's like you need to get off that iron immediately because you're making this infection stronger and then we need to treat. and I just had, I did, Armin labs, which is kind of the gold standard in some of the infection panels on blood work. And she has had low iron for like three months and it took her a long time to just like get the blood test organized and done. Like we could have done it sooner, but it's, you know, the timing works the way does. And it was also over the holidays and

Mm-hmm.

But I was like, you can't take iron. You already did an iron transfusion that caused a bunch of mess for you.

Mm-hmm.

Like you literally developed rheumatoid arthritis because of whatever was in that blood. But if you take iron again, you're just going to feed this infection. And so you're going to have low iron and you're going to hang out and you're going to be tired and you're going to have some shortness of breath. And we're going to figure out what's causing this low iron and then we're going to treat it. And so it's like, yeah, it sucks for three months. You're going to be tired, but I'm not going to give you something that I know isn't going to work.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think like there's no way I could do that if I don't have testing.

Yeah, and the body is gonna prioritize things. So when the placenta is lacking nutrients because of the structure that it was built off of, it is gonna leach that from mom. It is gonna take those nutrients from its host, right? So it's gonna take it from mom. And so you could even, know, preeclampsia associated.

Absolutely.

with the lack of the nutrients, which we wanna make sure even after you are pregnant, we love to support our clients through pregnancy as well. So some of that stuff is very avoidable where if we're doing the proper testing and getting the proper nutrients and supplementing what mom needs, you can have a much better pregnancy as well.

Yes.

Yeah. And I think we can see it coming a mile away. I think it's really important to do regular testing on the woman when she's pregnant. And especially if there has been like prior complications, the, you know, in first trimester, you want to get a like right when the woman is pregnant, you want to understand the HCG rise, the progesterone. And then in the first trimester, you need to look at iron levels, a thyroid, at blood sugar, at liver, like kind of how is the body doing as this

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

pregnancy is developing and then every trimester you want to be doing it because preeclampsia doesn't happen overnight and you can start to see those liver enzymes elevated or you can see blood sugar. You know, one of my pregnant patients right now, she, her HbA1c is at 5.6 and the midwife is like, that's great. You're fine. But then at 5.7 you're considered pre-diabetic. So which one is it? Is she great or is she pre-diabetic? You know, I think

Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's unless it is flagged on the test, they just don't even look at it. They just look at, nothing is flagged. I'm good. And that's usually because the volume of people that they're seeing is so high. They can't sit there and like look at all of your stuff properly. And so, so many things get missed.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or not even taking the time to test until symptoms are pregnant, where, or present, not pregnant, present, where I've seen it time and time over where these women are getting through their pregnancies and they're getting into the end of their third trimester and they're like, oh, you know, all of a sudden I went to my appointment and they said I had preeclampsia and now I'm getting induced and then I had a C-section. And it's just this cascade of where we can test and we can take those protocols.

like proper steps to make sure that that doesn't happen to you because it's just unfortunately so common.

Yeah, for sure. And with, you know, my case that I was just talking about is like, we're, I'm like, no, I want you at five or below. So if we need to put a continuous glucose monitor on, I will. And obviously not on every pregnant lady, but some of, most of my patients now are used to data. So they, I don't want say they disassociate from data, but what, cause I don't want the data to make them anxious. What I say is like, I just need you to collect the data and share it with me.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

and then let me interpret it and let me tell you what to do with it. I don't want you to go down the spiral and Google things and whatever, because it's like, let me be the Google, let me be the filter. And that usually works so then they're not anxious, but I want to understand when the blood sugar is rising and when you're like, I'm not, I am eating a lot of protein, but I'm also craving a lot of fruit recently, or I'm craving this, or I'm eating a lot more bread, or I'm eating whatever. I want to be able to understand that and give you specific information and go.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

hey, this is elevating your blood sugar. And elevated blood sugar is inflammation. And then usually we're gonna see a disruption with your cholesterol, like your triglycerides or your LDLs, which leads to further inflammation, which then, you know, now blood pressure's starting to creep up. Like it never happens overnight. And the women are just so brushed off as they're, you know, coming into appointments, be like, no, you're fine. The baby's growing great. You're good.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And the woman goes like, I guess I'm just supposed to be tired. I guess I'm supposed to be brain foggy. I'm a little bit dizzy, but I just need some more water. And it's like, no, you have freaking blood pressure issues. Like we need to do something about this now, you know?

Yeah?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Just because something's common doesn't mean it's normal. And pregnancy doesn't have to be hard.

Yeah, yeah. mean, don't get me wrong. It's the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it doesn't have to be a horror story. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. yeah. So, I mean, I think the, DNA fragment fragmentation and the pregnancy outcomes and how it's going to drive the growth.

miserable. Yeah, better word, better word.

of the baby and the preeclampsia. This is why we work with couples. It's just like, it's 50-50 and that what the male brings to the table is more than just the sperm. Literally, you know, and although that is the most important part for the whole thing to happen, but there's so much more, you know, there's so much more there. Let's talk a little bit just about the...

Mm-hmm.

Well, we can talk about what semen delivers more because we have that in our notes, the cytokines, the prostaglandins, the immunomodulating factors and the basically inducing an inflammatory cascade in the female reproductive tract. that sperm isn't, and this is where like testing the seminal microbiome can be really powerful because you can see what the man is carrying. And if the uterus even wants to accept the pregnancy and the sperm,

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

or it rejects it.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's like that inflammatory cascade that has to happen where, like we talked about before, the semen is priming, almost priming that. And as much as we talk about like infection or inflammation in the female reproductive microbiome is in a safe place for an embryo to implant, if that's present, if it's present in the sperm, it's

Yes.

It's the same story, right? It's not a safe environment for the baby to implant.

Yeah, well, I mean, it now just becomes part of the microbiome of the baby and then the traveling of the, you know, of the development of the actual embryo. And the implantation is it, it's like the egg has to have enough energy to be able to essentially fix whatever is going on within the sperm and then do the fertilization and then like move through the fallopian tube and then do the implantation.

Mm-hmm.

And that is all highly dependent on mitochondrial presence and mitochondrial function. So if that mitochondria is depleted or it has used up all of its energy, or even if that egg is older and we can see that on the numbers, you know, you could see how the woman's body is doing in her levels of inflammation. And it'll tell us the direct kind of reflection of her egg quality. It's not an exact measurement.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

But you know, if I don't see strong ovulation, if I see really high inflammation, it's like, I know that oxidative stress is high and there's more tests I think that are coming out. We'll be able to get a better idea of that. But yeah, it's like, it's just a highly demanding energy demanding process. So if we use all of that in the first bit of the pregnancy, essentially there's not much left for the rest. And so, you know, the pregnancy terminates or it just doesn't happen.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Uh, the last note about like, does the man build a placenta? It's like it's the placenta is fetal tissue and genetically half paternal because the paternal genes, the sperm epigenetics will very much shape the placental growth, but it is still the download that originally happens from the mom and the dad in the zygote. There's still maternal tissue. That's a play here. So do you want to

talk quickly about how we want to assess and optimize preconception for males.

Yeah, so we touched we touched on this a little bit I think kind of throughout but you want to get the big picture so we want to look at the DNA of Yes, we Yes, yes, so looking at

Not just the sperm, not just, like deeper in the sperm, but then it's like, you're not just sperm males, I promise you.

know, sperm analysis is important, but we're also looking at the morphology and the DNA fragmentation. We're looking at a blood work panel. So looking at, you know, all of the comprehension of the male there, we're looking at the gut, we're looking at the microbiome, the methylation, super, super important, which I think a lot of times is getting missed in other areas like the methylation still blows my mind.

And testing your MTHFR is not just your methylation. think, yeah, like it's great if you know, and we test the genetics because we want to understand, but MTHFR is one gene in the folate cycle versus in the methylation cycle. There's, you know, at least 13 genes that are direct and there is lots that are indirectly impacting it and the nutrients that are involved. And there's still things that we don't quite understand about methylation.

not just methylation.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

that is to come. The research is very quick right now with AI and just there's lots of things coming to the surface, which is great. But yeah, we have people all the time be like, I got my MTHFR tested. It was good or it wasn't bad. So now I need more folate. And it's like, no, that's not what that means. Sometimes you actually need the B2, you need B3. Yeah, like you might not need folate at all. You might actually be bogging yourself down with too much folate.

Yeah.

Yeah, but looking at the whole process, yeah. Yeah.

and you don't have the other cofactors to help the body use the folate. So I just wanted to put that, cause we see that all the time and it's like, it's not just the MTHFR gene you guys, I promise.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but.

What's your detox capacity? What's the oxidative stress look like in your body? What is the environmental toxins like bogging things down? So just, you know, you got to look a little bit deeper and then the methylation tells you a lot about what those disruptions in the sperm analysis could be. like showing us, know, if there's low morphology, like where is it at? Like, is it in the head that directs back to the DNA? And, you know, it's like you have to look a little bit deeper rather than just like, is the

Yes.

sperm going in the direction that we want it to go in and how many of them are there.

Yeah, I mean, even when we look at a sperm analysis, I want to know why it's not good. And the sperm analysis is not going to be able to tell me that the sperm is just going to tell me that there is some significant issues within the sperm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

but it's not gonna tell me why. So I have to look at the gut, we have to look at the nutrient panels, we have to look at inflammation and cardiovascular risk and all of those things. And then we can say this is probably, this is the likely thing that's driving this. Because if your cardiovascular markers or like your LDLs are through the roof or your triglycerides are high and the blood sugar is dysregulated, like the blood vessels are all inflamed, you're...

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

you're going to be using up a lot more EPAs, the omega-3s, to help keep that inflammation down. And one of the structural components of the sperm is to make sure that you have enough EPAs and just omega-3s. And so you're not going to have them because you have all of this inflammation that's coming out. So like, yeah, you can start taking it and it is absolutely beneficial. But if we don't get to the root of why that blood sugar is so dysregulated, and so that's why it's also connected.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

to the pathogens, the toxins, to your lifestyle, to your family history, like you name it.

And we have to look at the big picture and then we have to prioritize like what needs to be cleared first, what needs to be supplemented first. And it's when you start looking at the bigger picture and you know, this has been really like eye opening for me too to like see all of these additional testings that I wasn't as exposed to before to like see that interconnection of how every, we know every system impacts the other system, but it's just.

Yes.

It's crazy. It's crazy, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, when you see it, it's different. Yeah, when you see it, it hits different. And here's what I'll kind of, I want to finish off with. I have, and this could be you like, but so and so got pregnant and they never had to do anything. And I think that that sucks that they got pregnant and here you are doing everything possible.

Okay.

and you're experiencing multiple losses or you're just not even able to get pregnant. The truth is it's like you have no idea what that pregnancy is like even when that person says everything is great. You have no idea. You're not living in that person's body. You're not in their environment. You just don't know. So comparing yourself, it's we say it's the thief of joy, but in reality it's like do you genuinely want to trade places with this person? Because if you don't want to trade places with them because you actually

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

think they're super unhealthy then why are you comparing the fact that they got pregnant and you didn't and it's like don't get me wrong I get it I think it's super frustrating it's actually very frustrating for me because I know what that does to that child and the issues that that child is going to have not just with fertility if they even get to that point do you know what I mean so

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's not about what happened for so-and-so. It's about what is your journey? What is your body telling you? Because your fertility journey should be your healing journey. You should be healing as you're going through this and literally like transforming and making yourself a better human so then you can build, you know, the family that you want. And the stance that, you know, we take as practitioners is like, we'll help you figure out how to have a baby.

Mm-hmm.

It might take you longer than you think. It might take you way more money than you want. It might not be in the way that you envisioned it originally, but like we'll help you figure it out. What I'm not going to do though is skip the foundational basics where my goal for you is to have a healthy child. And so if I have a male partner that smokes pot who has okay sperm and they're told that their sperm is fine and they're not the problem, but three months later when they cut out the weed, they get pregnant.

Mm-hmm.

you

you know like you don't I don't need to see a study this is my study my patients are my studies it's like that has happened to me to my clients multiple times now where the male was like yeah but my sperm is fine is it really the weed and it's like yeah it's the weed cut it out yeah it's the nicotine yeah it's the alcohol like yes you already know the thing that you need to do and just because so-and-so got pregnant

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

being high all the time or drunk all the time is like, who cares? Is that what you want?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's a really important, really important thing to close on is like you say all the time, Dr. J and 100 % of our clients get healthier. Like the healthy pregnancy is the goal, but we're optimizing health. You know, we're building those healthier pregnancies, stronger placentas. And in the end we're, we're having, and then we have healthier babies. So like it all goes hand in hand and it's all really important.

One plus one data time.

Yeah. Well, thank you for picking a great topic and hopefully you guys have a better understanding of the role that the plus the sperm has in the development of the placenta and the embryo and some of the things that we can do to support.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you.

course so thank you guys we'll see you next week