The Fertility Sisterhood_Episode 6: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Fertility Sisterhood_Episode 6: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Lara Messerlian:
1 in 6 couples struggle with infertility, and we know that the environment plays a big role in how our bodies reproduce.

Carmen Messerlian:
In the Fertility Sisterhood, join me, Dr. Carmen Messerlian, Harvard epidemiologist and fertility expert, and my sister Lara, as we discuss what everyone needs to know about how the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and our everyday environmental exposures impact our health and therefore our fertility.

Lara Messerlian:
Now let's dive in and learn how we can clean up our lifestyles not only for ourselves, but for our future generations.

Lara Messerlian:
Hi there! This is episode six, and today we're talking about sexy things, all things sexy things.

Carmen Messerlian:
Awesome. Our sex talk, it's our little sex talk.

Lara Messerlian:
It's our little sex conversation about making babies and sex, and so important, which is really important that you're connected with your partner. I think part of the time, I can speak from my own personal experience, part of the time when I was struggling with infertility, it happened to be like a timing issue with my husband in the sense that I was ready for a family, and he was still internally, like not quite ready for it yet. So when we were trying to conceive, and being intimate, we were not in sync with each other, so to speak, and which is, you can have wonderful sexual and intimate relations with your spouse or with your partner, but sometimes the intent of creating life isn't always there for you during that moment that you're trying to conceive. So you can have a really good, intimate moment, but it's not necessarily everything you need to create a baby and to create life. And we had a bit of that imbalance, ... of infertility that I would talk to you about where.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, I remember.

Lara Messerlian:
I'm not sure you even talked to him about it some of the time, but.

Carmen Messerlian:
We should talk about some tabooey thingies.

Lara Messerlian:
Like we were good together, but I could tell, like he was not giving his all. Like, it wasn't until he let go, it was all, that we were able to actually make a baby.

Carmen Messerlian:
I remember. Is it just cool?

Lara Messerlian:
He had to physically, and mentally, and emotionally let go.

Carmen Messerlian:
Release.

Lara Messerlian:
And when he did, that's when we were able to conceive a child.

Carmen Messerlian:
I know, isn't it amazing? Don't you think that's just kind of so freaking amazing? I love this stuff. The stuff gets me so happy because, no, it does. Because when you're trying to talk about, we're talking about couples out there in the world right now listening to this podcast that are struggling with trying to have a baby, and the pressure of making the baby becomes the task and the job, and you become like, you have to have sex at 2:00 on Sunday and your partner's at Super Bowl, I don't want to come home. And then there's an argument about I'm ovulating, and I've got three hours left, right?

Lara Messerlian:
Oh, the pressure, oh my God.

Carmen Messerlian:
... testing the ovulation and the time. And you know what?

Lara Messerlian:
Or, you know what else?

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah.

Carmen Messerlian:
If they masturbate before.

Carmen Messerlian:
That's it. We're going to talk about that.

Lara Messerlian:
Oh, my God. It's so annoying.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, so that's not okay.

Lara Messerlian:
You watch porn and masturbate.

Carmen Messerlian:
No.

Lara Messerlian:
And then come to me a day later, and think that we're going to make a baby.

Carmen Messerlian:
That's a big problem.

Lara Messerlian:
Oh, my God. It was ...

Carmen Messerlian:
That's one of the, yeah, that's a critical issue and really important for us to get ...

Lara Messerlian:
It used to really upset me.

Carmen Messerlian:
And really important to get out there today, to the men and males and females listening, if you have a, if you're a female partner listening to this or male partner, partners masturbating actually is a contributing factor to infertility. Because if your partner's masturbating every day, some male partners masturbate 2 or 3 times a day, and then you're ovulating tomorrow morning, and my male partner just masturbated 3 times today, guess what? Go and try to have.

Lara Messerlian:
Nothing's left.

Carmen Messerlian:
For morning. And you ain't got a lot of spermies in there, right? We want good quality, high quality, good volume sperm, because especially if we have some other factors like age, you're 35 or older, you might have a little bit you need a little bit more, a little more oomph in your ability, right? So your male partner needs to generate a lot of good quality sperm to get you to where you need to be. And you're right, it's like masturbation, men should not be masturbating.

Lara Messerlian:
Nodoby talks about it when it comes to fertility.

Carmen Messerlian:
When you're trying to make a baby, it should be like a no-go. Like you want sex, you come and have sex with me.

Lara Messerlian:
You got to hold off.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes.

Lara Messerlian:
You got to hold off and wait until.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes, men have to.

Lara Messerlian:
Yeah.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, and the interval, the really optimal interval for what we call abstinence time, so we measure this in our studies in IVF clinics. They talk about abstinence time, which is, how many hours or days has it been since the last ejaculation. And if a man says 12 hours, okay, a lot of men can still make sperm 12 hours later, but some men can only produce a little bit of sperm in 12 hours, some men can produce lots, it depends. And there's so much variability in men's sperm, so much, by day, within-person, across time, across weeks. Just like women in their bodies and their ovulation, you can ovulate one cycle and not ovulate the other. So men are the same way, but abstinence times, the time between ejaculate should not be less than two days when you're trying to make a baby. So you shouldn't have sex every day, you should have sex every other day, maybe even every 2 to 3 days. In fact, the optimal is really every two days, skip a day, have sex, skip a day, have sex. And, like you said.

Lara Messerlian:
It actually takes the pressure off a little, too, because if you're doing it every day, it's not that's a bad thing physically, it's a nice thing, but it's like, it ends up being a lot of pressure of, it feels a little robotic because you're like, okay, I got to get this done.

Carmen Messerlian:
I've got to get this done. Yeah, it's like a job, like ejaculate in me, right? It's not the point to ejaculate in you. Really, what you're saying, so important. It seems, it seems trivial, but the lovemaking, we're making babies. You want to make love when you're making a baby, you don't just have, like, sperm go into your body, right? That's not the point. One of the things that I'm really passionate about in the work that I do is the idea of connecting couples and how important the couple journey is and how alignment, which is what you're talking about between couples, is really critical to the success of the fertility journey. And if your partner is holding off and having sex with you and holding off, and even if it's just, even if he's ejaculating in you, the idea that he's not engaged in the process will have effects on your chances.

Lara Messerlian:
Wholeheartedly.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes.

Lara Messerlian:
Spiritually.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes.

Lara Messerlian:
Physically.

Carmen Messerlian:
Everything.

Lara Messerlian:
Emotionally.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes.

Lara Messerlian:
Everything. You know, it's funny because I think when we actually conceived and had our little baby.

Carmen Messerlian:
It's the best thing you've ever had in your life.

Lara Messerlian:
It was one, I knew that momentum. I knew that that was it.

Carmen Messerlian:
That was it.

Lara Messerlian:
I'd done it, but the other thing is, it was interesting because I had finally told him, like, I'm okay. Like we're okay, I love you. If we never have a baby, it's okay. We got to this place where I'm like, this is enough. If it's just me, you, and Teddy, that's enough. I love you. And I think that took so much pressure off of him of feeling like he didn't have to perform or do something to make me happy, that we actually ended up making a baby, and having our little Olympia and having our little.

Carmen Messerlian:
The thing is, like, you're talking about how the psyche affects, of the mind controls the body, right? This is, I'm a scientist, I'm telling you, your mind and your thoughts create your reality. This is true. So your intention and your thoughts about pulling off and I don't know if I can do this, and I don't know if I can. I'm not sure if I should. And partnering up, being engaged and not being sure, and feeling pressured and stressed over it can ...

Lara Messerlian:
Feeling insecure, too, and feeling insecure about the whole thing.

Carmen Messerlian:
And that's hard to make a baby in those in those conditions. So what you're talking about is intimacy. So intimacy is your body. Yes, you're having sex, your bodies are together. But really, there's intimacy on the mental level, on the spiritual level, and the physical level, and the metaphysical level, and the superconsciousness level. All of those things feed into this harmonious sort of process that allows you to conceive. And I really do really believe in the idea of harmony and lovemaking for babymaking, and we don't ... with that.

Lara Messerlian:
So how do you get there, then? Because in a world where it's all sex toys and lubes, which in itself is problematic, I think you can tell me about the science and we were talking about personal care products. Does that affect your well-being? But also, how do you do that in a world where, you know, we in some ways have steered away from the emotional connection and have become more physical, physically demanding in terms of our intimacy?

Carmen Messerlian:
Oh, God, yes. I think that's so problematic. And one of the things that I'd love to see out of this podcast and of the work that I'm doing at Harvard and on my company, SEED, is this idea that we want to harmonize and align couples into the journey together to be about love, to be about connecting together. Just the thought of connecting together and lovemaking is going to increase your chances. Because let's do nothing else. Do nothing else. Make love, be in love, hold each other's hands, connect with each other. Be intimate with all, without all the hype, without the porn going on, without the sex toys. Connect with your bodies live together. So here's some really cool data. Okay, here's some really cool data. I love this stuff. Your bodies together, just physically together, lying naked, just like a baby when it's born, and you put your baby on, on your body, on your breast, and the microbiome gets immersed into the baby, and you have a shared variability in that. So you're sharing your microbiomes. Your baby's building its microbiome with you, yes. So the skin on couples, guess what that does? That builds not only microbiome that's aligned with health and well-being for your mental health, physical health, but for your sexual health and for your reproductive health. There's the microbiome becomes aligned and matched together, and they support each other. And so sharing body type, body type together, even without sex, without intercourse, where you have physical intercourse, that in and of itself, doing that and loving each other in bed naked for half an hour a night, 20 minutes a night, 15 minutes, just loving each other can really build health and well-being for you and your partner; takes the stress off of having to perform and do something, but is building your microbiome. And your hormones are signals, there's chemistry. There's chemistry that we talk about, it's biological compatibility. That chemistry is biological compatibility and sharing that chemistry to be able to.

Lara Messerlian:
I mean, there's a good schedule where you're being intimate one night, and then the next night you're just.

Carmen Messerlian:
Loving.

Lara Messerlian:
And loving together and just being relaxed with each other on skin and then the next, because that way you're also optimizing your chances of a baby, because you're skipping that day and you're not doing it. So as you were saying, the body needs a little bit of time to produce the sperm and all that.

Carmen Messerlian:
Reset, yeah, to reset.

Lara Messerlian:
So maybe that's like a nice way of doing it where you're like having intimate relations, then you're taking your break, but you're physically together. Then the next day, you're having intimate relations, and then.

Carmen Messerlian:
That's a great sketch.

Lara Messerlian:
Maybe that's a bit of ...

Carmen Messerlian:
Love each other. It's so important, just lie in bed, love each other. You don't have to have sex. You just lie together, kiss, make out, do nothing else, hold hands in bed, chit chat, those kinds of activities. Immerse yourself in your physical body, but also your spiritual energy, your mental energy, your harmony, your lovemaking, your communication. Talk about what makes you scared and stressed. Talk about what you're worried about.

Lara Messerlian:
Enjoy yourself. Just let go of the pressures to your best ability and relax and enjoy yourself.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, and I think that's a hard message.

Lara Messerlian:
I'm not very good at it, either.

Carmen Messerlian:
No, it's not a good, I don't think it's a hard message, but loving. Here's what you could do. You could relax. You could lovemake for 15 minutes and just holding each other's hands in bed and hugging each other, spooning each other, nothing else. Don't even talk. That activity itself can enhance your sexual energy and your physical body, your microbiome, your hormones, your pheromones, your chemistry, all get aligned together.

Lara Messerlian:
Can we talk about the sex products out there? The toys and lubricants. All the massage oils, the perfumes, oh my God. What's your scientific approach? ... consideration on these things.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, that's so important. So really important is these things are products that we want to avoid because things like brands, lubrication, massage oils, scented products of any type of stimulant kind of gels, and things that you might use to cause you to feel arousal, any type of product that you put on your skin or in your body or on your body is a no-no. Why? Because these are made with those chemicals that I talk about all the time, the endocrine-disrupting chemicals. They have phthalates and parabens and triclosan and PFAS and a whole host of other things that we definitely know harm our reproductive health. And so you're putting them in your vagina or around your vagina.

Lara Messerlian:
That's what I was just going to say. If you're putting them on your.

Carmen Messerlian:
Clitoris, on your labia, on any part of your system. The problem is that the skin, the mucosal membrane of that part of your body is so thin. The absorption rate, so if you put something on this part of your skin, the absorption rate is slower than if you put on, that part of the skin is so fine and so the absorption rate is really high. It gets into your bloodstream immediately, within 15 to 20 minutes. We've measured in one of my studies where I looked at ultrasound gel. So even that ultrasound gel has chemicals in it. I had a paper published in a scientific journal that I did at Harvard that shows that ultrasound gel actually absorbs into your bloodstream, and if you have a transvaginal ultrasound and they put gel into your vagina to put the transducer into your vagina, if they don't put it with a condom so that doesn't absorb into your body, that gel is in your vagina and absorbs it. And there's endocrine disruptors in it, there's phthalates and parabens in it. I've measured the urine before and after. I've took urine samples of women before and after ultrasound, and I looked at the peak changes, and there's definitely an increase, it's scientifically published. And so these products damage your body, they're endocrine disrupting, they're reprotoxic. You're trying to get pregnant, and you're putting the stuff in your body, first of all, it can harm sperm, second of all, it can harm your chances of getting pregnant, increase your chance of miscarriage, so avoid any product. You can use natural things. You could use coconut oil, you can use almond oil, not, more natural things, if you need some lubrication. Do not use those chemical products that you buy in stores, sex stores, or any type of store, really, wherever they sell these things, you can get them on Amazon now, too, by the way. And sex toys, so let's talk about sex toys. So you use these plastic things. Plastic is phthalates and BPA and PFAS. You put a dildo or a vibrator in your vagina and you're holding it in there for 15, 20 minutes. Guess what? Plastic and those chemicals are rubbing off into your body and absorbing into that part of your body, into your bloodstream. And, you know, it might be a little hard to hear, you might have to get rid of your sex toys and maybe you love doing that with that.

Lara Messerlian:
If you want short-term, if you want to have a baby.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, you might, you might just try to ask your partner to use his hands and other forms of stimulation than using devices and stuff, which can have, they're plastic, plastic toys are plastic, and the plastic is in your body, and same thing with maxi pads and tampons and companies that make those absorbent panties now. We know there was a lot of backlash against, don't mention the company name, but the ones that make those period-absorbing panties, they have, they're coated in PFAS. Yeah, the entire thing is PFAS. How does it absorb all that liquid is that it's PFAS, and so you're putting that panty on your body, and it's absorbing into your bloodstream, and they're toxic, and they harm your health. And they harm not just your chance of getting pregnant, but that baby that you make, if you do make one, will be affected by the chemicals that it's exposed to.

Lara Messerlian:
So where can you find personal care products, like feminine hygiene products that are not problematic? Because even I use that EWG website to research my products, there's nothing on there for personal hygiene like women's hygiene products there.

Carmen Messerlian:
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

Lara Messerlian:
I don't think I saw any. I had to do a lot of independent research to find ones that I feel comfortable using.

Carmen Messerlian:
I know. None of the ones that are bleached. Organic, unbleached. The bleaching, we've done tests, it was on this documentary, I remember. A few years back in France, they did a huge documentary. They sent a whole bunch of tampons and Tampax and all these things that allowed them. They were coated in petrochemicals and PFAS and phthalates and formaldehydes and cancer-causing chemicals. And so you see rates of uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer on the rise in women that are young.

Lara Messerlian:
And what about those cups, too? They're like plastic, aren't they?

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, so the cups, they're still, some of them are silicone, some of them are not. You need to look into the brand and the type, and there's risks involved. Naturally, tampons and maxi pads that are bleach-free, organic cotton are the best choice. Try to get the best quality product for what you can afford. The standard stuff that's out there, those big brands, they have chemicals in them, they have formaldehyde in them, they have phthalates and then they have PFAS in them. We've tested the actual tampon, not us, but we, labs have tested them. This has been published, there's papers published. We could put the papers on a link if that's something that the listeners want to have access, but these products have harmful chemicals in them, avoid them. And reduce the, like, we talk about the products, avoid the amount you use, the frequency you use it, and the amount of times you use it. So keys, don't use five tampons, use three. You don't want to get toxic shock syndrome either using one tampon for too long. Pads too, but pads absorb, it absorbs into your body. It absorbs into your body.

Lara Messerlian:
What about healthier organic cotton pads?

Carmen Messerlian:
You can get healthy organic cotton pads, those are good choices if you can afford them, they're not cheap. They're not cheap, I can't even afford them.

Lara Messerlian:
I know, that's really way more money. You were saying, you have to pick and choose where you can have control and where you can't. So try to reduce on certain areas. So if tampons and pads are one area where you can use organic cotton, they may not still be the best, but try to not use shampoos and makeup for, during the week that you're having your period or something.

Carmen Messerlian:
Exactly. Because your body ..., you want to just take yourself down and not.

Carmen Messerlian:
Bring the levels down.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yes, during your period, you might be using all the stuff. And why don't you take down something else so that you balance it out? Those are, great suggestion, I love that. So your overall burden is not increased.

Lara Messerlian:
So let's sum up. Try to have intimate time with your spouse and your partner. Doesn't have to ... Lovemake, but it doesn't have to be intercourse. Just spend time together. Try to take the pressure off wherever you can. Try to become harmonious together. Don't use sex toys, and sex lubricants, and sex products during the time that you're trying to conceive. And be mindful when you're choosing your products for your menstrual cycles because it does make a difference. And if you are using products during that time that aren't organic cotton, etc., etc., try to decrease the amount of other toxins you may be exposed to by maybe not wearing makeup that week or not shampooing your hair every day. And that's, that sums it up. We hope you find this informative and interesting, and we hope that it helps.

Carmen Messerlian:
We do. We really do. And yes, Rescripted has so much great information on their website as well, and their diet, Daily Digest is amazing. I get it every day and I'm not trying to get pregnant, but I read it. There's so many resources out there. Do your best.

Lara Messerlian:
Just do your best.

Carmen Messerlian:
Do your best.

Lara Messerlian:
If you know better, do better and try not to put too much pressure on yourself, don't be overwhelmed. Try to enjoy the journey, and that's all you can do, and let it, let go. Just let go, you can. It's hard to do. I've been there. I know it's not the easiest thing to do. It's easier said than done. But try to just, you know, I always found, even after I conceived, the only way that we were, my husband and I were able to actually really, do this successfully when I was pregnant, was to go one day at a time and have zero expectations because we had known at that point when we had the loss in the second trimester. We had known, like having the expectation of having a baby and all of that, like we were like thinking, okay, the baby's coming, and we were making plans and we had picked out her name and then we lost her and it was devastating. And so when we had the second pregnancy, we said, you know what? Just like when we were making the baby, just like after the baby, after when we were pregnant, we said, let's just take it one day at a time and have zero expectations. And somehow, you have to let go and have zero expectations and just let life take you one day at, one moment at a time, and just keep yourself in the best possible moment as you possibly can.

Carmen Messerlian:
Yeah, one of the episodes we should touch on that mind-body connection and meditation. We didn't plan for that, but maybe we'll do that. I thought this was a great episode. I love talking about sex and intimacy, and we know how to make babies and how to love each other, and how important it is to fertility because it is so important to fertility. That's why love it, as it's like the magic sauce, right, that people forget about. And you go to the IVF clinics, nobody talks about sex. They're just like, give me your eggs, give me your sperm, we're gonna make a baby in a little petri dish. It doesn't work. Why? Because there's no love, right? There's no love when you're in a dish. Lovemake, right? It's so important. Try to make love and make a baby and see if it helps. Magic sauce.

Carmen Messerlian:
Thank you for listening to the Fertility Sisterhood brought to you by Rescripted. We hope it has left you feeling more educated and empowered about the role environmental factors play in our reproductive health.

Lara Messerlian:
If you've enjoyed this week's episode, be sure to visit SEED-Program.org to learn more about Dr. Messerlian's research. To stay up to date on the podcast, follow Rescripted on Instagram and TikTok at @Fertility.Rescripted or head to Rescripted.com.

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