Top Fertility Trends Of 2024: What You Need To Know

Introduction and mission 0:00

Dr. Aumatma, you are a double board-certified Naturopathic Endocrinologist who's been in practice for 20 years. You founded the Holistic Fertility Institute to support badass power couples, as you call them, to create the families of their dreams, and also to train doctors who want to specialize in fertility like you do. You're the bestselling author of "Fertility Secrets: What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making.” and you're on a mission to help bring healthier babies into the world by creating healthier parents and a healthier planet.

I love that so much. You co-founded Madre Fertility, which is a smart fertility analysis that individualize people's fertility journeys through diet, lifestyle supplements, and other key data. And you've been featured in countless places ABC, Fox, CBS, Mind Body Green, The Bump, etc.. I'm so happy to have you here with us today. Welcome to the Super Fertility Summit, Dr. Aumatma. Thanks for having me. Dr. Cleopatra, it's great to be here. So good to have you. Okay. I'm really excited for everything that you're going to share with the people listening to us today.

And I know that there are many women, men, humans of all genders who really need and are hungry for the information that you're going to be sharing today. So I'd love to start today from the end and thinking about if there was one thing that you want people to take away from this conversation that we're having today, Dr. Aumatma, what would that one thing be? Ooh, okay. I think I would like for couples that are struggling, I think too often they're being told this and that and that and that from everyone around them, whether it be doctors or family or they're the random neighbor that's like, it's fine.

Just relax. Exactly. Instead of, I would love. For women to walk away from this, couples all genders to walk away from this with, like, tune out the noise and just go inward and listen to your own intuition. Because yes. It knows more than you. Think. I love that so much, Dr. Aumatma That's so much like what we talk about in the Prime Minister protocol, that our fertility is innate. It already exists in us. We don't need anyone to give it to us. We need to turn in, to access it and accentuate it.

Ignite it. So I love that so much. And I just felt this amazing weight fall off of me when I heard you say that. Turn inward and listen to your intuition, because it knows so much more about what you and your fertility and your future baby. And your future baby. Exactly like your baby is trying to connect with you in this way, and we're often so busy looking at the outside that we not really connecting with that. That future baby that's trying to communicate and trying to be like, just get that play.

Out of my office or whatever. I love that and get that thing out of here. And it might be the plant and it might be that it's the wrong partner, or it might be the wrong job, or it might be. The wrong self-talk, but, you know, because it's with you already. I love that it's so beautiful. And it was such a beautiful exhale. So, thank you for such a powerful, stress relieving start to this interview that I know all of us need, whether it's about fertility, having a healthy pregnancy, having our super babies, or anything else that we're struggling with in the world,

Trusting intuition over outside noise 4:12

I think we're being fed so much information that's suggests that the answers are outside of us, when really the answers are always inside of us. Or at least that's the starting place we can always use help and support and a guide, but we we know where the mama bears, we know that we. Absolutely. And and it's been said that the best teachers in this world, which doctors should be teachers, the best teachers in this world, are the ones that connect you to yourself, rather than the ones that try to impose their will onto you.

Right? So it when I think that applies when you're looking for a provider, when you're looking for someone that you can be like, who's going to be on my team to support me with this vision? You want to find the person that is helping you connect with that self and that inner wisdom because you have it within you. No one else need to tell you. Most of this, like most of our clients, are like, oh, you're telling me the thing that I should be doing that I already knew I should be doing? And I'm like, yeah, exactly. It's that example.

You already know it. You just need someone else to be like, this is why it's important if you in specific will do this thing. Yes. So beautiful. And I love that teachers should be doctors and that's very much what and who we are. I mean, that's exactly how I think of, you know, at the Fertility and Pregnancy Institute is an education and support instead, we educate you so that you can tap into your own innate fertility and also make informed decisions for your fertility and pregnancy and family, and have informed conversations with your health care providers, your IVF doctor, your ob gyn, etc..

So I think that that's so, so beautifully said. The best teachers in this world are the ones who help you connect to your inner self, your own innate wisdom, rather than imposing their will and their ideas or their dogma on you. I love that so much. Thank you for that, Dr. Aumatma, wouldn't think are the best and worst fertility trends of 2024. I have a feeling you have some strong opinions here based on that. That chuckle. Well, I. I have you know what? Like, I'll tell you, this is maybe not a 2024 trend, but it's been a trend in the fertility world that I question every single day.

And that is, oh, if you can't get pregnant or stay pregnant, just take progesterone. And I've seen this go awry so frequently it's talk about it. Yeah. It's, women, have this idea. And I was just talking to someone yesterday. She's like, I think my progesterone might be low. Should I just take progesterone? And we have this thought of, like, oh, it's just this hormone. A. it's a hormone. B. like, you haven't measured it. You don't know what's happening with your progesterone. You just want to like, supplement it because you heard from your neighbor, your friend or whoever that she took progesterone and got pregnant.

And the biggest piece is, I think, realizing that progesterone comes, it's made by the corpus luteum in the ovary after that egg gets released. So if you don't have progesterone, what is that actually saying about the quality of that egg? They develop that corpus luteum and the the egg developed together. They are part and parcel of each other. So when that egg is released, it's all related that corpus luteum stayed behind to produce progesterone. And if it's not producing enough progesterone you likely don't have the egg quality to support it.

And then the last thing, if that wasn't enough, the last piece the so many women think that it's progesterone because they all see little like wavering on beat charts or even a lot of the new strips that the apps that are like measuring at home. This woman was telling me, oh my progesterone like is going up and down. And I said, oh, that's not progesterone at all. That's your gut health, your gut inflamed. And then she's like, oh, she got her things. You know, she's crying about it. It's like, yeah.

It's like your your hormones don't lie. But the solutions or the quick fixes that we think are the fix are actually just a Band-Aid. And they're covering covering up the real problem. So that's not a new trend. It's been a trend. It's been the trend in fertility for ever. And I am very much like, like, obviously I use progesterone, you know, when people need it, they need it. But we don't get to that point until we have worked on everything else. And and it's really rare that when you've worked on everything else that you still need progesterone supplementation.

So thank you for sharing that. Okay. So best trend of 2024. Oh yes. and I guess the. Other the other trend is the the trend of the new apps.

Fertility trends and progesterone misconceptions 9:54

Right. Like there's so many amazing technologically advanced apps that are helping women measure their hormones through the entire cycle. I love it, it's almost like a Dutch test now. yeah. Which I, which I. I predicted would. Happen. I dreamt about and. I'm so excited that is actually. Happening, you know. Yeah, I, I'm in fact, one of our sponsors, Mirror Fertility mom. Yeah. I love so much everybody in the Prime Minister protocol knows how much I love mirror. So exactly. I really love it. That's that's my favorite too.

I'm a medical advisor for them. Yeah. So yeah. It's a wonderful. Yeah. Awesome. It's a it's a it's like the trends that are moving women towards more education and more self knowledge again, are the ones that I'm a huge fan of. Yes I love that. So okay, so the the apps and tools that are moving women toward more self-knowledge. Yeah that that is that is the best trend of 2024. And it's and it's been on the rise for the last couple of years. I love that so much. Thank you for that, doctor. My tell us about the common misconceptions around conception.

So I think the biggest misconception is that women are made to believe that our fertility drops off of a cliff. That age used to be 35, that that the trend in 2024 is it's moving even younger. I've heard women as young as 32 say that their doctor said, oh, it's because of my age. I'm like, you're 30. Oh my God, you're so young. Yeah, like I didn't even start having my super babies until I was 35, right. So yeah. I, I, I think that that is a really big misconception. And that misconception actually started in the 1800s in, in churches, not science, that were noticing that women were not, like not coming to get their children baptized after they, they turned 35.

But if you think about 1800 France, you're like, what else was happening during that time? Women only lived to the age of 40, right? Like I think that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I feel like it's a really big disservice because so many women go into fear when we hear that, right? Like, oh, I'm 38 and I want to have a baby and I should just go do IVF because that'll never happen on my own. A she's never tried to be like, just because you were 38 doesn't say anything about your fertility. Yeah.

And if you actually, like, move through the steps of understanding what's happening with your body as an individual, regardless of age, then you would have so much more information that allows you to make more informed decisions, not out of fear, but out of the love that's bringing you forth into this parenthood. Oh, I love that so much. Stay connected not only to your own innate fertility, your own innate knowing and intuition, but the the love inside of you that's calling you forth toward parenthood.

That's so beautiful. Thank you for that, doctor mama. I love that so, so much. And, you know, it's really interesting because the Prime Minister protocol is based on the science of epigenetics. So everything that we do is evidence based. And yet everyone talks about this really strong spiritual, undertone of the Prime minister protocol, because everything that we do comes back to us and come back, it comes back to who we are being and being in right relationship with ourself and our knowing and the world around us and our place in that world.

And I love so much how you bring us back to the the love that's the driving force behind our desire to have beautiful fertility. So that we can have our super babies. Because I think in all of the conversations about egg quality and gut health and liver function and lymph and all the components, that it's really easy to forget about that, which is really the bigger picture of all of this. So thank you so, so much for that. I really, really love that. I want you to tell me, and maybe it's related to some of the things that we've already talked about, touched on today.

What is the most disruptive? And when I say disruptive, I mean that in the best possible way. Part of your work. And how did it come about in your life? Oh, gosh. Okay. Well, here we go. Let's go. I want to hear it's a good question. So I've been doing this for almost 20 years, and I have personally analyzed the labs and signs and symptoms of over, like, 3000 women. So I have a really good sense of what what drives the underlying root cause of the struggles that they're having. And so about three years ago, we started creating an app essentially that would, put the power back into the woman's hand and answer this question, like, what is the root cause?

So that's where the smart fertility analysis came from. The command called madre fertility. It's completely free. and you can go to analysis dot madre fertility.com. And basically to answer like a force for a minute that of questions. And it will tell you what your drivers are that are creating the blocks to you. Being able to get pregnant and stay pregnant. so I think that's disruptive in the sense of like, here's IVF, thousands of dollars, even the the diagnostic testing is at least $7,000. Yes, you can even work with me.

And it's not cheap. Or you can do this analysis and it's completely free. Yes. And, what's really cool is that we've started rolling it out for our clients, and I know them really well. So I was like, hey, do this analysis as a pre working with us and a post working with us. And the data is like fascinating because we're like, oh, look at like how what percentage of your symptoms where you started and the things that we were saying where your underlying causes are actually disappearing in a very strategic way.

So. Oh, we haven't worked on let's say we haven't worked on a woman's blood sugar yet. So that number didn't change. But we started working on her gut health. That changed. So it's really cool to to like, watch it come to life and be I'm I'm just blown away. I'm like, wow. There's tech with my read it it. Yeah that is really exciting I love that so much okay. So this is really powerful. And like you said, it's one of it's a contributes to the trend that you're most excited about which is the applications the technology that help to put the power back into women's own hands.

And I think that this is really. It. Powerful beyond what we could verbalize and even comprehend, because the discourse, the common discourse around fertility and pretty much all women's health challenges and all health challenges in general,

Age myths and the power of informed fertility care 18:30

are that you go to a doctor to fix you and that it's out of your hands, and that your well-being and your fate are in the hands of somebody else. And the flip side of that, so that's the structural. The societal structural message that we're indoctrinated with every single day. But I think the flip side of this and this is really important for everyone listening is that in some ways it's easier and less scary to relinquish control. Because it feels scary to people to engage in what I call radical living, which is stepping into your full power and self authority, and then also being accountable for your process and your outcomes.

Not that we are responsible for all the things that happen to us, and certainly not that we can control everything that happens to us in fertility and in all things, but that we say, I'm going to be the one to be willing to make the commitment and get up and do the work every day. And when the ship is going in the wrong direction to notice it, and to right the ship, and to have the right guides and education to support me and community to support me. So I think the other side of this is that we, in response to this indoctrination, have become a microwave society where we are a pill society where we just want a really quick fix and we want someone to to prescribe that quick fix.

But we have to be willing to be brave and courageous on behalf of our fertility and our super babies and our future family and the life that we want to live and say, I'm, I'm going to be the one who sees this thing through to. Absolutely. And I think there's, there, there is like this, this ease of giving our power away. There's the other piece that I've seen in the fertility world, and you tell me if you see this too, is women become super control freaks over it, right? Like the the aspect of fertility that a we kind of believe that it's a part of us we know intuitively, we know that this is innate, yet we are trying to figure it out.

Like, why is this happening for me? And women have told me they literally like, go to Google or Facebook or whatever their choice of platforms and research the crap out of what they can take to. Yeah, themselves. Right. And and the problem with that is really there's a lot of noise. There's everyone's saying everything about this supplement and that supplement. But completely throwing spaghetti at the wall. Right. Yeah. Right. And and the missing piece is this like what do your what does your body need?

What does your body think about what's happening with your fertility? Forget the noise. If your body is is bringing to the surface that your adrenal system needs the port, only do that. You don't need to focus on everything else that everyone's talking about. If your body is saying focus on egg quality, do that. Don't worry about everything else. So I think there's this way of like my hope with that smart fertility analysis is really that women can come to a place of better understanding of what their signals in their own body are saying and why that contributes to fertility.

And once you know those then you can like hyper focus on that one piece or 3 or 5. How many other pieces there are. Yes. But at least you know where to start because the other option is to throw spaghetti at the wall. And none of it works. Almost none of it works, right? Like people come in with garbage bags full of supplements, tell me what I should take. And I'm like, let's just hit the pause on. Oh yeah, maybe, you know that idea. Of this. Let's figure out what's going on. And they're like, oh, you're not going to tell me what supplements to take.

This is a waste of my time. I'm like, no, that's in the job of your provider isn't to tell you what supplements to take. That's the easy part. The hard part is really being the mastermind behind what is happening, what's. Going on for, like. Who's answering those questions? So yeah. Really, really making that the starting point instead of the end point. Right. Like time people come to see me or people like us. It's probably been two. Five. Years. Yeah. Of trying it on their own, doing their thing that they might have even tried a few cycles of IVF and they're like, I can't figure this out.

I need someone else to help me figure it out. So I'm suggesting, like, let's start that in the beginning. Let's address those underlying things from the beginning because it's not going to hurt your fertility. It's probably going to support your fertility, and you're going to feel better in the process. Yes. No going wrong with that. Yes, absolutely. And that's what I was going to say. Not just not having it be an end point, but come in trimester, come and do this intentional work before you even start trying, so that you never have to know the pain of struggle of that two week wait and the the like you said, the obsession, the control

Madre Fertility and root-cause analysis 24:36

that the pain, the that goes with the ups and downs of that two week wait and getting your period again. And I mean, it's just really, really difficult to for people who are going through that. And like you said, most of the time when people come to us, they've been doing this already for three, 4 or 5 years. Our record so far is someone who came to us having been considered infertile for 20 years. 20 years. 20 years, and then how it when we've had we've had that we've had that scenario twice. One who had never had a child previously and one who had a child previously, but their child was so unwell that they it was so traumatic, having the child that they didn't even consider having another one until, you know, many years later.

And then by the time they came to us, had been trying for almost two decades. So I think that what you say about having this be the starting point rather than like this, the last Hail Mary that people are throwing out. But also, I wanted to underscore something else that you said, which is that there's a high there's there's this, this ease and comfort that comes with relinquishing control and saying, here, I'm putting it in your hands, you fix me. But then there's also this other side of this almost obsessive level trying to control and yes, I think this is really common for, for women, for women who have achieved a lot in many parts of their lives and are shocked by the fact that their body isn't doing the most natural thing that, you know, a woman's body is supposed to do and just because something is natural doesn't mean it will be easy, but the expectation is that it will be easy.

In fact, the trillions of things that need to come into order. For a human right so that you can be like, yeah, amazing that it's so amazing. And to try to control those trillions of processes. And cellular cell division and all the things is just can make someone crazy. As as you noted. And one thing that you said was that they've researched the crap out of everything that they could possibly take to fix themselves. And I wonder, I want to underline the take part. And then you talked about supplements.

Obviously supplements are really important. Yeah. Have a place. But I think that it's going back to this, microwave society, this pill quick fix society. It's usually not as simple as just taking a supplement because underlying root cause neutral genomics and nutrition, of course, that's a huge part of it. But there are usually other factors. So of course, I think we, you know, we developed our own supplement line, Super Baby Nutraceuticals. So obviously we know that they have their place and it's an important place.

But I always tell people that supplements are like 1/1000 of the prime master protocol, because there's so much more to addressing those root causes. And it doesn't happen overnight. And I think that that's the part that's really, really hard for people that you want to give yourself 120 days to make the changes so that you see real results, and that those real results are reflected in your egg quality, the quality of your pregnancy, and how healthy your baby is. I mean, that's why we call them super babies.

So I just really wanted to underscore that part, because I feel like it's really important to to stress to people that supplements are an important supplement, that that's exactly what they are. Meant. Right? They're not the full they're not the full solution. Yeah, exactly. I, I think there are so many pieces to preparing our bodies to conceive and have that healthy super baby, as you like to call them. Yes. and and I think it's, it's totally possible. I think we just really need to start questioning how we think about things.

And, I created a joke yesterday on social media. It's like there's no research. There is no research on what you put into your body to support fertility. You can smoke, you can drink, you can do whatever the heck you eat, whatever you want. And and it was a joke April Fool's Day. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. it was, it was just meant to be humor. But the number of people that I like. I almost unfollowed you because I know you were serious. But the reality is, like a lot of reproductive endocrinologists are out there telling women that their diet makes no difference, that, most I think most of them acknowledge that alcohol and cigarets need to go away.

But that diet Heath is really surprising. like, there's so much studies. There's so many studies on this. This is crazy to me. So I, I completely agree. So we I've had a similar experience and that, you know, people will come back and say my, my reproductive endocrinologist said that diet doesn't matter. My perinatal allergist said that diet doesn't matter. We had a mama who a couple who came to us because they had a still a very late term stillbirth like days before the baby's due date. It was so devastating.

And when they found out that they were pregnant again, they were so terrified that something was going to be wrong with the baby. And so they started getting seeing a perinatal allergist very early, and they detected that there were issues in in the development of the brain. And they came to me. So their perinatal allergist said, there's nothing there's nothing that can be done like you. You two clearly just don't go together when it comes to making new life.

Taking ownership of fertility, sleep, and alignment 31:06

That's what they were told. So they came to me and they said, look, they've said, you know, our baby's missing part of their brain has an enlarged ventricles and that there's nothing that we can do and that we shouldn't have any more children together. Is there anything that you can do to help us? And we said, well, we know that prime mastering is the most powerful tool in the world. We have not had a situation like this before. We we can't say for sure that it will do the trick, but we know that if something can, that this is it, and we know that they've told you that what you eat doesn't matter.

What you take, doesn't matter what you do, doesn't matter. They said you could eat sugar all day. It wouldn't matter. And I said, okay. So clearly they don't keep up with scientific research. But let's put that aside for a second. Let's assume that what they said is correct. Does it hurt to try? Right. And then you would not believe like that the changes that happened in the brain of the baby over the rest of the pregnancy and the baby is perfect. And I mean, it was just, you know, and we didn't know the baby was going to be perfect, but we knew we were going to do everything that we could with the situation presented to us, that we were going to make a super baby out of this situation.

And I think it's just such powerful proof that. You have the ability to shape the experiences that you have in your fertility journey, in your pregnancy, and in your the health of your children. That doesn't mean if something goes wrong, it's your fault. It only means that let's do everything known that that has scientific evidence behind it to help things go right as much as possible. So so so beautiful. And and if you're if you think you're doing everything known, talk to someone else. Right. Because you're not the expert and you better mastermind it.

For even if you were the expert, you can't mastermind it for yourself because there's too much emotional charge. So I'm sure. Really. Even the mamas who come to us are exquisitely intelligent. They've masterminded everything in their lives so that there's so much emotional charge around this. It's like why a doctor surgeon doesn't operate on their own family member. They're the expert there, but there's too much emotional charge for them to mastermind this process and this this progress. Yeah. And so that's right.

Don't don't try to mastermind this yourself, even when you are very smart, even when you are the expert because there's too much emotional charge. I always say FPI is the place the doctors go because the doctors need support when they're the patient, right? When they're there. It's the same. The same like our most of our clients are doctors and like really educated women and couples that think that, oh, we can figure this out. We figure it out. Everything else in our life and I, I, I like your analogy to my analogy is you if your car broke down, you wouldn't go and get a degree to become a car mechanic so that you can fix your car.

You would go to a car mechanic. That's why there are specialists in this world. It's like it's their job to know how to fix your car. You don't have to know how to fix your car. You just have to be willing to drive it into the the lot. Yes. That's right. Yeah I love that. Yeah. So so beautiful. Yeah. And and I feel like the other thing you were saying about like the, the, the piece of I'm doing everything that I know to do and that's perfectly fine, but I will tell you the number of times that it's really common that people get up and say, I'm doing everything.

I've already tried everything. Yes. You could really do. That's different. Yes. And we're like, oh, the restorative fertility protocol is very different. Yeah, but you don't know what that difference is until we start working through it and we're like, oh, we see why you were taking that supplement. But it's the exact wrong thing for you to take. Let's shift it. or let's, let's put something else in for a little while and then we'll see what happens. It's really that, like, collective, collaborative team that you create with your provider to navigate this journey in a, in a faster, more easeful way that you could you would probably figure it out yourself, but the clock is ticking and we may not figure it out before the clock ticks.

The biological clock loves and needs feed. I always need that every day that you don't have your. Super baby in your arms matters, and you don't fully appreciate the extent of that until you have your super baby in your arms and you realize how much you love this being and want every second you can have in this lifetime with them. absolutely. Dr. Aumatma, if you could only tell people one thing about the best way to take care of their care, of their fertility, future children's health, what would it be?

Just one thing. I'm like. I know all the things I know I talk. I think my top one will be sleep and really like getting your sleep to be where you wake up in the morning rested, excited and ready for your day without caffeine and if that, if that's the bar, then I think even myself included, have a lot of work to do. Yeah, we don't always wake up in that state. I wake up in that state sometimes, but not always. Yeah. And I think really mastering that like sleep wake cycle is at the core of our menstrual cycle.

So that's that circadian rhythm is informing our hormones whether or not we're safe in this world, whether or not it's okay to conceive. That's right. If that signal is off, it's our body's thinking, oh, got to fight. Got to fight or got a run for the tiger. And that is not conducive to fertility. So that's right I love that so much. One last question before we wrap up for today. What is the feeling of Super Fertility to you when you hear Super Fertility? What's the feeling that it evokes for you?

Like, oh yeah, I it's it's. Really I call it the vital state. It's like the core of us that is really like everything is in alignment, and it's from that place we feel love and safety and it's our body, like knows what to do and when to do to make a baby. All the exhales today. I love it so much. What to do and when to do. The vital state. Because being in. Alignment. The when to do in case that's. Confusing for anyone to know because like I know you know. Yeah. the like the number of people that are like micromanaging when to have sex.

I'm like, follow your intuition. Follow what your body's telling you to do. It knows when is the right time and the number of times people come back and are like, oh, I totally did expect to get pregnant. I didn't even see that I was waiting yet. And I was like, it doesn't matter. Your body knows when it is the time for you to get pregnant. Well, your body really does know. It's very important for you to have some fun at the time, at the right time. So if you're if you're tapped in, that's absolutely right.

thank you so much for this incredible time together, Dr. Aumatma. My, I appreciate it. Thank you for being part of The Super Fertility summit. And blasting all of us with your your wisdom. Thank you for having me. It's been fun.