How EMFs Impact Reproductive Health

Introduction to EMF and Fertility 0:00

Nick Pineault, I'm so excited to have you here for the Super Fertility Summit to talk to us about all things EMF You are known as the EMF Guy, and you are the number one bestselling author of the Non Tinfoil Guide to EMF. And you're an advocate for safe technologies through your unconventional approach to blending humor, science and common sense. You've become a leading voice on the topic of electromagnetic pollution and how it affects our health, and I'm so excited to have you here today, because I don't think that we as a society think enough about the topic of EMF when it comes to fertility, pregnancy, health, and the health that we're transmitting to our children and future generations.

So I know that this interview is going to be incredibly unique and enlightening for everyone listening to us right now. Welcome, Nick. Thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure. It's wonderful to have you. So I would love Nick to start from the end and ask you if there was one thing that you want people to take away from this interview that we're doing today. What would that one thing be? Well, quite simply, that the technologies that surround us, can and do impact our health and fertility more than what we've been taught.

And we need to take precautions when using all of these technologies that are very convenient to our lives. But they can also come with downsides. That's absolutely right. And it's very interesting because I think we all have a sense that the technologies that we use every day have come have all of these benefits. Of course, that's why we use them, but then come with downsides. And many of us think about the constant connected ness and the stress that it causes in our lives to never fully and completely be able to unplug and turn off.

But we aren't necessarily thinking very deeply about the fact that there are physiological consequences to these technologies. So I'm very excited that we're going to be diving into those very things today, specifically as they relate to both female and male fertility.

How EMF Affects Sleep and Hormones 2:51

There's probably even more work on the impact of emfs in male fertility than in female fertility at this point, and as well as pregnancy outcomes and the intergenerational transmission of health. So tell us the worst sources of manmade EMF that we encounter in our everyday environment. It's really the devices that are touching your body directly. The devices that emit wireless radiation, including phones, tablets. it could be Bluetooth wearables or Bluetooth earbuds. But when it comes to fertility, of course we have to think about what is wireless and that is near your reproductive organs.

So of course, the first thing would be the phone and where it's place, because many men keep a phone in their front pocket, which is, you know, quite close to their, genitalia. And also women might do the same or put it, you know, in, in a yoga pant, for example, very close to your ovaries, or simply, you know, have habits like using a laptop on the lap, which is in both cases, you know, a lot of EMF exposure to the groin area. So what we know is that these types of uses very close to the body are the riskiest.

And also, I can talk about the fact that if you don't use it to, you know, in your pocket or near your gut, but you use it in your head, that's I guess, one of the, most concerning types of exposure because of the possible increase in brain cancer risks. But of course, brain cancer, that's the the big scary argument against, you know, using a phone to your head. But it it when it comes to fertility, even, you know, the impact of devices on your sleep need to be talked about because of course it has detrimental effect on if it has the true mental effect on sleep, it can have detrimental effect on your hormones and fertility and ability to, you know, produce healthy offsprings.

Absolutely. I mean, sleep is so critical and I know it's talked about so much in the health space that it's easy to kind of yawn when you hear about it. And yet it is so foundational because our circadian and Freudian rhythms are so critically dependent upon our sleep, the quality of the sleep, duration of the sleep, and when, when we are getting light exposure because we are awake, and when we are not getting light exposure because we're asleep, or at least it should be that way and isn't always working that way.

Right? So that that's so, so important. Tell me, tell us a little bit about the impact of devices on sleep. Sure. So this is still something to this day that you don't read on the inserts you don't see on the packaging of a phone. Right? A warning could interfere with your sleep. And yet it's not. On a scientific standpoint, it's not a question of if cell phones are interfering with, our brainwaves and ability to get the deepest sleep possible. It's a question of how much is it impacting our sleep?

And we don't have this this answer, at, where I could say, well, you know, it's five minutes of cell phone exposure leads to x, y, z percent of a reduction in sleep. We don't know that. But there are some interesting experiments that have been done over 15 years ago at this point where healthy participants that don't necessarily feel like they're impacted by their phone, they just, you know, installed them in a bed and they have them go to sleep and you have certain phones that are real phones that expose them for 30 minutes near the head before sleep.

And then you have, of course, the fake phones that emit zero radiation that are, you know, the control group. And what they realize is that these men that were exposed to cell phone radiation before bed for 30 minutes had sleep, a sort of cell phone induced insomnia for up to an hour. So their brain did not fully go in sleep mode for one hour after this exposure. And it makes really it makes you wonder, okay, well, if we're talking about this is the effect of 30 minutes of cell phone exposure, what could be the effect of eight hours?

Right. During the entire night, you might have your phone on the nightstand very close to your head, or even in many situations, people fall asleep with the phone, maybe tuck it under the pillow. And some studies have looked at how many people use airplane mode at night, which does remove the radiation from your phone and it, you know, removes your ability to get a call also. But it's about 20% of people that do it. So it leaves us with, you know, with 80% of the population that might have interference between cell phone radiation and the proper brain waves that their their brain needs to create in order to fall into these sleep stages that are optimal.

So it might not seem like much, but the researchers at the time even said

Reducing Exposure in Daily Life 8:12

it would be interesting to find, if certain people are more sensitive than others, because, of course, you might have, you know, the classic thing that I see in the scope of my work and I get a lot of emails from people that say, you know, I'm personally I feel like my sleep is disrupted by these emfs, but my husband does not feel it. Right. And in fact, he sleeps with his phone and he sleeps like a bear. Okay, well, that might be true, but the reality is that maybe in the next couple it could be, you know, the husband could barely sleep with a phone next to the head, and the wife is completely fine.

So in reality, it there is Buyeo. Individual differences in how we react to this radiation. But one thing is, sure, we don't need more of it. And it's not a vitamin, you know, and it's not something necessary. These are needless exposures. If you're not using your phone in the middle of the night, it should be turned off on airplane mode or simply charging in the next room. Right? I know there's a lot of parents listening to this. Some of them have children in, you know, teenage years. There's probably no way you're going to completely turn off your cell phone at night, especially if you want to be, you know, reachable in case of emergency.

And that's fine, but putting it in the next room might not seem like much, but the intensity of this radiation and the health effects that it might create will decrease exponentially as you create distance. So, you know, even putting your phone and your phone, at an arm's length from your head is way different and way better than putting it very close to your head. So it might not seem like much, but when you create this, this sense, great things happen and you have lower exposure and potentially lower impacts on your sleep.

I love that so much. Thank you for that. So tell us okay, so only 20% of people use airplane mode at night. That's so hard for me to believe. That's definitely a thing that we do. And the Prime Minister protocol for our mamas who are making their super babies, and I and I guess I had this, this, skewed view and thought that that's what most people do at night with their phone. So. But but I love this how you underscore that in some circumstances, obviously you're not going to be able to turn your phone on airplane mode, but even just having it outside your door so that you could still hear it if it rings.

But it's not right there beaming you, then that's reducing risk exponentially. So, Nick, I'm really curious, what if you would share with us what is a day in the life of in your life as an, an entrepreneur and and and an activist and advocate look like? Because I know you need to use devices in the course of the work that you do. And so what does it look like for you to minimize exposures on your body, especially the parts of your body most closely involved in reproduction? And and I want to actually just say something about when you were talking about the brain.

And most people are thinking about brain cancer, but the brain is the most important fertility organ for so many reasons, including that it is the primary signaler of safety and survival, which has to be in order in order to prioritize and allocate the tremendous resources that are needed to reproduction. But it also it is also the place where the majority of sex hormones originate. and as well as stress hormones. And then there's this dance between the two. So the effect on the brain is critical and central to fertility in pregnancy and intergenerational health outcomes as well.

And I want to make that link for people because they're probably not thinking about that either. But when when you're going throughout the course of your day and you're using your cells on your laptop, your tablet, what it what does this look like for you? Knowing everything that you know and how do you how do you know everything you know without making yourself crazy when this stuff is all around us and feel beautifully empowered by the information and whatever minor adjustments you can make to reduce risks?

Yeah, great question. So I think this is the first time someone asked me exactly this. I think this is brilliant. So it just starts in the morning when I wake up I don't open my phone right away. And I guess that's just a good thing if you don't want to become neurotic, as a, as an entrepreneur or just as a person, to be honest, it's not, very nice habit to start looking at emails before even, you know, taking care of your body or drinking water or going to the bathroom, you know, so I try not to open my phone right now.

Usually it's when I have my coffee and when I do, I use, several, different types of cables, to have wired connections in my home. And, you know, that's something that was a learning curve for me. But, when my wife was pregnant with Elliot, who's now, turning six, in two weeks, so set. Thank you. seven years ago, in fact, to this day, we turned off Wi-Fi for good in this condo, and, And we never looked back. And the reality is, the Wi-Fi signals were very poor. And this office also happens to be our large master bedroom.

And I was always frustrated getting on zoom calls professionally and doing my work and trying to upload files. It was very slow, so I had two choices. Either I get a more intense, so more EMF heavy intensive router with, you know, four antennas and then, you know, industrial strength kind of thing. And if you call the IT company or your, you know, your internet provider, they will be happy to to indulge you and make you pay the premium every month. But it means more radiation in the living spaces where my wife was, you know, spending a lot of time reading a book.

And then when our kid was younger, he was crawling all over the place, but very it would have been close to that router. So for me, it was really a no go. And I decided to, you know, visit the the router. So inside the router you can actually go and visit the settings and turn off the Wi-Fi antennas. So a router can be Wi-Fi, a Wi-Fi router. But it can also be just the router. So what it does is give the internet to your devices. And it can do so through cables. So of course you do have to have the cable go from your router to, you know, your computers and things like that which can be done, through the walls.

If you hire an IT company, for example, to do those type of works, or if you have a new construction plan, you can include Ethernet cables, in that plan and means that, you know, in your office you're going to have a cable for your computer. So my computer is cabled. And then I also have an Ethernet cable that I use for my phone and and not a lot of people would believe it, but you can actually wire a phone. So how it works is very simple. You have an internet cable that for me it's near my sofa.

It's kind of, you know, hidden underneath the sofa. So it's not too annoying for everyone or we're not stepping on it. And I pull it out and there is a converter between the, lightning port of iPhone. Or, in fact, if you have iPhone 15 and, and after has, as we're if you're listening to this, in two years, it will be iPhone 100, I think because you know, these come in these come out every, every other week it seems like. But it's usb-C. So whatever port you happen to have in your phone can be converted to Ethernet.

And it just requires, you know, this, this little converter about $20 on, you know, any electronic store or Amazon. if if you shop there. And what it does is simply, you know, you plug it in almost instantly, you go on the internet. But the difference is that you don't have the wireless radiation. And also it's extremely fast. So in fact, it's pretty convenient. I can go on Instagram, for example, I can this is how I upload my Instagram content. Sometimes those videos are larger or might take a lot of time, or even stories.

You know, you could, you could just record a lot of videos on your phone while you're on airplane mode and then upload all of them to internet, and you wouldn't have all this radiation and also, you know, you don't take one gig out of your data plan also. So that's an advantage. And since we don't have Wi-Fi, we don't have that option at home to just use the Wi-Fi. So that's how I personally, will be on my phone most days if I'm ever on my phone, which is rarely.

Pregnancy, Devices, and Shielding 17:28

And when I have my phone in my pocket, it's on airplane mode. And that's, you know, non-negotiable for my wife, it was a learning curve for her to start hitting airplane mode. If the phone is in her pocket, but even if she carries it in her purse. But you put it on the opposite side of your body where it's. It creates a little bit of separation. There will be a much more, a much safer way to have, you know, to carry your phone rather than tucking it in the bra, which I see all the time to this day, tucking it in yoga pants, you know, right next to your body.

So if it's touching your body and it's not on airplane mode, even if you don't, you know you're not playing on your phone or doing anything with it. It's always downloading things. Sometimes it's updates, sometimes it's it's receiving calls. It's receiving texts. so there's always this radiation every a few seconds as you move away in the city. So for me it's on airplane mode. And when I come at my computer in the morning, I'm just very happy that I don't have these exposures as well, because it's on an internet cable.

So what I tell people is, if your office space is not, you know, it's pretty much set in stone. This is where I work and you don't take your computer around. Why do you need Wi-Fi on this computer? Right. And and think about it this way. The Wi-Fi router in in itself is a high source of emfs, but a worse source of emfs is the computer in front of you. Right. Because the computer in most situations is closer to your body compared to the Wi-Fi router. That might be, you know, in your living room, which is very, very common, or maybe a corner of the garage, or sometimes it's in, you know, a closet.

And I don't recommend putting it in a bedroom, but it really for a lot of people, they don't even know where it is. It's like, well, I don't even remember, you know, the IT company came, they installed something. I don't even know what this machine is. And it's there. So if you have your even if you don't completely, discontinue using Wi-Fi because for you in your household, that's not something that that will be an, you know, like, let's say an easy negotiation to engage in. You can still be on the internet, right?

You could still run a cable to your computer. And then on your computer, you would turn off the Wi-Fi antenna, which requires, you know, you to actually click on it because it's not if you're cable then and wired, you can still be on Wi-Fi, which is a little bit counterintuitive. The computer doesn't recognize that it should turn off Wi-Fi, so make sure to manually turn off Wi-Fi and, and Bluetooth. And I'll mention tablets, because I know there's a lot of parents that maybe wonder, okay, well, you know, do use a tablet and is it safe?

Again, Ethernet cables can work for any tablet. It can be, you know, the iPads. again, you're going to have usb-C or lightning, depending on which version you have. For us, we have a Kindle Fire, which is a nice type of tablet, usb-C. Again, we have a converter for Ethernet, but when my child is using a tablet, which is pretty rare, but we're going to go in vacation this summer, we have a 12 to 14 hour drive to, North Carolina from Montreal. So I think we're going to need some movies. You know, for a six year old is going to be tough.

But you can pre download all of this content before the kid uses the tablet. So you can go on, you know, that's true for Disney Channel. That's true for Netflix. That's true for virtually any type of streaming service that you can click download this movie. And what's going to happen is that it's going to stay on the tablet for up to several weeks. So then it's stored, and you don't have to be streaming this content because streaming is really a very EMF intensive activity. So instead of, you know, installing a SIM card in the tablet where you have to be connected to a cell phone antenna or to a car, Wi-Fi router, which in some cars you have a Wi-Fi hotspots in the dashboard.

So instead of doing that and, you know, blasting EMS for 14 hours, you can simply have apps that can be used offline and then content that is pre downloaded. And that's also that also holds true if you have, you know, long commute and you can download podcasts, you get pre download I don't know meditation tracks whatever. You know you're you love to listen to and even you can to this day pre download and store or locally any Spotify playlist that you like. And you know that's if you don't like Spotify you like something else.

That's likely an option that is given to users. Because I guess people like pre downloading content, which is a very good idea to do because again, you cut down on exposure, you don't have to be streaming all the time. That is so helpful. And I'm glad you brought up tablets because I was going to ask about that. So free downloading is a great solution. And then what about using like shields like for for the tablet so that they're not putting them on their bodies. Any or the do you like the blank, the EMF blankets, any of these kinds of things to help?

And I mean, I guess just by being there they create a little bit more distance. But what do you what do you think about using those things? Yeah, I think they have some valid validity. We have to use them the right way. So for example, if you have an EMF blocking blanket that often times as a mix of, you know, fabric like cotton and then a sort of metal that will repel the radiofrequency radiation or reflect it out, you have to actually use it in a way that the the EMF blocking fabric is between the device and your body, right?

And not having the device underneath the blanket, which is, you know, could be what a child could do just for fun or things like that. So of course, if you use it with young children, just make sure to use it the way it it's it's intended to be used. But, I think where it could excel is at minimizing risks during pregnancy. And, I'll mention that the, the biggest risk. Well, exactly. And there are, you know, several good companies out there. Belly armor is one I've been following for years. shield your body, defender.

Shield it. All of them are, I think, equally valid in a sense, as long as you use it the way that product was, was intended for. And then that you understand that these products have their limitations. But if you do work on the laptop and it's near your your pregnant belly. And then, of course, what I saw my wife doing is of course, the belly becomes almost, you know, a tablet at one point where, oh, it's convenient, you can put things on it. Right? But, having devices, right. Underbelly is a bad idea.

And if I can talk briefly about the science, the best science we have comes from the Yale School of Medicine and Doctor U. Taylor. And what they found through, epidemiology, studies on pregnant moms that were exposed to their phone and then how healthy their children was, but also in animal models, how animals, react when exposed to this radiation and how their offspring have more risks of ADHD. And what they found is exactly this is that the more you're exposed to cell phone radiation during pregnancy, the more risks that your children might have behavioral issues.

And, also, some studies have shown an increase in food intolerance. So we don't know if that's because, you know, the maturation of the nervous system or brain or it's probably because it's affecting multiple systems during the formation of a fetus. But of course, if I could point to one group that is at the highest risk possible for EMF damage, it would be a fetus, that is a few cells wide at first. Right? Because of course, you're completely unprotected. And if we change the electrical environment, it might have, you know, unknown consequences, of how this, this precious and, and very, very fragile being is being formed.

So but it's not to become completely crazy about it. But I think that if you just avoid, you know, having a laptop for hours on end or a cell phone for hours on end, on your belly, very close to the child, you're doing great if you're avoiding that. And again, to put it in perspective, a lot of people ask me, what should I do during my vacation to avoid emfs? And, you know, I've, I've, I don't know. I called my mom for ten minutes on my head, near my head. Is it dangerous? And to put things in perspective, think about it in, you know, like any other toxins.

Is it dangerous to have, you know, regular lettuce on a Tuesday evening? Well, you tell me, right? Maybe you'll have pesticides, but what are you doing back home on most days? And maybe you'll tell me. Well, you know, I try to eat organic as much as possible, and I try to minimize these chemicals because I think they're not good for me and my future baby. Well, that's that's the answer right there. It's not what you do on this one vacation and where you saw a cell phone tower and it looks like it's close to your vacation home, it doesn't matter that much in the grand scope of things.

It's really the daily habits that you put in place. So if you have small exposures here and there, I was pregnant and I spent a few hours on my laptop, or I listen to Nick piano, and I realized that for my first child,

Practical Fertility Advice and Closing Thoughts 27:28

I was with a laptop on my belly the whole time. Okay, well, you know, you didn't know about this, so what can you do? Well, right now, you can do things for your children and try to minimize their exposure as best as you can. And now that you know better, you do better and that's it. So we shouldn't really, you know, be ashamed of, of, the exposures that that we, that we had our, our children go through because most people simply don't know this information. That's right. That's true. And also not to be not to be ashamed and not to to be in a loop of worry or fretting over what's what's been done already.

I always say, you know, we do the best we have in the moment with the information and the resources that we have available to us. So we make these. Once we know better, we do better and we make the modifications as we're able to. That's what we always say in the Prime Minister protocol. And I think that, this applies beautifully there. We do talk about Emfs in the Prime Minister protocol, but not not in the as nearly as much detail as you go into Nick's. I'm so thankful to have you here to share about this.

And before we close, I'd love to ask you two questions. So my first question is, if there was one thing that you could recommend or urge people to do in order to take the best possible care of their fertility and their future family and children, what would that one thing be? I think it's really avoiding a phone or laptop, exposure to the groin, and especially for men, the data is more convincing. As you've alluded to earlier, we have more studies around the fact that men who have a phone in their pocket will see a decrease in fertility and quite possibly testosterone.

But for women, the risks are, in a sense, more permanent. they don't have the luxury of just, you know, renewing sperm every couple of months. And even if you have sperm damage right now, you might be in a place in six months where you have perfect sperm for women. They get one set of eggs for life. And we know that, you know, cell phone radiation might create dogshit. It is, stress. So in a sense, it's a little bit more concerning for women and more permanent the type of damage it might due to their body.

So I would say, you know, if you can avoid that and develop habits around where you carry your phone, how you work on a laptop, and, you know, simply work on a, on a, on a desk rather than on your lap, and I, I know this is yeah, a lot of people love working on the lap and maybe work on the sofa and things like that, in which case you can look into EMF shielding platform rooms, EMF shielding blankets, and these technologies will help. But I think that this is the one thing that can directly reduce your ability to, to be fertile and have normal hormones.

Thank you so much for that. I think that that's an incredible piece of advice that people can put into practice right away. And so thank you so much for that last question. What is super fertility mean to you? So when you hear that phrase, what what emotion does it evoke for you? Oh, I think super fertility is preparing your body to to bring a child into this world. in a world that is becoming quite stressful to children, you know, even before they're born, your body has been exposed to certain toxins and certain stressors that weren't there 100 years ago.

And in a sense, I feel that's why we have this almost this need to this point of preparing our bodies, to conceive. And if you haven't done it, it's it's all right also. But I know this is something that my wife and I have worked on before having our child. And, it feels empowering, you know, preparing your body, making sure you're you're as healthy as possible. And I, I see it as an opportunity, even for men, of course, because, I think men are realizing now that, you know, the quality of what they can give their seed, you know, can be greatly improved and will have lifelong consequences for their children if they can take care of themselves better, like stop smoking or be, you know, more mindful about alcohol and things like that.

So I think it's an invitation to take great care of yourself first, and then put yourself in a spot where you're going to inspire your children to also take care of themselves later. Right. If you continue you on that, on that self-care self-care journey. Absolutely. You know, we now know that what we do in the primester before conception doesn't just affect the health of the pregnancy, doesn't just affect the health of fertility, doesn't just affect the health of the children we're having right now, but our grandchildren and our and our great grandchildren.

So we really want to look at that as a beautiful opportunity as opposed to an overwhelming responsibility or something that we don't even need to be thinking about in the end, because it's always worked out fine from the beginning of time. In the beginning of humans, it'll always work out fine, because the trajectory that we're on now shows us that that's not true. And like you said, we have stressors today in our world. Chemical, psychological, radiation and otherwise that we've never, never had before.

And so the need to master and prepare is even greater than it's ever been. So thank you so much for that. I love that super fertility means to you, preparing your body to bring a child into this world that has become incredibly stressful for children. That is so, so important. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for sharing your wealth of wisdom with us and these really concrete, actionable steps that people can start taking today to improve their fertility and to be super fertile and have their super babies.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.