Guts and Girl Bits Episode #55

In this episode of Guts and Girl Bits, Raul Pastrana joins us to discuss sperm health. An incredibly important but often overlooked aspect of fertility, we discuss the importance of looking into sperm health at the start of the fertility journey, what can go wrong with sperm health (and why) and some tips to improve it. Sperm issues can contribute to ~50% of fertility issues, as well as contribute to many issues during pregnancy. The quality of sperm also has a massive impact on the health of the child, influencing many things including their immune health, reproductive and neurological health.

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About Raul

Transcript

Because when we talk about fertility, we so often focus on the female side of things, our cycles, our hormones, our eggs, and we forget that sperm health plays a huge role, not just in the ability to conceive, but also in the health of pregnancy. And even the long-term health of the child. Sperm health has been linked to pregnancy outcomes like miscarriage and preeclampsia, and what’s fascinating is that while women are born with all of their eggs.

Eggs that were actually influenced by our grandmother’s health. Men are constantly making new sperm every few months, so that means that there’s a much faster impact on our offspring based on what is influencing the genetic expression of the sperm. [00:01:00] So lifestyle, nutrition and environmental factors can all have profound impacts on sperm quality, which in turn shapes not only fertility outcomes, but potentially even the health of and the development of our future generations.

So now that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re talking about like evolving mutant powers anytime soon, but we are talking about how the choices that men make today can influence things like neurological, mental, and immunological impacts of our future generation and our future children. So to dive into this fascinating and often overlooked topic, I’m joined by Raul Pastrana.

Raul is a degree qualified naturopath. Specializing in fertility and reproductive health, he focuses on helping individuals and couples optimize their fertility with a particular emphasis on male reproductive health, which is a factor that’s often underestimated when it comes to conception outcomes.[00:02:00]

Raul works closely with patients through IVF Preconception Care and Natural Conception. He creates tailored plans based on each person’s unique presentation and goals, and importantly their blood pathology and semen analysis result. He’s also the author of the Sperm Factor Fertility, A Shared Responsibility where he explores how men can influence fertility outcomes and provide practical, strategies to improve sperm health.

So in our conversation today, we talk about why it’s so important to look at sperm health early in the fertility journey, some of the key factors that influence. Sperm quality and why what’s considered normal on a semen analysis might not actually be optimal. Raul will also share some really actionable tips on how men can start to improve their sperm health today.

So whether you are on your own fertility journey, whether you’re supporting a [00:03:00] partner or you’re just curious about how male reproductive health fits into the bigger fertility picture and evolution, this episode is full of insights that might just change the way that you think about conception and reproductive health and wellness.

So let’s get into it.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

But now we’ve got. On the podcast, we can really shine, shine some light on what is the actual relevant information that people can action. How can we do things about it? So I’m really excited to get into this.

Has had multiple blood tests, is already taking a few supplements because she has done some investigations to what could, what can she do in order to improve her outcomes. But in many cases, the male factor is under assessed undertreated and also under research.

And this is really puzzling as a practitioner because the research is telling us that this is wrong.

50% of all fertility cases are related with the male factor. So there is, at least from all the infer, uh, infertility issues out there, 50% of them, there will be some. Male factor contribution. And this is why if a couple is having trouble conceiving, both sides of the equation need to be investigated at the same time in order to have the best fertility potential and the best outcome.

And in that semen analysis that is just the most basic, uh, start, we need to assess, uh, the most common findings, which may be, um, your listeners are already familiar with, which are the semen quantity or how much, how much sperm is there in terms of concentration.

Mm-hmm.

But also how is that sperm moving that motivity.

And last, how is the shape or the morphology of that sperm?

So these are usually the three factors that they are first assessed when the Mel factor is assessed at all. If so.

And that’s where, where everyone should start with,

That’s, uh, [00:07:00] that’s the baseline. The one thing that I will say, it gets overlooked. More often is the DNA fragmentation as well. So the DNA fragmentation, it’s a test that can be done in the sperm to understand what percentage or how damage, uh, is the genetic material inside of the head of the sperm. So if the genetic material inside of the head of the sperm is fragmented, that’s gonna have repercussions for.

Conception, fertilization uh, pregnancy outcomes and the future health of the baby. The DNA fragmentation think about it as a, if the DNA is broken, the instructions to make the baby and the instructions for fertility outcomes, they’re not gonna be as good as we want them to be.

Mm-hmm.

So we want to make sure that we are addressing all the factors that they’re affecting male fertility, to [00:08:00] make sure that the copies of the DNA inside of the head of the sperm as are intact as possible.

And the thing is, it’s just much more easy to get it done all together. On the first analysis, so the then there is not, uh, need to pay again to get again to the clinic. So it’s better if you haven’t done one yet. And fertility is a concern I always recommend to include DNA fragmentation inside of the panel.

I completely acknowledge that finances can be a barrier, but when you think about the cost of some of these very expensive and very invasive. Artificial reproductive technique interventions paying a hundred of dollars to understand the quality of the DNA in that sperm it is in the scale of things is not that much.

And does it swim correctly and swim fast enough?

Mm-hmm.

Because it’s not just about the sperm, be able to move, but move in a, in a straight direction. So the egg, so the sperm can meet the egg, usually in the fallopian tube.

And then they can be fertilization of the egg.

Because I’ve seen it and, but you would have the data on that.

Since the year 2000, so is sperm is not only declining in quality, [00:12:00] it’s also declining faster than it used to be since the year 2000. Um, and because the average male. Sperm, it’s has a such a poor, low, low quality. Then when we are, when we are creating those reference ranges, we’re, we’re comparing ourself with a sample that is not very good in quality.

Anyway, so I dunno if you know how those reference ranges were established, but in the year 2010, the World Health Organization um, did a study with over 4,000. Men from 14 different countries, and all of those men were able to conceive with a female partner in less than a year. And then they analyzed the data from sperm concentration, sperm morphology, and sperm multi for those 1400 men, and then divided from the lowest quality to the highest quality.

And they divided in percentiles [00:13:00] and they established that. The fifth percentile was the normal range, uh, and that’s what was established as normal reference range.

Not really normal will be the medium and the medial should be the 50 percentile, not the fifth percentile.

Mm-hmm.

And if you’re trying to assess that, it’s better to compare it with the 50th percentile. Yeah. So for example, for spare concentration, it’s still of 15 million. One five. You want to get closer to 73 million like you just said.

And for morphology is the same, only 4%. It’s enough to pass only. You only need a 4% of your sperm to have optimal multi uh, morphology in order to pass the test. And don’t get me wrong, you don’t need, uh, this parameter of morphology doesn’t need to be close to the a hundred percent whatsoever. It is very normal to have a morphology on the 10%.

Even 9% is it’s enough to to have a good fertility potential, but the [00:15:00] 50% I will be 15%. So you see the huge disparity that is between what is considered normal or what the reference ranges were established and what actually health and good fertility potential represents.

Men get told, you’re fine, you’re in the reference ranges. But we do wanna aim for a little bit better. We want super sperm. But I was thinking, and when I was researching for this, I actually realized that humans are the only species that have such a low average morphology. Mm-hmm. Compared like animals, their morphology is pretty much always like 99% normal.

We are our nutrition as an overall society and the quality of our diets is declining. The quality of our food supply, it’s, uh. Poorer than ever before with more, like I said, endocrine disrupting chemicals in the food supply. So all this is having an effect not only in morphology, but in all the other parameters.

And look what I always say to my patients or to anyone that is thinking about improving their sperm health, you want improve. Your particular circumstances, if you don’t identify the barriers and those barriers will be different from you than from someone else. Even though there are some commonalities, it’s important to do a thorough investigation to see what is affect, why your sperm health has been affected.

Mm-hmm.

And [00:17:00] things won’t get better because you take a very fancy supplement from the internet. That’s not how it works.

But taking just sup, a random supplement with really good marketing behind it is not going to solve the issue.

So that’s one of the major things that causes the damage at that point, isn’t it?

Mm-hmm. So that’s why if there is high level of stress, if there is chemicals, a sperm synthesis is the first thing that can go. And it’s a pro, this sperm synthesis or a spermatogenesis, it’s something that takes around 72 to 74 days to fully develop. And I think this is a really important takeaway from anyone listening because your spend results.

Can be highly influenced by you making the right things. So if alcohol intake is the problem, if stress is the problem, if sleep is the issue and you resolve and address that factor, you can see results. In your [00:19:00] sperm quality and quantity in only three months because of that constant and dynamic process that is happening in the, at the testicular area.

So renewing those those sperm cells every 72 to 74 days.

And just a note about what you said. So yeah, it’s a very delicate process that can be affected and influenced in many different ways. But from those 72 days, like you mentioned, very correctly, the last 15 days when the sperm is going through the final the final track in the reproductive male system is highly, um, highly and easily damaged.

Hmm. So it’s at that stage where we want to be extra careful. What are we putting in our bodies? Alcohol intake, stress, et cetera. So what I do with my patients, if, especially for those that they’re gonna freeze their sperm and their sperm is gonna be used for XE procedures or IVF [00:20:00] procedures, I give them a high level.

Of antioxidants such as vitamin C, coq 10, lipoic acids, uh, nicotinamide riboside, and many others. Do. So we protect that testicular environment, uh, and that sperm going through the last 15 days before ejaculation.

So the DNA is intact. The morphology and the motility is as good as we, as we can.

I, um, wanted to share something that I found really fascinating when I was researching this is that when they are in the, um, epididymis, which is basically like a big, like collecting duct after they’ve gone through the testes. It’s like an a training center that they go through where they learn to swim really well and their [00:21:00] immune system changes.

And I saw some stuff where they said they, they took the sperm from the testes before they got to that point, and then they, they, but inseminated a woman with it and the immune system killed it straight away. Whereas after, had it been through the epididymis, it, it didn’t. Um, but we can talk about that immune onslaught of the sperm later because that’s also really interesting.

But they learned to, so they learned to swim. Their immune system develops and they learned to smell. How amazing I found that was just like so fascinating and that they learn to detect the smell of follicular fluid. And just like a shark, they can find one part per billion follicular fluid and this z and that’s how they know how to go.

And I was just like, I had no idea beforehand that sperm could smell.

So it’s believed that the egg is, some is releasing certain chemicals that, like you said, they are in such a low quantity, but the sperm can. Sort of smell them. Uh, and be attract to it. So it’s really fascinating. And like you said, the that training and that capacity to to have that sense is is highly influenced for what’s happening in the last 15 days before the sperm is ejaculated.

Um,

so like you said, it’s like a training center. It’s like the sperm are going through the gym in LA in those 15, last 15 days.

And that, that is where a lot of that [00:23:00] olfactory sense comes in as well, which is so super interesting too because of how we know that like, for instance, the microbiome of the oral health. And the re um, gastrointestinal health, that all influences reproductive health as well.

Uh, but we can also do a vagina microbiome. Mm-hmm. And that can give us some insight into if there are any immune. Factors that could be negatively influencing fertility potentials. And, um, there is still so much data coming out. There is a lot of science and a lot of money that needs to be still put on.

So we hit better and more quality studies regarding this, but it is clear that, for example, from the female, the vagina microbiome of the female in order to have a good [00:24:00] 30 degree potential needs to be lactobacillus dominance.

Mm-hmm.

So we know that much. And, and that will easy, that will have a huge influence to whether or not the sperm can actually fertilize.

Like we said, that motility needs to be happening. If there is not progressive motility, which is. Swimming on a straight, uh, on a straight line is not gonna reach the egg. So the, uh, the egg has been is released obviously from, from the ovary and travels to the fallopian tube. The sper, uh, the sper is ejaculated [00:25:00] and starts swimming.

The process of swimming usually takes around two days. In order for the sperm to reach, uh, the egg, and that’s when usually fertilization of the sperm in the egg happens in the fallopian tube. If everything is going well, then that embryo already created, starts traveling slowly towards the uterus.

And in that process of traveling, which can last around five to six days, the embryo starts developing in and subdividing and. Going through a process of cell division into something called blastos. It is the blastos then that arrives to the endometrium. And uh, and if everything is going well, there is good endometrial lining.

There is good endometrial receptivity and there is also good endometrial microbiome. Again the immune system having an influence to whether or not. The, that embryo will be able to attach itself to [00:26:00] that endometrial lining and create a pregnancy and hopefully a healthy pregnancy.

And on the way to get there, it has to sort of go through a bit of an immune onslaught, doesn’t it, from the woman’s immune system.

Nor bad. We need good levels of inflammation when we have, if we cut ourselves or or if we have an a pathogen in our system. But when inflammation is not resolved, becomes chronic, and if, um, there is chronic inflammation that’s gonna, uh, activate [00:27:00] chronically the immune system. Now, the process of pregnancy.

Is highly sensitive to this to immunity. So we need to be able to lower our immune defenses in order for that embryo to attach to the endometrial lining. And if notice is not going to happen, if that is constant hyper surveillance because of that low grade chronic inflammation the embryo will be rejected.

And I advise all my patients to get test. The DNA fragmentation on their first semen analysis sperm antibodies is on the other hand not my first line of, uh, assessment if for, that’s

Then we can investigate that.

What I would say with experiment antibodies is one of other little thing that, uh, will come in most cement analysis is something called agglutination, and [00:29:00] that is how is the sperm behaving the whether. They’re all together in the sample or, or not. And if agglutination of the sperm is very high, then I always test that.

Semen antibodies, sperm antibodies.

Um, and so the whole concept of like a woman having to lie down for a period of time after sex, like, so women, I think that they have to lie down for like, you know, half hour or an hour or something like that. Whereas it’s really not that long, um, because of how sticky it is. But I, that comes from like.

Like way back evolutionary times when a bit like a praying mantis or a spider, like the man’s gotta get in and run.

It’s such a hot environment which causes the damage that oxidative stress.

And what a baril is, is nothing else than at function of the cardiovascular system. So it’s, um, part of the cardiovascular system that is not working well. So if it’s not working well, the blood that is arriving to the testicles to bring in nutrient. Reach and oxygen reach blood and removing waste products is not working well.

The other thing that an optimal cardiovascular system is doing at the testicular area is, uh, making sure that there is no rise in a scrotal temperature like you just mentioned. So. Again, we, we were talking about evolution and, and why things are the way are so, females, they have their ovaries inside of their body and that’s because the process of egg production and egg maturation doesn’t require different temperature than body temperature.

Um, for, for male [00:32:00] fertility, the process of experi nitrogen is requires around two degrees lower than. Total body temperature. So that’s why the male go nuts are hanging out,

right?

Mm-hmm. Now, if for whatever reason that temperature rises, one of the things would be vari cell because there is not enough.

Um. There is not enough blood flow, and blood flow is not optimized. Uh, but another thing is w wearing tight underwear, uh, being sitting for long periods of time, pushing the testicles towards the body, going to saunas, all those factors are gonna negatively influence the quality and the quantity of the sperm.

And what you were saying about you know, the cardiovascular, uh, the system and the vari cell. If we think about it, what is the number one cause mortality for men worldwide. It’s actually, poor cardiovascular health and cardio cardiovascular events. I mean, unless that it has changed [00:33:00] recently.

If it’s not, the number one is at the top, at the top there. So one dysfunction that happens from having issues with the cardiovascular system is having vari cell, which again, has a huge influence in sperm health. And the way to assess whether or not someone has vari cell ultimately is with an ultrasound of the testicular area.

Treatment, isn’t it?

Mm-hmm. Um,

and this is based on research and unfortunately, some couples don’t have their, that time on their hands. And then instead of, uh, surgically removing the Barco cell, other options are offered like IBF or other artificial reproductive techniques.

Tell me your clinical history. You have you had any major, uh, health events? Do you have any? Diagnose medical condition because that’s obviously gonna have a huge effect on your sperm health. So that’s how I start a consultation, letting the person speak. And if they haven’t talked about this, then I always chat about what I consider the pillars of health.

So that will be how is your nutrition, how is your sleep, how is your stress management? And are you exercising at all If those are not addressed. Usually I start from there.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, improving their diet, improving their sleep, their stress management, which goes hand in hand with the sleep. And then I always encourage someone to start exercising if they’re not exercising at all.

Little by little, so that will be the way that I think about a consult. But a above and beyond the four pillars of health. There are so many other [00:36:00] things affecting a sperm quality. One of the things that I speak a lot in my, in the book that is coming out, the Male Factor and why fertility should be a shared responsibility is about the role that pharmaceuticals play in, in, in male fertility.

For example the use of antidepressants has been linked with poor semen analysis. I remember this particular case for one of a patient that I had, um, a couple of years ago. Uh, this person was having this male patient was taking 150 milligrams of an particular SSRI, and then we analyzed.

Many of the other factors that could be influencing him, his diet, his sleep whether or not he had nutritional deficiencies, whether or not he had low testosterone, which obviously also influences sperm health and everything came as [00:37:00] normal. Nothing, nothing else than the antidepressant was an alarm bell.

So I obviously gave her, gave this person high level of antioxidants. Um, I gave him a multivitamin, an Omega-3 to make sure that we were protecting that testicular environment and giving a mass of the nutrients that the sperm that the, the body needs to create this sperm. But then the one thing that I work with.

As well as in conjunction with his doctor is to slowly reduce the dosage of the SSRI. And this is a case to case, uh, scenario. Some people, unfortunately, they cannot reduce the dosage of their antidepressants because they really need it, but in this particular case. The patient was open to, to try, and we worked together making sure that his his neurotransmitters were repleted, that everything was working as, as, as well as possible for him.

And he went from 150 milligrams to only [00:38:00] 25 milligrams in the course of six

I, I can’t remember on the exact number, but I think he’s concentration went from like something like 9 million to 39 million, something like that. Mm. Um, and. I think exercise plays hit a huge role and we will never know how much what was the percent of the influence. On each of the factors, but SSRIs is a good example of how a specific pharmaceuticals can have a huge effect on sperm health.

So we don’t need to study sperm, uh, in that case or female reproductive ’cause. God, I haven’t, haven’t forbid anyone study that. It’s like, it’s one of these things that is, it’s just an unknown and it often doesn’t get thought of at all until much later. Or it takes someone that’s a little bit more savvy to go, maybe it’s the medications causing the issue.

Potent form, DHT. So this medication prevents that conversion and therefore, because that doesn’t happen in the body head loss is prevented. So these days there are lots of 20 year olds, 30 year olds taking this medication. And, um, I have seen some preliminary studies that point towards how this medication is negatively affecting sperm health.

Clinically, I have seen a few cases of it where stopping the medication, uh, doing a bit of work with the male patient and retesting three to six months later lead to great improvements in sperm analysis. So, um. This is another factor, right? Um, this drug was not designed with the idea [00:41:00] in mind that could affect male fertility, but it is indicating that it, it does.

So if. A couple is having trouble to conceiving. I think it’s important to review all the medication that the two parts are taking the female part and the male part.

It is very common. It is, it is very common amongst teams, use users these days. I think, look, we could get into the rabbit hole of why is this happening in the first place, which will be, uh, social media putting body image placing attainable body, um, yeah. So social media these days, what I think it’s doing to our jam population is very clear.

It’s affecting their mental health, right? And then you have all these social media influencers telling [00:42:00] them, you can get the body that I have. You just have to follow this diet. And they’re not telling them the whole picture. In many cases, not all of them, but in many cases they might be using anabolic steroids.

And then this is filtering into the younger population. Everyday more and more I see, uh, the effect that anabolic steroids has in the medium and in the long term of a sperm health. So even if the person had used anabolic steroids a year ago or two years ago and they tr are trying to conceive the long-term effect that anabolic steroid had is still visible.

What you’re really doing is telling your brain you can shut down the communication between the brain. And the testicles. You don’t need to stim the brain doesn’t need to longer stimulate the testicles for more. Yes.

And

then like you said, how long do you [00:44:00] take the anabolic steroids for, and what doses did you take and how old were you when you were having this? All these will have an influence to how fast you recover if you recover.

So let’s, let’s share the way of. Responsibility when it comes to fertility. Let’s go to those [00:45:00] appointments. Let’s make sure that if we haven’t prescribed a supplement, we’ll take that supplement that if we’ve been told that we need to stop alcohol, which we haven’t spoken about, but obviously it’s huge, we stop alcohol altogether.

Or maybe you reduce from having seven drinks per week to just having one to two per these drinks per week with your friends, but do your contribution. That’s what I will say.

Or sperm health can lead to early miscarriage. Let’s do our part into supporting our counterparts, our partners, as much as we can, and share the weight [00:46:00] of responsibility.

And let’s do what were asking me. What are the main things that someone can do? Let’s tackle the big ones, right? Like the, the obvious ones. So alcohol, huge. Like, I mean, there is so much research and do we need more research? I mean, we always do need more research, but it’s very clear the toxic effect that alcohol has in sperm.

So just stopping alcohol is gonna have a huge, huge effect in improving your fertility outcomes, uh, making sure that you are sleeping well and that you’re prioritizing rest. It’s really, really, really huge. Um, I. Eating, eating well, uh, making sure that you’re getting your protein, your fiber, that you’re eating, a food that agrees with you.

Those are huge factors. And then what I will say as well, if you are not working with a health professional and you are unsure what the factors will be, that that’s when you need to ask for help. And I think females are much better than males are asking for help.

Mm-hmm.

There [00:47:00] is. There is not nothing wrong with saying, okay, I don’t know what to do who can help me to improve my outcomes.

I think that is an important factor to, to acknowledge when Google doctor is not enough and when you need to look for a health practitioner that can guide you in the right direction.

That will be my main takeout.

I can tell you the success rate was always [00:48:00] much higher.

Those have a big impact too, don’t they?

Maybe it’s not in the. First consult, but it’s in the second consult. Or I give them some some handouts for them to read or websites that they can visit to understand the if their. The things that they’re using at home to, to clean, uh, to clean the house is affect, could have a negative effect. So I like to give all those resources, which are very important.

Another big one is where are you working? What [00:49:00] are you spending most of your time? If it’s a pain factory, for example, then we know that that can definitely be one of the reasons for low or poor quality sperm. Mm

And then beyond there, we, we’d have to consider the things that are genetic or structural, like the vari CILs we mentioned, or conditions like, um, like Kleinfelter syndrome or mm-hmm. People who are structurally missing vans, deference, or other, other, like under sended, testes and those aspects. Mm-hmm.

So beyond when we get to that point, that’s when, you know, you have, we have the referral network and the dis usually at that point we’d be seeing very big things in the sperm analysis, like zero sperm. So that’s a big red flag to refer on for that. Um, so people don’t usually have to worry about [00:50:00] that.

If they have already got the sperm analysis, they can sort of go, okay, it’s probably not too bad.

To wanna talk about it. So if they have something that’s in front of them that they can sort of sit down and privately assess, that’d be really good. So I’ll, um, I’ll pop some links in the, in the show notes in the, in the description to help people find all of this as well. But can you just share your links.

So all those, uh, important conditions regard regarding the reproductive system and obviously male fertility. So that’s what I’m working at the moment. So, the website is rhreproductivehealth.com. For anyone interested to contact me, uh, they can do it through the website and I will be always happy to answer.

The post Sperm Health appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Acne is such a common issue that people ask a naturopath to help with. It can really affect your self esteem, and in some instances can be painful and uncomfortable.

There’s no magic, quick fix for acne whether you see a naturopath or try the conventional medicine route, and sometimes you have to try a few different approaches before finding what works best for you. Typical timelines are often small improvements within two weeks, and more visible results around 3 months. When treating the underlying causes of acne naturopathically, this can sometimes take even longer, however the benefits of treating these underlying causes are often wide reaching.

As with most naturopathic approaches to health issues, it’s about finding out what the underlying cause of the issue is.

In the case of acne, it’s important to consider that skin is connected to other body systems – in particular the nervous system, the endocrine system (that’s hormones) and the digestive system. Imbalances in one or more of these systems will very commonly cause skin problems.

I’ll talk in more detail about these systems later, how to tell whether they’re the issue for you, and what you can do to help them.

Listen to the audio of this article here

It’s been a hot minute since my last episode of Guts and Girl Bits, I have been occupied with my busy home clinic and I have also been writing some e-courses, which I will talk a bit about later. Of course, I have also been spending time with family, would you believe my youngest Lara is now in Kindergarten? How time flies!

It was almost a year ago I started planning this podcast episode but I got rather distracted by everything else. However I’ve had some spare time to sit down and record, and I am hoping to stay on this momentum and release some more podcasts in the next few months. Please get in touch if you enjoy these podcasts, and if you have any questions or requests for future episodes I’d love to hear from you.

Sorting out your skin issues can be sooo frustrating when you’re doing it by yourself – do I need to go on medication? Does my diet make a difference? Are my hormones out of balance? Maybe this skin product will help? No, maybe this one, no, this one, no this one. Maybe I need a skin peel? Maybe I need laser? Maybe I need to go vegan? Maybe paleo? Do I need to detox? AUUUGH!

Rest assured you’re not alone, soo many women (and I do treat men occasionally to) come to me at their wits end with their acne.

Naturopathic approaches to any type of health condition always stem from one of the core naturopathic philosophies: treat the cause.

What the cause of acne is may vary from person to person, and that’s where a naturopaths consultation questions come in handy – delving into the different body systems like gut health, nervous system health and hormones, and sometimes using functional testing to get to the bottom of it. I’m going to try and give you some clues about it later so you can get a bit of an idea for yourself, and I will also discuss some of my favourite treatment options.

Emunctories

When it comes to root cause medicine, the way that the body is able to eliminate waste is an important consideration for any skin concern.

Naturopathic medicine is built around a set of philosophies, and one of these is the theory of emunctories.

The term emunctories is a bit of a funny word, but it refers to an organ or duct that removes or carries waste from the body.

Traditional naturopaths often consider the theory of emunctories when establishing a treatment plan, they may not use the term emunctories (I do, I think it’s a fun word to say, can you tell, I’m saying it a lot) but we always want the body to be eliminating waste efficiently, and to minimise the burden on our elimination systems. If our eliminatory system is unable to handle the load that is placed onto it, this will cause symptoms to express.

The emunctory system exists in tiers. These tiers will prioritise the primary emunctories, and if that system is overloaded it will progress downwards.

Primary emunctories are the main channels of elimination of the body that we want to be carrying the majority of our waste burden.

The primary emunctories are:

• Sweat
• Through the liver and intestines, passing bowel motions
• Through the kidneys and bladder, urination
• Through our breath

We can support our primary emunctories by drinking adequate water, eating lots of fibre and supporting our gut microbiome, breathing exercises, sweating through exercise or saunas.

The secondary emunctories include the skin and the mucous membranes of the urogenital tract, the respiratory tract, the digestive system. If our primary emunctories are overloaded or not working effectively, then toxins can be excreted through the secondary emunctories. This often shows itself as skin conditions, phlegm, diarrhoea (usually this may be a bit more mucousy).

What can commonly occur is that symptoms that express on this level are treated with suppressants, for example cortisone based creams, decongestants or cough suppressants.

If the secondary emunctories are suppressed or unable to cope, symptoms may start to appear in other areas such as in menstruation, emotions, swollen lymphatic glands, fevers and other irritations of mucous membranes.

So if we were to look at treating acne in keeping with this philosophy of emunctories it would look like this:

1. Making sure you’re eliminating properly through your bowels, by working on your diet and using herbal medicines that support this
2. Using herbs that are classed as ‘depuratives’ – these are herbs such as burdock and clivers, and they help to improve the elimination of the primary emunctories
3. Drinking plenty of water to support kidney function
4. Encouraging good lymphatic flow with lymphatic drainage techniques and exercise
5. Making sure you’re getting your sweat on – exercise or saunas

The importance of the gut

So let’s talk a bit about the digestive system how does that affect acne. It’s no secret that the health of your gut will impact on almost every system of the body, so of course it affects skin. There’s a few ways in which it can do this.

Think back to what we talked about with the concept of emunctories and how important that is. An overburdened digestive system will overburden the emunctories, leading to skin congestion and inflammation. Your skin is like a looking glass to your gut health.

Gut health impacts on hormonal health. Oestrogen has to be metabolised through the liver and bowels, and if that’s not eliminating effectively than oestrogen doesn’t get fully eliminated, instead it gets recycled in a more active form, and too much oestrogen will have a proliferative effect on your acne.

Intestinal permeability, or leaky gut, can cause inflammation, often via histamine excess. Histamine and inflammation will often show up as redness and acne. Histamine will also be driven up by oestrogen, which is why acne may be worse at certain times in your cycle.

One of the subtypes of acne which is caused by a fungal overgrowth often goes hand in hand with an altered gut microbiome.

Gut issues are linked to other types of skin condition as well such as eczema psoriasis and rosacea.

Clues that your gut may a problem for your skin health:

• You experience gut symptoms like bloating, altered bowel motions, IBS, gas.
• You experience fungal infections such as thrush or tinea.
• Your acne flares up after eating certain foods
• Your acne is mostly around forehead, mouth and cheeks.

Improving gut health

The main things that we want to be focusing on when improving your gut function is

• making sure that you’re digesting food appropriately with good levels of digestive acids and enzymes
• ensuring that you have the right balance of gut bacteria, and that you are absorbing your nutrients effectively as well
• supporting the lining of the gut health with herbs and nutrients
• avoiding highly inflammatory foods and any foods that you might be intolerant to as these will aggravate inflammation worsening any type of skin condition.

The nervous system

Does stress cause health issues? I’ve heard this concept dismissed a lot, but I am a firm believer that yes, stress can cause physical symptoms, especially things to do with the skin.

When we’re going through high periods of stress we will experience impacts on our inflammation levels due to an increase in our cortisol and histamine levels, and our reproductive hormones can be affected which increases sebum and keratin production, and increased hormone sensitivity in your skin.

Stress will also impact on our gut health, which will contribute towards skin inflammation and increased chance of skin infections.

Signs your nervous system could be a player with your skin health:

• Feeling like you’re constantly on edge
• Oversensitivity to sensory stimulation e.g. noise
• Brain fog, difficulty thinking clearly
• Poor quality sleep
• You’ve been living off coffee and stimulants
• Feeling out of balance emotionally, anxious or depressed
• Fatigue
• Low libido

How to support your nervous system

1. Make sure you’re doing fun things and laughing, as these are great ways to burn off your stress hormones
2. Try to reduce sources of stress, if that’s at all possible – maybe that might be asking for help with something that is putting a burden on your shoulders.
3. Make sure you’re eating enough – low calorie, and nutrient poor diets can be a source of stress to the body. Similarly for those who are in need of nervous system nourishment, focus more on weight training and low intensity exercise rather than high intensity exercise.
4. Get plenty of sleep
5. Practice screen boundaries
6. Practice mindfulness exercises each day
7. Get someone to talk to, perhaps a psychologist or a counsellor.

Stress can have such a big role on our health that I consider it to be one of the most important things to address. I have created an online group Naturopathic program that provides individualised care in a group setting, focusing on the pivotal factors for a healthy nervous system and adrenal gland health. If you are feeling like your nervous system needs some nourishment, I’d love for you to join me in my program Beat Burnout.

Hormone Balance

One of the most well known hormones that cause acne is testosterone. Testosterone and it’s family of hormones, androgens, cause acne by binding to receptors in the skin, increasing oil and keratin production, resulting in oilier skin with a potential for blocked pores. The bacteria (and sometimes fungi) which causes inflammation in our skin loves to feed on this, so extra fuel for the bacteria means the bugs grow, triggering an immune response in the area, resulting in more acne.

If you have a irregular periods, hirsutism (excess hair growth, such as chin hair) or have been diagnosed with PCOS there’s a good chance that high testosterone levels are a driver for your acne.

If your acne tends to get worse around the time that you are ovulating as well as when you are about to get your periods but then gets better when you start your period that’s a sign that the fluctuating levels of oestrogen are playing a role.

We need oestrogen, it can be our best friend but if we’re not metabolising or excreting it properly then it can elevate histamine, causing inflammation. Oestrogen needs to get metabolised and excreted through the gut to be in a good balance, otherwise it can be too proliferative.

Oestrogen and histamine work closely together when oestrogen is at its highest histamine will follow suit and if you have issues with high histamine that can also cause oestrogen to be high as well.

If you are not ovulating regularly or well, you may not have enough progesterone to counter oestrogen, and lack of progesterone doesn’t help skin health either.

Signs you may have hormonal acne

• Your acne worsens around ovulation or premenstrually
• Acne is located on the chin, jawline, back and chest
• Your period is irregular or painful
• You may also experience PMS symptoms
• You have oilier skin than normal
• You have thicker, coarser or more hair than normal for your genetics

How to assess your hormones

There are several ways to get an insight into your hormones

I am a big fan of using the DUTCH test, which is performed using urine sample to measure hormone metabolites. It can give you insight into not just the overall level of your hormones, but also the quality of metabolism of your hormones, whether they are being metabolised down the friendly or the angry pathways.

Blood tests don’t look at metabolites but they are very useful to get insight into your overall hormone balance. It’s vital to test on specific times in your cycle to be able to make use of these results.

Testing at day 2 or 3 of your cycle (the 2^nd or 3^rd day of your bleed) will give a baseline of low levels. Test FSH, LH and Oestradiol at this time.

After you ovulate, your hormones will start to raise, and usually peaks 7 days after ovulation, so at this time you want to do another test, measuring progesterone and oestradiol.

At either of these tests you will want to also measure testosterone profile (SHBG, androstenedione, testosterone, DHEA, free testosterone), prolactin, thyroid profile and fasting insulin.

If you are on the OCP, the female reproductive tests will not be reliable by thyroid function and insulin can be measured.

Does your diet make a difference to acne?

Yes, it does.

Your diet can affect your skin in different ways but one of the big drivers of acne we know is inflammation and then another big driver for acne as well is your hormone balance.

It makes sense that if we’re eating foods that are inflammatory then that’s going to make your gut health and acne worse. Inflammatory foods may be foods that you are intolerant to, or it may be foods which are generally considered to be inflammatory.

Some of the big ones for that is wheat and dairy. I often recommend cutting out dairy as a first step when you try to address acne because it reduces inflammation and so you could swap that for almond milk or oat milk or rice milk whatever your preference is. Lactose free milk isn’t really going to make that much of a difference because a lot of the inflammation comes from the protein. Some people find that A2 milk can be helpful for them but initially I recommend cutting it out altogether to get an insight.

After inflammatory foods, bad guy #2 is sugar. Sugar, in particular refined sugar and highly processed foods are an issue because it can increase the production of a substance called insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). This acts to increase the hormones known as androgens in our body such as testosterone and what these can do is make our skin produce more oil and keratin. Rewind back to the section on hormones if you need a refresher on this.

Insulin is an important hormone but when we’re eating a high GI diet it’s often going to be making acne worse so aiming for a low GI diet is going to make a big difference there. Imbalances in blood sugar levels can also trigger cortisol and histamine imbalance so you really want to be keeping your blood sugar levels nice and stable.

If you have a blood test that shows up high levels of insulin then this can actually be a marker that you do have a bit of insulin resistance which is a sign that you really need to get your blood sugar levels back under control. Insulin resistance is a leading cause of high testosterone and PCOS.

Now don’t get me wrong sugar is not all bad I am a big fan of fruit and potato but what we want to avoid is foods that have a lot of sugar and have a lot of refined carbohydrates and not much else and so that might look like ice creams, jams, juices, packaged foods, excessive amounts of white breads and pasta, sauces with added sugar, soft drinks, lollies, cakes and other sweets.

The other important dietary consideration is your fibre and water intake. Because one of the goals when supporting skin health is improving elimination through the gut and supporting our emunctories, you want to ensure that you’re getting plenty of water and fibre.

Fungal acne

Let’s talk about fungal acne.

For some people, the cause of their acne is actually fungul.

Some people experience a little bit of a different type of acne that can be more stubborn and doesn’t respond to the typical types of treatments. One of the reasons that this is so stubborn is that because a lot of skin products that are recommended for conventional acne will feed this fungus.

Fungal acne is also known by the term pityrosporum folliculitis – an infection with a type of yeast called Malassezia which lives in the hair follicles and eats our natural oils and any oil that you happen to apply onto it. This type of acne tends to express itself more on your forehead, and may also show up on your back, chest, shoulders and along the hairline and in the T zone.

When tackling this type of acne the treatment goals are to support your immune system, gut microbiome and balance hormonal health.

If you suspect that you have fungal acne, you may like to try an anti-fungal shampoo or cream which, if beneficial will provide insight into your acne cause.

Q&A Transcript

I did a shout out for some questions when planning this podcast:

One of the submitted questions was how to prevent acne coming off the pill and this is such a fantastic question because it’s a really common thing that people consult with me about. If you had acne before you went on the pill there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to experience some acne when you come off the pill again. Unfortunately taking the oral contraceptive pill doesn’t always fix any underlying issues that might have caused the acne to be there in the first place but what it does a fantastic job of is reducing the oil production in the skin which means that you’re going to have very little acne if any. When you come off the pill this oil production is going to increase and it gets a little bit confused because you haven’t really been making any oil for however long so it’s like hang on how do I do this how much oil do I have to make again and so it goes a bit crazy and usually it’s going to be crazy for around six months or so then it starts to settle down but there are things that we can do to help reduce the intensiveness intensity of the crazy.

So what can you do if you’re about to come off the pill? I recommend starting with cutting down inflammatory foods and for most people I recommend supplementing with zinc. I typically don’t prescribe hormonal regulating herbs for three months after coming off the pill because I want the body to try and set up that communication through that HPO axis itself but what I do like to do is encourage emunctory support with herbs, support liver function to improve the clearance of the contraceptive and to make sure your lymphatic system and your immune system is happy.

Question 2 – How long does it take to fix acne?

How long remedies may take to fix acne will depend on what the underlying cause is.

In my experience the redness and inflammation will settle down within a few weeks, and then the frequency and severity of breakouts reduces, and healing time improves.
It’s different with everyone, and as much as I wish everyone had great results there are some people who take a bit longer to see changes, and some people who get occasional relapses.

On the whole I find 6-12 months a typical length of time until someone is able to ease off the herbs and supplements, they’re feeling good about their skin at this point. If there’s a lot of scarring this then needs to get sorted with a beautician, especially one who does laser treatments for scarring.

Question 3 – Are probiotics helpful for acne?

Yes, I usually do have a focus on gut health when treating acne, especially if it’s on the cheeks. But probiotics can be helpful.

A general reminder with probiotics is that you want to be strain specific. The code at the end of the probiotic name tells you which species it is, and therefore you understand which role it plays.

Some of the strains I look at using are Lactobacillus salivaris ls-03, lactobacillus rhamonsus LL, lactobacillus casei lc03, and some Bifidobacterium such as the breve br03, or the animalis ssp.

Question 4 – My teenager has acne, I don’t want her to go on harsh medications, is there anything that can be done?

Yes of course! Treating teen acne is not too dissimilar to treating adult acne. We want to be balancing blood sugar levels to reduce it’s impact on hormones, and reducing inflammation by cutting down on inflammatory foods such as dairy, and potentially high histamine foods. Supplements can be handy, for instance zinc, vitamin B5, inositol and or berberine rich herbs.

A summary of my favourite treatments for acne:

• A probiotic specific for acne health
• Balancing mineral health – typically this may be zinc, but in some cases copper may be needed. You can use a HTMA to assess mineral levels
• Support gut function with gut healing nutrients and diet
• Lower inflammation by eating a low dairy, or low histamine diet
• If hormones are out of balance you can address this. Here is where it gets a bit more individual. Ensuring good ovulation is an important first step. Some common nutrients I provide for this is inositol which supports blood sugar level balance and ovulation. Zinc has an anti-androgen effect and can be helpful.
• Balancing omega- fatty acids through diet, and potentially supplements.
• Herbal medicine to support emunctories, stress levels and hormone balance, as well as reduce infection and support immune health. Some common herbs I opt for are Coptis, which is rich in berberine, Chaste tree, if indicated for ovulation, Withania for stress support, burdock as an emunctory support.

Thank you for listening, if you have enjoyed this episode please leave a review, subscribe if you haven’t already and as always feel free to get in touch.

The post A Naturopath’s Deep Dive Into Acne appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

A few years ago I was interviewed by Carly Taber for Casa de Karma. It was a very well received podcast at the time but the website is no longer live, so I am going to share some of my content from there over the next few weeks. Here is a video version of the podcast episode where I was interviewed all about gut health.

The post Gut Health Explained – an interview appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits Episode #53

In this episode I share the rest of Brooke Blair’s journey to conception, her pregnancy and we discuss her home birth. We touch on some of the difficulties she faced with endometriosis, her miscarriage, and her home birth.

We also mentioned the documentary Birth Time which you can view via this link with a 20% discount (use this link and enter discount code CICADA20) www.birthtime.world/a/2147503089/XDFWnAKo (this is an affiliate link which provides me a small comission at no extra cost to you).

Listen to the audio:

Transcript

Alison Mitchell  00:00

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Guts and Girl Bits. It’s been a long time coming, I’ve had a lot going on personally with renovating my house. And I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to live with my parents while this has been happening. And so it’s not really the most conducive atmosphere to record any podcasts or really get anything of anything done at all. So that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t released a podcast episode for a long time. But now I am moved back home. So we’ve had our renovations done, and they’re beautiful. I’m now working from home in a little space, does that let go to external door to it. So I’ve got my massage bed, and I’m building my herbal dispensary. And it’s just absolutely beautiful. And I love coming into this room and doing work and being able to see people and I’m always so grateful for any of my patients that have come and seen me in this space as well. And now that I have this space, it’s also a lot more easy for me to do the things that I used to have a lot more time to do, such as write blog posts, and create podcast episodes. And so I have a few podcast episodes ready to go. Now almost ready to go. But this one here is something that I’ve just recorded recently. And it’s something I’m really happy to share with you because it’s a beautiful retelling of the birth of baby Byron, who is the son of Brooke and Adam Blair. Now, if you’ve listened to previous episodes, then you’re probably familiar with Brooke. She’s a women’s health physio, and I’ve had a lot of episodes with her previously, which I do encourage you to go back and listen to because they’re actually really good information in there. So some of the ones we talked about was hypertonicity. So when pelvic floor muscles are too tight, and what you can do about that, how your body changes during pregnancy, and also spoke about mastitis as well. So there’s some great things that you can go back and listen to. But for now we get to hear about her birth story. And also, this actually follows up from a previous episode that we did where we talked about her health journey, overcoming some issues with her digestive health, as well as talking about why she wanted to become a women’s health physio, and some of the issues that she was having with her periods. And so this kind of wraps that story up to a certain extent, because we’re talking about you know, what happened with her endometriosis and what some of the things we were doing with that, as well as her journey to conceive. And the her pregnancy and her birth. So I hope you enjoy today’s episode. So Brooke is, just a pleasure to chat to you. I had such a lovely time interviewing her. And I hope you guys enjoy. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it. And let me know if there’s any other topics that you’d like to cover in the future. Hi, everyone, you’re listening to Guts and Girl Bits. I’m Alison Mitchell, a practicing Naturopath. And I hope to share with you all sorts of information about women’s health and digestive health to educate to empower you to make informed choices about your own health. Please remember that all information is general and does not replace consulting with the healthcare practitioner.  So I’m joined again with Brooke Blaire. She’s a women’s physio extraordinare. And she’s been on the podcast a few times previously discussing her health journey. And so we’ve got a bit of an update about where we’re up to now. So we’re currently in February 2022. And Brooke has in her lap at the moment have beautiful baby boy.

Brooke Blair  03:47

Yes. It’s my little 10 week old baby Byron,

Alison Mitchell  03:51

and he is his divine, currently sleeping peacefully.

Brooke Blair  03:55

Yes, hopefully it stays that way.

Alison Mitchell  03:57

We’ll see how we go. But I’ve had so many episodes in the past where Lara has been chipping away. So I think it’s just like a staple to my podcast episodes.

Brooke Blair  04:06

The last podcast, I think we had the dogs and the birds in the background. So maybe we’ll have Byron in this one.

Alison Mitchell  04:13

And I think last time we were on the podcast together, we were talking about how you were going with digestion and like a bit about your period journey. And so I guess I’d like to start off there and say like, had How did everything go since then? And how did you go with trying to conceive?

Brooke Blair  04:30

Yep. Um, so I think it would have been before our wedding, maybe I can’t remember if it was before or after our wedding that we caught up last, but it was after after. Okay, so two days after our wedding, we went into COVID lockdown. So we had spoken about me coming off the pill after the wedding, but then we thought we’d locked down. Probably not the best time to do that because we didn’t know what we would be doing with work and where we’d be at we just bought a house. So we waited until the August of 2020 which is when I then came off the pill. And so I’d started working with you when with all of our herbies, and we’d already worked on getting my gut health right, which was going so so well, because I’d been having my SIBO, which was causing me to feel short of breath and heart palpitations. Soon as I did the SIBO diet, cut out red wine, reduced my cheese and my sugar. I was perfect, which was good. That’s great. So I came off the pill. And my first period came, I think, nine weeks later, which was like, I never had a period. It was so easy. I had no pain whatsoever. I was going, Oh my God, have I just been on the pill for no reason this whole time. Um, and then I got my next period, maybe six weeks later, just before Christmas, and it was horrendous. It’s probably the worst period I’ve ever had. I had so much pain, I couldn’t go to work the first day of it. I had shooting rectal pains. I couldn’t sit down because of it. I was constipated. It was horrendous. So yeah, that was fun. And then at that point, so that had been what maybe three. So that was August. I don’t remember that was four months after coming off the pill. So we then went to my GP because I thought I can’t have another period that is that horrendous. Maybe I need to get my endo looked at again by the specialist. So we then go on in the January to see my doctor to look at getting a referral to the endo specialists to see maybe I need to have another laparoscopy to get my endo cut out again, before we could then fall pregnant. Maybe unbeknownst to us, I was pregnant at that time, but then a few weeks later miscarried. then, and so this whole time I’d been tracking my cycles, like we’d spoken about. So I’d been measuring my basal body temperature every morning. And so I think I knew straight away that first time that I was pregnant, because that day that my periods should have come. It was still up high. And I messaged you, and I was like, Oh my gosh, what is going on? Yeah, we just had an appointment as well, I think. And then I took a pregnancy test like two or three days later. But anyway, so I didn’t end up going to see that endo specialist, because obviously I could fall pregnant despite my endo being horrendous.

Alison Mitchell  07:21

And I think you were concerned about that at the time as well. Like, apart from having a hellish period. You also were like, wondering if it was going to affect your chances of conceiving?

Brooke Blair  07:30

Exactly. That was my big thing. I thought I don’t want to leave this too long. And I think the appointment the first appointment that I could get to that was in the Feb, the January in the first appointment I could get was the November of that year was going oh mygod,

Alison Mitchell  07:45

it’s been a terrible time for people trying to get specialist appointments.

Brooke Blair  07:48

Yeah. COVID has made things very tricky. But yeah, so we had the miscarriage which sucked. But he’s life that happens to a lot of women. And then

Alison Mitchell  07:59

one in four?

Brooke Blair  07:59

yes one in four. Yep. And so I like being at work with so many pregnant women and women trying to conceive, I was chatting with all of my women about it. And so many women would tell you that they’ve had miscarriages that they’ve never spoken to someone about, which I think is a bit sad, because we told we told both our parents and, and it would told we told all of our families actually that we were pregnant, because we thought you know what, my family members have had miscarriages before and they didn’t tell us at the time. And I think that would have been really tough. So we told all of our family that we were pregnant thinking, if something does go wrong, then everyone knows and they can support us. And it was really weird. It was like I knew that I wasn’t going to stay pregnant because I was talking about the sack of cells. Like that’s what I was calling and I wasn’t calling it like my baby.

Alison Mitchell  08:51

So you you didn’t form an attachment to it.

Brooke Blair  08:53

No, yeah, yeah, it was it was really bizarre like and I kept saying, you know, if this sticks and just words that I was using, it was like, deep down, I knew that I wasn’t going to stay pregnant.

Alison Mitchell  09:03

I think that’s it’s, I mean, it could have been like an aspect of intuition, but it’s also not uncommon, like when it’s your first conception to have that sort of fear always. Yeah, that element of disbelief. Yeah. And because you also had the Endo. Yeah, it would have been like, almost like, this doesn’t sound right? Yeah, exactly.

Brooke Blair  09:25

But I’ve spoken to other girls since we’ve had miscarriages and they’ve said the same thing. Like they were just waiting for the news that it wasn’t gonna like that there had had a miscarriage or that the baby hadn’t grown or there was no heartbeat so it was really bizarre. Didn’t make it any easier when I had the Miscarriage Of course. But yeah, so we did that. Then I started tracking my temperatures again, straight away. And through that miscarriage actually we found that I had Hashimotos so I’d gone and had blood tests to check my HCG levels. And we found out that my now you’ll have to correct me on this because I too high or too low

Alison Mitchell  10:02

Hashimotos usually expresses with low TSH. Yes. Okay. Oh sorry, no it’s high TSH. Also a high TSH and low T3 T4? And antibodies.

Brooke Blair  10:10

Yes, that’s what I had. So my GP said, stop trying, Let’s sort this out first I don’t want you didn’t fall pregnant because if you do then thyroids really important for baby’s brain and development and could contribute to the miscarriage. But I was also frustrated because I was like, Well, I’m having six to nine week long cycles, how long am I going to have to wait to fall pregnant? Again, it’s been six months at this stage since I’d come off the pill. So I was working with you on reducing all of I think we reduced my gluten, dairy and sugar came off all of that. And then I’d had some acupuncture as well to try and help me like to get rid of all of the leftover blood and stagnation and all that sort of thing. Yep. And then I started some thyroid medication. And six weeks later, I was pregnant again. And that was our little Byron.

Alison Mitchell  11:09

And how did you feel about at that time, like, did you connect during the pregnancy?

Brooke Blair  11:16

I didn’t want to get excited at all. So I kind of like I knew straight away that I was pregnant, because it was March of last year. So we were away on our wedding anniversary. And I’d started to have similar symptoms to what I’d had when I was pregnant the first time, which was like random heart palpitations, really vivid, bizarre dreams and tingling. And so I’d started experiencing those again. And I thought no, like, I haven’t even had another period. Surely I wouldn’t be pregnant this soon. And so then, like, we came home, I took a pregnancy test. I messaged it to you, because I was like, I’m sure there’s a line here. But I could be making it up and you were like, I don’t really see a line. I was like, No, deep down. I know there’s a line. And there really wasn’t I’ve looked back at photos. There wasn’t a line. But you were the first person that I told that I sent this photo to.

Alison Mitchell  12:09

I think I looked at your temperatures. I was like, actually, yeah.

Brooke Blair  12:13

You said maybe wait another two days. And so I didn’t every day after that. I checked and

Alison Mitchell  12:20

gradually got a line.. definitely understandable. Yes.

Brooke Blair  12:24

But I told Adam, I think that night, I still told Adam so we had friends over. And he hadn’t seen him by himself that whole day. And so he’d gone to the bathroom was doing a poo. And so I chased him in there. And I said, Hey, he’s like, can you just like, Give me a minute? And hey, if if I was pregnant, what do you want to know right now? He was like, Yes, but why are you telling me like this? So I pulled out the pregnancy test. And I showed him and he was like, I’m really happy. But I’m doing a poo. Give me a minute.

Alison Mitchell  12:58

Oh, my God. He’s going to love that this is on the episode.

13:03

classic classic. I thought to myself, you know, of course, I would do it when he’s doing a poo, not like in a cute way that everyone else does it with their partners. But yes,

Alison Mitchell  13:11

like, you know how you’re pushing something? Yeah.

Brooke Blair  13:15

In nine months time I will be too. So we had friends over for dinner. So that was sitting at our dinner table. And I’d gone in and told him that we had a little cuddle in a case and we were like, we’re not going to get excited. So we were both kind of guarding ourselves. I think we didn’t really talk about it that much straightaway. But we’re still excited that have the possibility.

Alison Mitchell  13:37

And also just that, like you could conceive again. Yeah,

Brooke Blair  13:40

yeah. And the fact that it happened quite quickly was nice. Like it felt like eternity. But it was only really six weeks after we’d miscarried. So it was really quite lucky. I think.

Alison Mitchell  13:52

I mean, I guess, depending on the reason for miscarriage women can conceive again in the next cycle.

Brooke Blair  13:57

Yeah, yeah. Which had heard but didn’t think it would happen to us. So we felt very lucky. And then I think a few days later, I’d had a bleed. And so we just assumed straightaway, okay, well, this is we’re miscarrying again. So I’ve messaged both our moms to say, hey, just letting you know, we’re pregnant, but now we’re probably not we’ll keep you posted. So that was how they found out this time that I was pregnant, which was not all that nice. And I’d actually had an appointment with an obstetrician that day, because I was going to talk about maybe going on um. not progesterone, we thought that I wasn’t ovulating frequently. Clomid, yes, yes. So that was what the appointment was about to look at. Maybe I need to help me to ovulate a little bit more frequently to fall pregnant. And so I went in there and I was like, Okay, well, I took a positive pregnancy test last week, but I’ve started to bleed and I had a miscarriage and this is exactly what happened last time, can you tell me what’s going on? And he did an ultrasound. And he said, I can’t see anything in your uterus. So it could be, but maybe go and get a blood test in a couple of days. And I did that. And a few days later got a call from my GP saying, I’ve got some results on my desk here that says you are pregnant. So maybe give me a call back. And we can chat about that. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, amazing. And so then I think that would have been at maybe five or six weeks. And then a few weeks later, I had another bleed, which was terrifying. Again,

Alison Mitchell  15:36

how much were you bleeding?

Brooke Blair  15:38

the first time it was probably only spotting, which like that brownie kind of spotting color. The second time was a bit more. Yeah.

Alison Mitchell  15:48

And would that have been around eight weeks?

Brooke Blair  15:52

Possibly, yeah, seven or eight weeks? It would have been

Alison Mitchell  15:54

because often, like when we’ll have a bit of a bleed when their periods would have been due. Yeah. Okay. So like he’d get it could have

Brooke Blair  16:01

been related to that, which I think I’d messaged you. And I think you had said that as well. Yeah. Thankfully, at that point, though, because I have an ultrasound at work. I’d been scanning myself really every day. And so became a bit of an obsession very obsessed. It was unhealthy. But I saw I think it was about maybe five weeks and five days that I could start to see his heart beating, which was the most wonderful thing to see. So when I had the bleed, I went to work, and I was still terrified. But I could scan myself and say that there was still a heartbeat there, which made me feel a lot better. I’d still then scan myself before I went home that night, because I thought it’s all well and good that there was one this morning, but that could have changed in the last 10 hours. So yeah, very unhealthily scanning myself all the time. And then it was kind of around that time that we started to get more excited and started to kind of prepare for what our birth could look like. Yeah. So yeah, I’d always loved birth, love birth, in general. It’s just amazing. And working with so many women going through pregnancy and birth, I’d heard so many different birth stories and different ways of going about birth. And so I’d always said to Adam, like, oh, we’ll put the birth pool in the living room? Or should we have it in the bedroom like thinking we’ll have a home birth? And Adam just always was like, Whoa, you’re crazy. Yeah. And so I’ve never actually fully believed that we would ever have a home birth, I was just saying it to rile him up while thinking that would be really cool. And I’d love that, but I don’t think I’ve got, like the confidence in myself to be able to do it. But it was also around that time, that birth time, the film came out. And so it was hosted at Richmond. So I made Adam come with me and watch it. I’d already watched it. I think it was in the February I’d watched it for the first time

Alison Mitchell  17:51

where it was at Castle hill.

Brooke Blair  17:53

Yeah, when it first came out. And then yeah, we had it at Richmond. So I brought him to watch it with me. And at the end of that, so I would have been nine, eight or nine weeks pregnant at eight weeks pregnant at that point. And so Adam watched it and he was like, that was really cool. I can understand why you want a home birth, because if anyone hasn’t seen it, it’s all about midwifery led care and empowering women to birth the way that they feel most comfortable. And there’s lots of homebirths featured on it. Yeah,

Alison Mitchell  18:24

it is amazing. I’ll put a link in the show notes. If anyone does want to have a look, because you can stream it online now.

Brooke Blair  18:30

Exactly. It’s amazing. I love it. And so yeah, I brought him to watch that. And he said, maybe we’ll consider home birth as an option. So I think that week was when I started calling around home birth midwives. And because we would do my due date was the 10th of December.

Alison Mitchell  18:51

So it’s a bit awkward with Christmas,

Brooke Blair  18:53

close to Christmas.

Alison Mitchell  18:55

Which you were not happy about

Brooke Blair  18:57

No I was not I always said to Adam, I don’t want to be pregnant in summer. So we didn’t plan that very well. But that’s okay. Couldn’t couldn’t really work around that.

Alison Mitchell  19:09

I guess. Like it’s not like you had the liberty of like going well, let’s just wait like a little while you wanted to get pregnant? Now.

Brooke Blair  19:16

I well. I wanted to be pregnant three months prior yesterday. Um, so yeah, so I’d started calling around midwives and everyone was either fully booked because I’d waited until I was nine weeks or and they booked out basically, as soon as you pee on a pregnancy test people book them. Or they were the midwives weren’t working over Christmas because they worked the previous Christmas being that it was COVID and no one was going away anywhere or doing anything. But thankfully got on to my midwife whose name was Cara, and she was lovely. So we had a chat with her and we booked her straightaway because we just found her amazing and really supportive. And that was kind of where we started our little home birth journey which was exciting.

Alison Mitchell  20:00

So when you’d done all your work as a women’s physio, had you, like ever envisaged having birth, like differently, like being in terms of what you knew about potential complications of birth?

Brooke Blair  20:12

Yeah. So I, I’d had lots of women who’d had birth trauma. And so I think I’d taken on a lot of that trauma in terms of thinking, Well, you know, maybe I shouldn’t have a vaginal birth, because what happens if I have a postpartum hemorrhage, or what happens if, you know, like, my cervix doesn’t dilate, and then I end up needing an emergency cesarean, knowing all about pelvic floor, what happens if I have a third degree tear, we’ve just covered that at work. We’re talking a lot about third degree tear and rehabilitation and everything like that. And so that kind of scared me a little bit. And I remember when I’d first done my women’s health training, and learning all about tearing and all of the complications that can happen with a vaginal birth. I remember saying, Well, that’s it, I’m definitely having a plan to this area. And because I definitely do not want to tear my pelvic floor. But I was lucky enough when I was a student in my final year of uni, to be on the maternity ward. So I actually got to watch three caesereans into vaginal births. And watching that I specifically asked to watch te caesareans  because I thought, well, that’s how I’m giving birth to save my pelvic floor. So I watched these three caesereans and I, I enjoyed watching the babies be born, but it didn’t. I don’t know. It didn’t excite me. I kind of was like, oh, okay, there’s the baby. Like, that’s really lovely. Had a bit of a cry. Also, I didn’t like the staff that were on at the day. So that probably didn’t make it nice, either. They were just a bit rude. And kind of like it was a production line. Like, right, oh, next person, while someone was already on the table being stitched up. But yeah, it wouldn’t have been pleasant. Yeah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the like lovey dovey experience that I thought it would be. And so then the next day, I watched two vaginal births. And I was with this woman, it was her first birth, I was with her for the last little bit of her labor before she started pushing. And I was with her as she was pushing. And as the baby was born, like, they let me like, touch the baby’s head. She was amazing. And so the baby was born and I just burst into tears crying, her family was in the room, we were all hugging and crying together. And she let me hold her baby. And I remember leaving that and calling my mom crying, saying I just watched the most amazing thing. Like it was so incredible. And even though she torn like and I watched the tear happen, but it was just the most incredible thing to watch. And so I think after that point, I was like, Okay, no, I’m not having a planned caeserean  unless medically necessary. I really want to try and have a vaginal birth. And then I’ve had so many birth dreams after that point. And I’d always given birth, either at the beach, being in the water and pushing a baby out, or I’d been on the sand and push the baby out. Or I’d been in a hotel looking at the beach. And once I’d given birth, we used to live in a rental property and one of my dreams had given birth beside the bed. And I got back into bed after giving birth to this baby girl. And Adam said to me, God, you did so well doll. I said, I did didn’t I. And I went to sleep. And I was like that would just be ideal. So I think deep down I’d always be pictured having a home birth. Yeah. But I hadn’t really let myself think that that was a possibility up until we’d like agreed on it and booked the midwife and everything like that.

Alison Mitchell  23:32

I think anyone’s decision in having home birth is going to be very dependent on how their partner feels about it as well. Yeah. So like, the fact that you were able to have Adam be so supportive towards it was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, he, um, I was super surprised, because he always said to me, Oh maybe for the first one, like, let’s just do it in hospital, let’s, you know, make sure we’ve got all the safety around us that just in case knowing like with my Endo, and everything, I think he thought that could have maybe caused complications with the birth. And so we’d always said, Okay, for the first we’ll have it in hospital. And then if everything goes well, for the second, we’ll talk about home birth. Until I’ve had booked in my booking an appointment at the hospital and everything, we’re just going to go with the local public hospital. And I wasn’t excited. Yeah. Like, I didn’t look forward to having that appointment. And so I couldn’t get excited about the birth. It just didn’t feel right. And so I kept pushing Adam, and that’s why he came in watch birth time with me. And then after that, I just kept pushing it. I was like, can I contact a home birth midwife? Will you let me like, Come on, let’s just look into it. And so as soon as we booked her, and he said, Yep, let’s do it. That sounds great. I was excited for birth again. So I think we both knew and he was excited for birth, too. Yeah. So I think we both knew it was the right choice. And we did that. And how did you Mum and Adam’s Mum feel about it? They were nervous. So we weren’t going to tell them that that’s what we had planned on doing. Because I’d mentioned that As like same as what I mentioned to Adam, like, just just like a throwaway comment as a bit of a laugh, and they’d both gone oh, well, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t do that. And I was like, Oh, okay. So when we booked it, I kind of thought I don’t really want them to be concerned. So maybe we won’t say anything. But then, the day that we booked in my our midwife, I had gone up on a trip with my mom, and I said, Oh, you know, we’ve contacted a private midwife, just thinking, I’ll just say we’re just having a private midwife, but let me think we’re birthing in hospital. She said, Oh, okay, is that to organize a home birth? And I said, Yep, she was like, Okay, fair enough. And she was kind of fine. I said, you know, are you okay with that, like, that’s what we’re gonna do. And she said, you know, you, you know, this space, you understand it, I trust you. And I trust that you know, what you’re doing by making this decision. So that’s fine, as long as it’s safe, when you’re going to be safe and looked after that’s okay. And so I kind of went, Oh, okay, cool. She’s okay with it. I knew my dad would be freaked out. So we didn’t really talk about it all that much. And then a few weeks later, we had a discussion with Adams parents, and they kind of it was when COVID had just kicked off again. And they said, oh, like, you know, it’s a bit a bit scary that you’re doing that, because we’ve obviously never experienced that before. But maybe at the moment with COVID. And it being in hospitals, maybe that is a good idea. You’ve probably worked in your favour.

Brooke Blair  26:26

Yeah. Yeah. So then they kind of came around and they were yeah supportive of it. They still kept saying, No, we’re nervous. But they were supportive.

Alison Mitchell  26:35

Yes, good. Well, that’s great. Yes, I know. Like I’d originally wanted to home birth, but I had not much support. They are not much encouragement. Yeah, that way. But home birth, for instance, wasn’t like, I mean, birth time, maybe it wasn’t there. And yeah, I would have definitely dragged my husband to see it too.

Brooke Blair  26:55

Well, I think up until that point, because I’d had clients, the last three years, a few clients sprinkled throughout each year, who’d had home births. And it was funny when they when I’d say, you know, where are you giving birth, and they’d kind of go or, and almost be a little bit like, anxious to tell me that they were having home births. And so I think there was always this stigma that home births were for, like hippie weirdos, who don’t care about their health and who don’t care about their baby’s health. And it maybe wasn’t until birth time came out that people went Oh, actually, like, that’s really cool. And it’s not this hippie woowoo thing. It’s actually like a really safe option for people who are low risk in their pregnancy.

Alison Mitchell  27:36

So yeah, I actually attended a home birth. Back when I was just starting out in naturopathy. And that was just, it was amazing. It was the most wonderful experience there was in her home and birth pool. And I really sort of just like, was excited for birth after that as well. Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s yeah. So good. If everyone I always say now, having experienced the birth that we did, I said to Adam, a few weeks after it, I said, it’s crazy that only the five people who were there know how incredible it was. Because I would have loved for our Mums to experience it because they not had traumatic births, but hadn’t had such a in credibly positive experience that we had with our birth. And it’s almost like we just wanted to like spread the joy to everyone and be like, we want you to have this intense feeling of like, joy and happiness that we experienced with our birth. And it’s so wonderful that you were able to have that experience. Yeah, I think back to what birth must have been like when, like your whole family would have been involved. And like you’d have the young kids there, they’d be watching. And nowadays we have people not have any real knowledge about birth apart of what’s shown in Hollywood. And so like going like back to old times, and having people there all the time and just seeing it as a normal thing. Yeah. Yeah, it would, it would probably help to reduce interventions and fear about birth as well.

Brooke Blair  29:05

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We keep talking about now that we’ve got Byron, we keep saying to him, whenever we look at our birth photos, but like and for the next one, you’ll be there watching if you want to. And we’ve said we’ve got our birth photographer, Beth, she was amazing. So she photographed our whole birth. And I said to her, maybe I should invite our moms to come and watch the next one. Adam said, I don’t think you really want more people watching you go through it. And she said, How about we film it? And then you can show everyone how great it was. And so for our next birth Byron will hopefully be there watching if he wants to, and then we’ll have it on video. I

Alison Mitchell  29:40

love the video. I actually really liked the ones with the kids are there and it’s standing at the edge of the pool. Yeah, but like in the edge of the room where they’re going. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I still remember this. getting off topic now. But I remember there’s one particular video I watched and there was a little girl and she said, I think there’s two in there and then they didn’t know they were having twins. They had this totally like un-monitored pregnancy. Yeah. And they say when there’s home birth, and all of a sudden she’s just like, placenta is really hard to get out at class and actually having another baby. Wow. But the little kids was just like, I told you how funny. That’s crazy. So real family orientated. Stick in their minds for sure.

Brooke Blair  30:21

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that’s, that’s hopefully our plan for the next one.

Alison Mitchell  30:25

Yeah, yeah. And during pregnancy, did you have any, like, moments where you thought, I’m not going to be able to do it, or any fees or challenges like that? Definitely.

Brooke Blair  30:35

Um, so we. We did our Hypno birthing course, when I was maybe 28 weeks. And so with that course, we did it with a one of my clients. Her name’s Jamie, and she’s beautiful. She’s a doula and a hypno birthing instructor, but she’s also had home births. And so that’s why we went with her. And so a lot of the discussion is about what your fears about birth are, what you feel like you need how you want to feel during and after your birth. And so I’d gone into it thinking now I’ve got no fears, like, I’m ready to go. I’m really excited about birth, I’ve dreamt of it and dreamt of amazing births. I’m just going to have an amazing birth. And then when we started to talk about our fears, and we’re going through that I was like, Oh my gosh, I actually do have a lot of fears that I don’t think I’ve ever like, brought to the surface. But being that you haven’t allowed yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So I had a string of women all across like the last couple of months, who’d had a lot of trauma who’d had like, postpartum hemorrhages and all the scary stuff that you hear about. And so I thought, Do I really want to risk going through that. And that made me really worried. I also had in the back of my mind for my mom. So I, when I’m chatting with all of my girls during pregnancy, we talk about what their moms and what their grandmothers births were like, just to give us an idea of maybe it could go down a similar path, maybe not. So I knew that for my mum, for all three of us kids for my eldest brother, she went into labor naturally, but she wasn’t dilating. So they had to induce her. And then she got induced from my other brother and for myself, and my grandma had caesarean. So no one had really had like a unmedicated birth being that they’d always had that kind of intervention. And so I thought, oh, my gosh, what if I, what if my cervix won’t dilate without medical assistance, and I’m going to be at home laboring for hours and hours and end up in hospital anyway. Maybe I need to be giving birth in hospital kind of thing. So I went through a big phase of being fearful of that and thinking, you know, have we made the right decision here, because maybe I’m not going to be able to have this unmedicated on intervention birth. But it was really good that I could have my midwife who I knew who would come over every, you know, month at this point, maybe every three weeks, similar frequency to how often you’d see me by for an obstetrician in hospital setting, she’d come over and we’d spend an hour just chatting about how everything was going, how the baby was going, how I was feeling. And this particular day, we spoke about what my fees were. And so she was really supportive. She said, Brooke, if your cervix isn’t dilating, yeah, we will go to hospital. But being that we’re at home, you’ve got all of the oxytocin flowing, you’re not going to be fearful because you’re in your own environment. You’re gonna have your, you know, all of your special things around you that make you feel comfortable. All those things are really conducive to your cervix, dilating and labour progressing, so that should be okay. And then we spoke about some of my other fears, which were things like postpartum hemorrhage, which was one of Adam’s big fears as well. And so all the medication that she has to kind of stop me from bleeding, if that was to be a risk,

Alison Mitchell  33:57

theyre kitted out.

Brooke Blair  33:58

Yeah, yeah, they’ve got all the things that they need. And she said, and also, I’m going to be with you the whole time. So if I think that you are at risk of hemorrhaging, we’re not staying at home, we’re going to hospital like that’s we’re going to make that call straightaway. And then my other big fear was, I am not great with pain. And so prior to planning the home birth, I’d say to all my girls, you know, everyone, not everyone, but I had a lot of girls who felt upset by the fact that they needed to have an epidural, as if it was, like as if they were weak for having an epidural, which I just think is ridiculous. And I’d said to them, like they kind of went, what are you going to do? I was like, Oh, you better believe I’m having the epidural. I’m terrible with pain. So I’d always thought to myself, of course, I’m going to have the epidural.

Alison Mitchell  34:43

Like, was that even an option?

Brooke Blair  34:45

No, no, no. So that was my fear with my home birth. I was like, Oh my gosh, I’ve completely gotten rid of this whole option of something I thought that I was going to need,

Alison Mitchell  34:53

but that probably almost would have helped in a way because you will have gone or it’s not available to me. So I’m gonna find another way to deal with

Brooke Blair  35:01

exactly. So I think I think that’s kind of how my mind then worked. But I said to my midwife, you know, what if, what if I’m not coping, and we do need to go to hospital because I need that epidural. She said, Brooke, if you need, like, if you need the epidural and you need to give birth in hospital, it’s not because you can’t cope. It’s because you need to give birth in the hospital with that medical intervention. It’s not because you can’t handle it. It’s not because you’re weak. It’s nothing like that. It’s because that’s where your baby needs to be born. And so that made me feel really good that she was like, like, we’re going to cover off all these things. I’m going to support you as much as possible. When you feel like you can’t do it. I’m going to tell you that you can. So yeah, we kind of spoke about that. And then I felt really prepared and felt like now I’m doing it. I’m having this baby vaginally. But then the whole week leading into having him all I could visualize was a cesarean. So that was a bit intense thinking, oh my gosh, like he could be coming any day now. And all I can picture is that big blue curtain up and me giving birth that way.

Alison Mitchell  36:02

So you don’t like it? You’ve created this block to all your previous good visualizations.

Brooke Blair  36:06

Yep. Yeah. So I had no positive birth dreams, probably in the two months leading into having him. But thankfully, I was, you know, as we’ll to chat about I was able to give birth the way that I hoped.

Alison Mitchell  36:21

Yes, which was nice. And I definitely want to get into that. But did you have any other complications during pregnancy at all, like, um,

Brooke Blair  36:29

so I know, we spoke about the bleeds that I had early on, I had another big bleed at maybe 10 weeks. So that was terrifying. I was at work one night, and I just felt this big gush of blood come out of me. And so I went down to I with a client, I quickly raced down to the bathroom and just adrenaline kick, you know, just put a pad in and went, I’ll deal with that later. I’ve got one upstairs that I need to see. So I finished treating her and like deep down was absolutely devastated. So I got my ultrasound, and I checked on him and he was still moving. But I rang Adam

Alison Mitchell  37:03

you would have been just like, Come on, finish finish finish.

Brooke Blair  37:06

Yeah, I was just like, just please get out. And so I quickly got the ultrasound out and I checked on him. And I could see that he was moving and everything looked fine, but still was fearing the worst. And so I rang Adam and was bawling my eyes out. He came racing over he was just next door, thankfully. And so we just watched him on the ultrasound thinking like, is this the last time we’re going to see him moving? Thankfully, it wasn’t. So I rang my midwife and she said, let’s just go and get a scan tomorrow and we’ll check in on him. But if you’re still moving on the ultrasound, I’m sure he’s fine. So yeah, we had a scan the next day, and thankfully he was fine. So they think I just had a sub chorionic hematoma, possibly. And then I had no other bleeds throughout that time, thankfully, and no other issues. Everything else was smooth sailing.

Alison Mitchell  37:53

From there, thankfully. Yeah. And you didn’t get much morning sickness. Did you

Brooke Blair  37:57

no I was, I was hoping for it because I thought if I feel sick, that’s a good sign. But I think maybe from seven until 10 weeks, I felt a bit nauseous and was a bit gaggy. But I never vomited because of it. So yeah, it was just feeling a bit off. And then after that felt fine. Okay. Yeah.

Alison Mitchell  38:20

And so apart from the midwife, you didn’t really have to go, like you didn’t go through an obstetrician or even go into the hospital or anything like that. Then we both just came to you.

Brooke Blair  38:30

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, we never went to hospital at any point, which was good. We just had that one extra scan at 10 weeks when I’ve had the bleed. But yeah, everything else was just at home because he his heart rate was fine. My blood pressure was fine. Or my blood tests were coming back fine. So yeah, thankfully, it was.

Alison Mitchell  38:50

Yeah. And let’s get into birth story. So how many weeks were you when you started to feel like you were going into labor?

Brooke Blair  38:58

Yep. Um, so I told a few actually, I had had birth dreams in the weeks leading up so I had a birth dream that I gave birth to him on the first of December. So I woke up from from my dream. Yes, I am. I said to Adam, I know exactly when he’s coming. It’s the first of December, I had a dream last night the birth pool was in the middle of the lounge room. I pushed him out. It was amazing. And it’s the first and I’m like, Oh, okay. And so the first came and went, I think I would have been that would have been early. So I was due on the 10th. So that came and went and then I thought maybe it was the seventh. So I had my mind

Alison Mitchell  39:39

in your dream. Was it like a big number on a calender?

Brooke Blair  39:41

I just woke up and I said that was the first? I don’t know. I don’t know why. It was weird. Um, so then that I thought maybe it was the seventh and I got that wrong. And then a seventh came and went. Meanwhile, I’m doing all of the things I’ve been seeing the girls at work to work on, stretching my perineum and pelvic floor and pushing and all that lovely To date, I was eating my day. I was having my raspberry leaf tea. I was shoving evening primrose oil up my vagina. Um,

Alison Mitchell  40:09

raspberry leaf actually doesn’t bring it on earlier. Oh, no, it just makes the labour better. Okay, well, I was doing that anyway. I was having labor induction massage and acupuncture. And so I had that once. And the man who was doing it, he kept on like, gosh, it was the most intense massage I’ve ever had. And he kept saying, is baby moving? And I was like, no, he’s still still asleep. And he was like, Oh, he’s very stubborn this baby. We need to get him uncomfortable, then he’ll want to come out. And so after the first day, he did that. The next day, I woke up and I just cried for about five hours. It was like I had this huge emotional release. Yeah, yeah. I just cried. And I everyone, like Adam said, you know what’s going on? I said, Nothing is wrong. I just, I just need to cry, honey. Yeah. So I cried, and mom came around, and my dogs ruined my Christmas tree. So I cried about that, too. So I just had a bath for like an hour and cried, and then felt okay. And then the following week had the induction massage and acupuncture again. And at that point, Adam, I think I was I would have been about 40 weeks I was due. And Adam said to me, I’m sick of going to work and not getting a message from you. I just want to be at home with you waiting for this baby to come. So he decided to finish up work on the Monday, which would have been the 14th I think. So then on the 15th. It was a beautiful sunny day. So we were like let’s go to the beach. All I’ve wanted to do this whole pregnancy is swim at the beach while pregnant and I couldn’t because it locked down. So we packed the dogs in the car. And we went down to Wollongong and we went to the beach. And it was such a beautiful day. And then we had dinner with my parents. We had spicy pizza. And I’d done some curb walking that day as well. And at dinner, my mom and dad, they said to Adam, now you’ve been to the beach, go home, Adam and help get this baby out, go home and have sex. I was like, Oh, I’m too tired. I can’t be bothered with that. We’ll do it tomorrow morning. And so we went home, went to bed. And then at midnight, I woke up and my contractions started. So they were a lot more intense than I thought that they would be at the start. So I woke up and I thought, amazing. I’ll lay back down and I’ll try and sleep through these other two contractors. I was like, No, I am not sleeping through these. So I went downstairs  and So how many weeks are you now

Brooke Blair  42:38

I was 40 weeks and six days. Nice. Yes. So six days overdue.

Alison Mitchell  42:45

This was the 16th

Brooke Blair  42:46

This was the 16. Very morning of the 16. Yeah. Yeah. So I went downstairs, I put my tens machine on. And I hated it. And i thought i would love it

Alison Mitchell  42:57

You were looking forward to that

Brooke Blair  42:59

I was looking forward to it. We hire them out at work and all of my girls are bar one have loved the tens machine. Some of my girls have left it on up until they’re pushing the baby out. And they’ve all come back saying God, that tens machine was amazing. And I thought I’ve got this covered. I don’t need an epidural. I’ve got a tens machine, but I hated it. hated that. So I took that off. And I came back out and gotten the bath. So actually I think so we’ve gotten home from the beach going backwards. We’ve gotten home from the beach. And I said to Adam Oh, it looks like it’s gonna storm I might just quickly have a bath. And I’m a big bath person. So I had a bath, shaved my legs, washed my hair. Got out of the bath braided my hair. Yeah. And I always said to Adam, I wanted my hair braided for labor. And so as I was doing it, he came in and he was like, Are we having a baby tonight? I was like, No, I just feel like braiding my hair. So it’s out of the way. So had you told him you were having some contractions? I hadn’t started contractions yet. Before we got to dinner with my parents. Gotcha. Yeah. Um, so I think my body knew that things were gonna happen. But I was completely oblivious. I found you know, this dream of having birth on a beach. Yeah, like it was definitely some sort of turth to it yeah, it was exactly what everyone said to me. They’re like you’re brave with all of your birth dreams on the beach, who’s to say you’re not going to go into labor. And my birth photographer she said, I’m down for a beach birth. We just call me I’ll be there. Yeah, so I think deep down in my body, it knew that things were going to happen that night, but I was completely unaware. So yeah, I’d had that bath then so I’d gone into labor I tried the tents hated it. Came back upstairs had another bath. And I then thought I should be timing these contractions. This was three o’clock by this point. I’d been going for three hours hadn’t woken Adam just yet.

Alison Mitchell  44:48

But most people like when I was like, I should be timing them. Oh, three minutes. Yeah. off to hospital.

Brooke Blair  44:55

Well, I started timing them because I thought this. These are happening far more frequently than I thought that should be like I was expecting one every 20 minutes for a couple of hours then 10 minutes. No, no, I was having 30 There were 40 to 60 seconds long each contraction. And they were coming every three to six minutes.

Alison Mitchell  45:12

That’s great. you went bang.

Brooke Blair  45:14

Yeah, it was straight into active labor. So I thought, oh, okay, interesting, because your water’s broken, you know, you know, so just the contractions. And my whole pregnancy like the last couple of weeks, I’ve been self checking my own cervix, because I thought that’ll give me a good idea of when things are happening. I totally did that, too. Yeah. And everyone kept saying to me, cuz I’ve been saying it quite a lovely chiro. And my midwife, they both said to me, Brooke, get your fingers out of your vagina. Of course, it’s not going to open if you keep poking it. I was like, I know, I know. But it’s just good to check. And so I promised them I wouldn’t, but I kept doing it.

Alison Mitchell  45:52

i wash My hands.

Brooke Blair  45:52

Yeah, of course. And so then while I was in the bath, and I was having these contractions, I thought, just gonna stick my fingers up my vagina and check my cervix have never felt a cervix that was dilating before. So I don’t know what I thought I was checking for. But in hindsight, I think I was probably two or three centimeters dilated because I could kind of like spread my fingers and feel something

Alison Mitchell  46:10

it would have been like a little bit, like softer as well.

Brooke Blair  46:13

Yeah, it was just different to what I’m what I know, a cervix feels like. And so at 330 I messaged my midwife to say, hey, just letting you know, these are what my contractions are doing. I’m going okay, though. I’m just in the bath. And so I just kept putting off waking Adam up and then at 430.

Alison Mitchell  46:30

So he had he does he know yet?

Brooke Blair  46:32

No, let’s still asleep. So I was like, yeah, so at 430 I’m fully naked. I walk into the bedroom, and I woke him. I was so just shook him and I said a doll. And he was like, Yeah, I said, I’m gonna need you soon. So I’m fully naked on the bed. And he was like, Okay. And then he went back to sleep. I was like, no, no, like, I’m gonna need you. It’s like, why? He said, I’m in labor. He was like, oh, okay, and went back to sleep. So I woke him again. I said, No, no, like, really. So he got out, went to the toilet, went back to bed. So then I had to wait. This is the guy who struggles to sleep but had no problems at this point sleeping. And so I said, told him again, and he was like, oh, okay, psyche, it clicked all of a sudden, you’re like, half asleep, probably when you were telling him. Yeah, yeah. So he’s woken up, made himself a coffee, and we’re straight downstairs to set up the birth pool. I’d love him to set everything up downstairs without me telling him to do anything. And so I’m just upstairs laboring away. Meanwhile, our dogs were at home. And we weren’t planning on our dogs being here, when I had the baby, because we thought, anytime I make a loud noise, we’ve got the two dogs and our youngest one, he jumps up on me when I make noise as if, like what’s going on. And I thought I would be quite allowed labor, which I was. But they were both really calm. So we have a girl, dog, Hazel, and she just slept the whole time wasn’t fazed in the slightest, and our boy dog scene, but he’d been following me around for a few hours and just watching me every time I’d have a contraction. So Adam said to me, you know, should we call your mom and get her to come and pick up the dogs? Or what do you want to do? And I said, no other dogs are fine. We’ll just leave them. So we kept the dogs for the whole labor, which was amazing. So yeah, I was up and down the stairs laboring away, and Simba, our boy dog, he would just follow behind me, you know, twos, always two steps behind me. Quiet as anything, never made a fuss must have known. I think they both knew. And so when I’d have a contraction, you just lay down by my side. And then I’d get up and move again. And he just followed me again. So

Alison Mitchell  48:33

so when you see up and down the stairs, like even like we going up and down, like to help with the contractions.

Brooke Blair  48:37

So no, I was just like, I’d kind of move around the house just to see where I felt more comfortable. Yeah. And eventually I ended up just staying downstairs because that’s where the birth pool was. That’s where all of like my affirmations and everything, kind of that I’d visualized that I wanted around me where. So I’d kind of go and sit on the toilet and have some contractions on the toilet. And then I lay on the lounge. And wherever I was, we’ve got all these photos of him just being like right by my side, like with his head on the lounge looking at me, and it was very sweet. And so I then found because I didn’t have my 10s machine because I hated it. I then thought well, I’ll get in the shower. So I’ve had at this point, I’ve had two baths. So before we went to mom and dad’s for dinner, and another one that morning, then I got in the shower, and I thought I’d had a five minute long shower when Adam came and said, Okay, Darl, you should probably get out we need to save hot water to fill up the birth pool. And I was like, I haven’t even been in here that long. What is he talking about? So I got out and I laid it on the lounge again. And it was it sucked. So I got back in the shower. And he was like, No, really, we’re going to run out of hot water. And I said What is your problem? I’ve been here for two minutes. He said Do you last show was over an hour long and now you’ve been here for 30 minutes. Oh, yeah.

Alison Mitchell  49:53

So that’s time distortion. Yeah, but

Brooke Blair  49:55

I had no idea how long I’d been there. Which people To say that to you, like you’ve got no concept of time, but until you’re in it, you have no idea that it’s true. Like,

Alison Mitchell  50:05

I think my active pushing was like an hour, but I felt like it was 10 minutes. Yeah,

Brooke Blair  50:10

it’s crazy. Crazy. Um, so then I was in the shower for the second time, Adam got me out of it. That’s okay. Um, and then we turn the shower off. And Adam started to feel the birth portfolio. And he was like, Oh, good. We’ve run out of hot water. So I just had, yeah. And I just looked at him like, well, you deal with it, mate. It’s not my problem right now. I’ve got other things  too. So

Alison Mitchell  50:40

he’s he goes the kettle. And

Brooke Blair  50:43

Adam said to me, later, not at the time, he said, my first thought was, oh, my God, I’m going to have to build a fire in the backyard so that I can boil. So. I was like, Oh my God, thank God, you didn’t say that to me. I would have like, murdered you having that thought. He said, so then I came upstairs and I realized, Oh, we’ve got a stove so I can boil water that way. He was gonna go all caveman on us.  Oh, Bubby. Um, and so he then contacted our birth photographer and midwife again. Because they were here. They weren’t here just yet. So I think that was maybe at like, 830. He contacted them. And he said to my birth photographer, by the way, she’s just down the road. He said, By the way, do you mind bringing your kettle we’ve run out of hot water. So she arrives with the kettle, and she God love her. She was helping him go up and down the stairs to fill the birth pool with all of our boiling water. And our midwife wasn’t here still at this point. And so I think I think it may be nine o’clock, Adam had called her and I was in the middle of a contraction. And so she heard me moaning in the background. And she said to him, that’s all I need to know. I’m on my way right now. And she came because I was vocalizing quite a bit. And she comes from Leura. So we knew it was going to take her about an hour. So then she maybe arrived, I think she arrived just out to 10. And at that point, I’d been in labor for 10 hours, so I was exhausted. So I got on the lounge and got into child’s pose and stuck my bum in the air. And so I took his head off my cervix and completely slowed my labor down. So I’ve gone from having a contraction every, like three minutes now consistently to having one contraction every 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah. Which was great for me.

Alison Mitchell  52:46

Did you know that was gonna happen?

Brooke Blair  52:48

I think I did. But I thought I don’t care. I need a break. Yeah. So I just laid there and slept for a bit in between contractions. And I felt terrible because I thought, oh my gosh, now the second midwife had arrived. I thought they’re both here. Think watching having this baby soon. Yeah. And here I am sleeping. Yeah. And now they probably think that I was lying or something, which they didn’t. But they were up here just all sitting around the coffee, but coffee table, having that tea and a cuppa. And then I think they’d let me sleep for maybe an hour. And then my midwife came downstairs and she said to me very gently, she said, Brooke, do you want to meet your baby today? I said, Yes. She said, Me too. How about we get you up and moving and put his pressure his head back on your cervix so that we start things up again? And I was like, Okay, fair enough. Because I didn’t want to because then it was going to be uncomfortable again.

Alison Mitchell  53:41

You escaped the pain for a bit.

Brooke Blair  53:43

Yeah, exactly. Um, so then she had me properly walking the stairs to start things up again. So Adam and I together would go up and down the stairs like 10 times. And then we’d walk up and down the backyard, and then I’d go and sit on the toilet and have contractions on the toilet. So my water still hadn’t broken at this point. It was maybe 1130. And then, so we kept doing that. And then I went and sat on the toilet. And I kind of been doing a little bit of pushing and kind of checking my cervix. And then I had a little bit of a bloody show very slight, bloody show when I’d white. So we did some more walking came back to the toilet, and I’d wiped and I pulled out my mucus plug. And I was so excited. I wish there was a photo of my face. When I pulled this mucus plug out. Adam was bent down putting a new pad in my underpants for me and I pulled this thing out next to his head was like my mucus plug How amazing. Um, because to me, that was a sign that things were actually progressing. So my midwife came in and checked it she said, Yep, that’s definitely mucus plug. How good and then I think I’m unsure of the timing of this, but I’m pretty sure then I stood up off the toilet, because Adam said come on darl. You’ve been there for a while. Let’s go and do some more walking and I stood up there. Yeah, I stood up and my waters broke all over our feet. And it really I always listened to birth stories of people saying, I wasn’t sure whether I wet myself or it was my waters broken and I thought surely, you know, I had no idea. I was like, Ah, I think I could have wet myself, but I think it could be my waters. I’m really not sure.

Alison Mitchell  55:19

It’s probably so numb down there.

Brooke Blair  55:22

Yeah, I just have no idea.

Alison Mitchell  55:25

I think mine was like, I all of a sudden notice that everything’s wet.

Brooke Blair  55:29

Yeah. Yeah. Bizarre.

Alison Mitchell  55:32

Like you don’t feel it happening. Like, yeah, I was. I think I might have heard like a bit of a sound you ever thought remember now? Yeah. Well,

Brooke Blair  55:39

I don’t remember feeling a pop. I just remember going Oh, yeah. Like, I’m, something’s coming out of me. And it felt like it could be urine. But I didn’t know. And my midwife came in and she said, No, no, it’s clear. It’s definitely your waters. How good. And so I sat back down on the toilet. I thought, well, this is working. So I’m going to stay here. So I sat down on the toilet and had a few more contractions there.

Alison Mitchell  56:00

This is where they use birthing stools.

Brooke Blair  56:01

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But also, I think, because we were at home and I was walking outside, I thought, I think I was subconsciously holding on my pelvic floor, because I was like, I don’t want to weigh myself outside and have possibly my neighbors see that happen. So being on the toilet, I could just constantly we and relax. Yeah. So that’s I think when things started to progress a lot more.

Alison Mitchell  56:24

Yeah. And that really goes to show that sort of element of fear and tension. Yeah. And selfconsciousness  Yeah, hold that thought ever. Yeah. And I mean, our neighbors weren’t even home. So I don’t know why I was thinking that but I was. Yeah, I just kept saying to Adam, no, I don’t want to weigh myself in front of people. Um, so I was having more contractions on the toilet. And then Adam came me. I don’t know how long I’ve been there. But Adam came into the bathroom. And he said, Don’t do get in the pool. Because I hadn’t even considered the pool. At this point. I thought it looked really hot. Yeah, I feel this pull up for you. And because I think I was still thinking in my head that I wasn’t I wasn’t having this baby. vaginally, I still had my last couple of dreams in my head of I’m having a cesarean blue curtain. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so I didn’t want to get in the pool because I thought, Oh, well, we’re just gonna have to call an ambulance to transfer me to hospital soon anyway. So he came in and said, you want to get in the pool. And I thought I would love to be in the pool right now. That would be great. And my midwives said later, they were like, we just kept waiting for you to get in. And you just kept on like sitting on the toilet and going somewhere else. And we’re waiting for you to say I can’t cope. And then we tell you to get in the pool, and just sat in the toilet, you didn’t do anything. So I got in the pool, finally. And that was a huge relief from all of the pressure that I was feeling. Because I can’t really remember like, Adam says to me later, I never said that I had pain. But he kept saying that I kept telling you, I was experiencing a lot of pressure in my bum. And in my tummy. So also on the toilet, I’d been involuntary, maybe voluntary pushing, but I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want to get in trouble, which I wouldn’t have. But in my mind, I was like, No, I shouldn’t be doing this yet. I don’t think my cervix is out of the way enough. So they’ll tell me to stop if they know that I’m pushing that you were doing it consciously?

Brooke Blair  58:17

I think so. Okay, um, either way, whether it was conscious or not. I was pushing

Alison Mitchell  58:21

we had you experience the bearing down like, yeah, when you like when you’re actually pushing like, we can’t control it?

Brooke Blair  58:30

I think so. Like, I think I think that’s what was happening. Like, I think it was spontaneous pushing, but I don’t think I also knew that I was pushing with it, maybe. But I kept thinking, No, my cervix isn’t fully dilated yet. I shouldn’t be doing that. So yeah, so I got in the pool. And then I’d started doing some pushes. But then I’d also started self checking my cervix again, classic.

Alison Mitchell  58:56

And I kept saying to my, my guess was a bit like even the ultrasound. Yeah,

Brooke Blair  58:59

exactly. I knew that. I shouldn’t do it, but I kept doing it. Yeah, exactly. But I kept checking my cervix. And I was saying to my midwife, my cervix isn’t even fully dilated yet. I shouldn’t be pushing. It’s in the way she was like, that’s okay. Brooke, everything that you’re doing sounds great. Keep going. Um, so then I got on all fours. And I was kind of in like a W sit so like my knees in and my feet out? Yeah. So open up open the pelvic outlet. And I was having lots of contractions quite frequently and I was pushing with each of them vocalizing a lot like that really low key, I guess that mooing sound that you think that you can replicate? But I don’t think I could ever replicate until I’m in labor again. Oh,

Alison Mitchell  59:41

I think I did the cow noise Yeah, I remember looking at it. I had a little bit of a birth video and I was like, I don’t even I’m like I’m scared to look at the video. The noise

Brooke Blair  59:50

Yeah, it’s just like it’s otherworldly. And so Adam was in front of me like and I was squeezing his hands every contraction and I was pushing and bearing down on Meanwhile, our dogs are still there. So Hazel still was upstairs, but simple was downstairs just watching he just sit by my side, like not in the pool, obviously, but right next to the pool and just watch the whole thing silently. And then I said to Adam, I was like, he’s just not coming down. My cervix is still there, and my midwife had the mirror. And I think that you could start to see that everything was stretching and his head was coming. I wasn’t crowning yet. But I still was thinking that I wasn’t having this baby. I don’t know why. And Adam said, doll, I can see his head. He’s definitely coming down. And I was like, No way. And then my midwife said, Brooke, check, check against sticky fingers up your vagina, check again. Can you feel his head? And I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s his head that I’ve been feeling this whole time, not my cervix. And she said, does he have any hair? And I said, Not no hair in this photo is and he definitely has hair. A little bit too slippery. Yeah, I had no ID. Um, and then so I kept pushing. And I said to Adam, again, he just won’t get out. And Adams had no doll. He’s coming. I can see he’s got your eyes. And I was like, shut up, Adam. So he was just like having a joke with me at this point in my midwife was like you are going to be murdered if you keep trying to joke with her right now. We’re tied up. Yeah, exactly. And so I’d been pushing and I could say I’d started to crown and I could feel his head come out maybe one or two centimeters. And then my contractions would stop then in sync back away inside. And then it happened again, and come out a bit further and sink back in. And in my rational brain, I knew that was a good thing. But in my irrational brain, I was like, just get out of me. Like, I just need to push more,

Alison Mitchell  1:01:41

get out and stay out

Brooke Blair  1:01:42

so that it can come out. And I thought like it had been happening for a while. And I was thinking surely there’s not much head left that has to come out like surely it’s happening soon. And my midwife kept saying you’re doing so beautifully, bro. He’s stretching you perfectly. This is great. So she was so encouraging. And I’ve got my hand there the whole time feeling how much of his head was coming out and trying to like guard my perineum and move my parents out of the way to try and avoid tearing.

Alison Mitchell  1:02:09

Are you still in your W sit? Yes.

Brooke Blair  1:02:11

And so because it just kept on happening like that. My midwife said, How about we try maybe getting into a lunge, put one of your legs forward, and let’s just try a different position. So I put my left leg forward and was in a really deep lunch, and then my next contraction, I think that’s when his head came out. And I was expecting his head to sit there for a bit and like my contractions to stop and then have more contractions and push the rest of him out. But his head came out, then this arm flung out of me that his whole body just slip it out all at once. was surreal. It’s crazy. Um, and so then I just reached down and I just like I because I had my hand and that whole time, I grabbed him and I grabbed him around the neck. And I put my other hand under his bum and just like lifted his whole body out of the pool to show Adam because Adam couldn’t see what was happening at this point. Because I was bent over. And the midwives were all like, going, yay. Like how amazing Adam was like, what’s happening, what’s happening. And there’s photos, they’re so beautiful. There’s photos of where I’ve just started to lift Byron up out of the pool, and you can see Adams face and he’s just like, so happy and so excited. And then there’s another photo of my face when I’ve got him out of the pool. And I’ve just got like this huge grin on my face like oh my gosh, we’ve just done this. Yeah.

Alison Mitchell  1:03:28

no blue curtains

Brooke Blair  1:03:29

Yeah, no blue curtains here, no ambulance here. And so yeah, he was out. It was just so amazing. Like the fact that he was finally here is like the most surreal thing ever. And so straightaway, I like sat back and like put him on my chest. And his umbilical cord was quite short. So I could just get him onto my chest, but I couldn’t properly sit down in the pool. Because it felt like I was tugging on my placenta. And so we sat back and the dogs were there. So 10 minutes before he was born, Hazel our girl dog she came downstairs, and the second midwife said Oh, Hazel’s here, that means that the baby’s coming soon. And 10 minutes later, he was born, so it was crazy. We also throughout I forgot to say we had a dragon fly, because we had our doors all open downstairs. We had a dragon fly that kept flitting in and out and like landed on our walls and would land on our birth photographer Beth, and our midwife Google that afterwards. And she said that it’s a symbol of transformation and change. So that was crazy, because I could like I wasn’t aware of the dragon fly, but I could hear them say oh, the dragon flies back again. Like while I was having contractions and things. So that was pretty amazing to know that that was happening. So we’ve got photos of the dragon fly too. And so he took maybe 30 seconds to start breathing so which also felt like two seconds like I was not concerned in the slightest. But the movements were saying just breathe on his face. Bonnie’s face, give him a little tap. And he started to cry. And as soon as he started to cry, Simba started to cry out boy talk. We’ve got videos of that as well. Yeah. And so that was him. He was out. And we were a family of three. Our little Byron was here.

Alison Mitchell  1:05:16

Oh, and he’s so cute. He’s so content right now.

Brooke Blair  1:05:20

I know. He’s such a good boy.

Alison Mitchell  1:05:24

Oh, that’s wonderful. Okay, and so then placenta came out fine.

Brooke Blair  1:05:29

Yes. So we had I had a bit of a bleed after, like when my placenta was due to come out. So I’d given birth to human, I reckon we’d maybe spend 10 minutes in the pool. And while I was sitting there, I’d said, I feel like I’m about to lose a lot of blood, like I just had this sensation vaginally that something was coming out. So I had quite a big gush of blood. And my midwives weren’t concerned, but I think they were kind of going, we really want to check where that blood is coming from. And I thought I’d be stressed by that. And I thought Adam would be stressed by that. But we were both just like, so in love with him. And I felt so fine, that I wasn’t concerned that there was this blood there. So we got out of the pool. And I wouldn’t hand him off to anyone, like I was holding him while everyone was helping me out of the pool. I was like, no, no, no one’s taking my child from me. Um, and then as I got out of the pool, I had another gush of blood. So the my midwife said, Let’s just give you this Syntocin injection, which I had no concerns about having because as long as he was fine, and I was fine, and we didn’t have to go to hospital. After having everything happened at home, I thought, Nah, that’s fine. I don’t care what you need to give me from this point forward, do whatever. So I had this syntocin injection. And then we did a little bit of like, she was helping my placenta to come out sooner to try and stop the bleeding. So yeah, maybe 20-30 minutes after he was born, we birth the placenta. And we obviously had delayed cord clamping, they’d waited until the cord was completely clear. Before Adam then cut the cord, and we think it was just maybe we don’t really know where the bleeding came from. But we think because the umbilical cord was so short, maybe when I pulled him out, I kind of tugged on the placenta, and that’s where the blood came from. Straight after the injection, I had no more loss of blood, like abnormally large loss of blood, which was good. So yeah, it’s just kind of laying on our lounge downstairs having skin to skin time with my baby. And the placenta came out and I didn’t even like I felt it come out because I was having to push a little bit to help her get the placenta out. But it wasn’t painful at all. It’s kind of just the global. Yeah, yeah. It was just like I felt a bit empty. After that. Yeah. Which was weird. Yeah, and so they were just checking the placenta to make sure that there wasn’t anything retained when it had come out which it all looked fine. And I tried to latch him on because I thought if I can get him on my boob, I was also had lots of breastfeeding dreams. Oh, and so even pre pregnancy, I would like wake up sad that I didn’t have a baby on my breast when I woke up that morning. So I was super excited to try and breastfeed him. But we couldn’t get into latch straightaway. So we’ll just then having cuddles and then Adam had cuddles. And then my midwives were packing everything up. While we just laid there and enjoyed our new baby. They put a load of washing on they brought me some food and a cup of tea. For some reason. My I thought I was going to have the baby overnight, not at four o’clock in the afternoon. So I had pancakes thinking we’ll have pancakes for breakfast, that’ll be nice. But what I asked for was an apple and a cup of tea. That’s what they brought me. And yeah, so then we did all the baby checks and everything. He was perfect. Everything looked great. So from there, we then the midwives helped me in to have a shower, and then got me dressed and we went upstairs and laid in bed and tried to feed him again. So we ended up syringe feeding him that night. And I think it maybe seven o’clock, the midwives left. So they’d been there from by 1030 that morning. And we were just tucked up in bed with our puppies and our baby and bliss.

Alison Mitchell  1:09:16

And so, dogs have been fine with him having

Brooke Blair  1:09:19

they lay him. Yeah, they love him. I think Hazel being that she’s older, she’s about 13. So I like to think that she knew that you know what was happening? And she thought no, I’m not going to respect their space and not go down there until the baby’s nearly here. And Simba was just so excited like he just wanted he wanted to try and just kiss him and kiss me all over which we wouldn’t let him obviously but he was just so interested in Byron and he would whine whenever Byron cried and he’d be right there checking on him like what’s going on? What can I do to help?

Alison Mitchell  1:09:56

So that was really sweet. Yeah, yeah. And breast feedings being good?

Brooke Blair  1:10:01

Breastfeeding has been so we had a little bit of difficulty initially. So we couldn’t get him to latch. Until maybe the third or fourth days, we were syringe feeding and with my colostrum up until that point, and we managed to get him to attach on to my right breast, we had to like flip my nipple into his mouth. And we got that to happen a few times. But we couldn’t get the other breast to happen. So we started using nipple shields. We maybe used them for a week. And my midwife had said, maybe on the second day, I think that he could have a tongue tie. And being that it was so close to Christmas, it was the 16th that he was born in December. So we called straightaway to booking with a lactation consultant, and we got in with her. I think, just after Christmas, maybe on the 27th. So we were using nipple shields maybe for seven to 10 days. We saw her and she kept his tongue tie. He had quite a decent tongue tie. Use nipple shields that day in the next day. And then after that, we were off nipple shields, and he was latching beautifully. And everything’s been great since I had a bit of oversupply. my left boob is an overachiever and likes to produce a lot of milk, which he didn’t like straightaway, because it would shoot him in the back of the throat. So he’d just be like coughing and spluttering. And there’s milk all over his face and all over everything.

Alison Mitchell  1:11:24

And then they take off, take off and then and then it’s just like spraying their face and then trying to stop it.

Brooke Blair  1:11:30

Yeah. And then he’s like, looking at me, like, what are you doing to me, Mum? Um, so since that, that probably took maybe seven weeks to kind of settle down. But yeah, otherwise, everything’s been going great, thankfully, which I’m so glad about because I desperately wanted to breastfeed. So I’m feeling very lucky that we’ve been able to get

Alison Mitchell  1:11:49

that to work. Yeah, that’s wonderful. Yeah. And how’s your pelvic floor

Brooke Blair  1:11:54

pelvic floor is good. So being being the pelvic floor physio that I am as soon as we’d given birth to him, and my midwives were checking, and they’d taken the placenta out, or helped me birth the placenta, and then they were checking to see if I’d had any chairs. I was like, I wonder if I can squeeze my pelvic floor right now. So I gave it a squeeze. And I said to them, girls, I can still squeeze my pelvic floor right now. Stupid. But then they were like, please don’t do that. You just push the baby out. We don’t need you doing that right now. But I thought that’s great, wonderful tip. So I did have a second degree tear, which we stitched up to the second day after I’d given birth to him. Because we weren’t sure if we were going to stitch it or not my midwife, she tends to kind of leave tears. Because her thoughts are the vagina is not like this open vessel, it’s closed and shut and generally your legs are together. So it tends to just heal itself. But I kind of had this random little flap that she wanted to stitch back on. Being that I should know better. But I chose to go against all of my knowledge. A few days after that, maybe the day after she’d stitched me went for a walk up to a cafe vocally. And I had him in a carrier on my chest. I was like, let’s show off this baby of ours. Three day old baby. Yeah, exactly. Our fresh newborn people were going that baby’s very younger, like, yes, he’s three days old, though, like, Wow. Um, and so I told my stitches, unfortunately, which was quite uncomfortable. I just felt a bit stiff and a bit sore. And I thought that doesn’t feel right. And I’d taken a few photos and showed my midwife said, oh, yeah, your stitches have come away. Do you know when that happened? And I said, Oh, could have been I was walking would have been that walk that I shouldn’t have gone on. So yeah, they came away. And that was quite uncomfortable for a few weeks. So I just had to kind of keep my legs together and not do as much as what I had been trying to do. Basically, all the things that I tell my girls to do, I saw listen to, like, taking your Yeah, it’s like I needed one of the girls from work to like, text me all of the information that I give out and go, you know, this book, but here and then I would have gone. Ah,

Alison Mitchell  1:14:05

of course. That’s always the way Yeah, we don’t listen.

Brooke Blair  1:14:10

So yeah, once that had healed, everything’s been fine. Thankfully, I was constipated for maybe six days. So that was terrifying. But the first poo was okay. Um, but yeah, so I’ve had my six week check with the girls at work and my pelvic floor is still functioning really well, which is nice. We kind of grade pelvic floor strength out of five. And at the moment, I’ve got a four which is good. And I wasn’t really having any issues or concerns. I had a little bit of like a bubbly sensation, which is a sign that there could be a prolapse there just feels like there’s something there that shouldn’t be there. And I’ve got a family history of prolapse. So I was kind of expecting that when they checked me that I would have a prolapse and most women within the first six weeks nearly everyone who’s had a vaginal birth has some degree of mobility of their tissue. So prolapse being like extra descent of either the bladder uterus or the bowel. And so I had a little bit of movement of my bladder. And so we’re kind of just monitoring that. And I’ve got some herbs from you to try and help with lifting everything back up. But now that I’m what 10 weeks postpartum, I haven’t really felt that sensation for probably four weeks now. So I just need to remind myself, because I’m easy to take it easy still. Yeah. And they had a baby 10 weeks ago. So as much as I’d love to go for a run, I’m not I’m just kind of keeping everything low intensity. For now. We’ve been at the gym, but you’ve been taking it easy. Yeah, yes. I haven’t been doing any jumpy activities just yet. And I haven’t been lifting heavy weights. But I’ll start to kind of increase my activity. I’ve got another physio appointment in a week or two. So we’ll check in see where things are at. And then I’ll hopefully start to increase my activity. Yeah. Which is good. I’m looking forward to

Alison Mitchell  1:15:54

that. Yeah. I bet you are, very much sp. So Brooke was saying before, she just really wants to go out for a run. But yeah, she’s like keeping yourself under control.

Brooke Blair  1:16:03

I am I went for a swim yesterday, instead of a run. I thought I just need to move my body, what’s the best way to do it? And I said to Adam, I’m going to go for a run. He said, No, how about you go to the pool and you go for a swim. So I took that option instead? But yeah, I guess for sure.

Alison Mitchell  1:16:22

But when you were when we were planning this, you did a question on your Instagram. If anyone has any questions about your birth? Has there been anything anyone’s asked that we haven’t covered? And so the main questions were just asking kind of like to tell the whole story. I had one question, I think from another pelvic floor physio who she asked if I’d ever considered like, did I feel pressured into having a vaginal birth being that I’m a pelvic floor physio? Or did I have fears about it and consider maybe having a cesarean because of the risk of having a third degree tear? Which I guess we’ve kind of answered. And one of the questions was, how did I keep the oxytocin levels high? Which I guess kind of being at home being in your own environment, I had my dogs he like symbol would always give me cuddles. Whenever I bent down, give me a little case. And I had lots of photos around that made me feel really happy. Yeah.  And I think feeling safe. Yeah,

Brooke Blair  1:17:22

yeah, exactly. Just being at home. It just felt right. And obviously having Adam with me, the whole time was nice and not have to kind of worry about who was coming in and out. We knew the only other three people who were going to be there was my midwife who I, you know, we’d built that rapport with. So we knew her and I felt really great when she’d arrived. We had a birth photographer, Beth, who was lovely, she’d been so supportive through the whole pregnancy, knowing that we’d had the miscarriage and like knowing all of our plans. And then the second midwife who arrived Her name was Natasha, she was so beautiful. She was so lovely. She was always giving us like, encouraging words. And she was helping Adam fill the pool and padding the dogs. So I think just being at home in the people, but we’re here really helped you. Yeah, I think that was probably the biggest thing that kind of kept me stress free and feeling all the wealth.

Alison Mitchell  1:18:14

Yeah, like that’s a that’s a quiet amount of support. Like your partner and three other women there. Yeah, of course, you dogs, whereas in a hospital setting, often they leave you alone in the room. Yeah. That can be really scary. Yeah, lonely. Yeah, exactly socially, in COVID times as well, when, like, up until recently have been able to have a doula or birth support.

Brooke Blair  1:18:35

Yeah, I think it was the day that we were talking about it after I’d had him. So that day, the 16th, they just bought back in that you could only have the one support person. So up until that day, you could have to support people in hospitals. So we were going in or if we do have to transfer for whatever reason, I’ve got Adam and at least I’ve got my midwife being able to come in with me, just in case, because we’d obviously planned for if that was, you know, to be the need to birth in hospital, which could always be the case no matter what happens. So we’ve kind of planned for that of what that might look like. And then yeah, that day, they’d brought in only the one support person. So knowing that I could have my full kind of support people there was amazing.

Alison Mitchell  1:19:21

Amazing. Yeah, yeah. And going through COVID times as well. How did you go in terms of navigating that and like in immunization? How How was that for you?

Brooke Blair  1:19:35

That was tricky. So when they first brought out the vaccines, they weren’t saying that they were safe yet for pregnancy. And so Adam was more than happy to get his vaccine he was very comfortable with that. I when they then said that pregnant women were recommended the vaccine I felt a little bit uncomfortable about it, just not knowing enough about it yet. It was so so new. Yeah, yeah. So I felt a little bit uncertain about it and didn’t like the idea of getting it for myself. And I’d spoken to the girls at work, who’d had babies, and we’d kind of gone like, they’d all gotten their vaccine. And they were like, you know, I don’t know what I do if I was pregnant, to be honest. So being that was the case, I kind of we waited the first couple of weeks. But then it was getting quite bad. And I was terrified of catching COVID, we’d had an instance where Adam was a close contact at work in trading someone who had COVID. And so we had an isolation, we had the 14 day isolation, and during that time, I’ve made myself sick with worry about what would happen. I think I was 25 weeks, and was so stressed and concerned about what would happen if I’d caught it. And I’d read all of these stories online about pregnant women having to deliver via emergency cesarean and all sorts of horrible things that made me terrified. And so that’s when I then got in contact with you, actually. And I said, Help me, what should I do? Tell me, I think you said to me, What’s your concern with getting the vaccine and so I explained, you know, I just don’t know enough about it, what happens if something happens, you know, a year, or two years or five years or 10 years down the track to my baby. So we had a really good chat about that. And you explained the process of vaccines and how they work. And we kind of spoke about why we both thought that then having that chat, it was safe for me to have and probably encouraged for me to have being that I was still at work and in contact with so many people. And Adam as well was in contact with so many people that risk of catching it was just that bit higher than if I could work from home. And I spoke to my GP about it as well. And she was quite encouraging of getting it. So then we kind of booked it in after that. I took a lot of herbs. And we did what vitamin C and D and a bunch of other things.

Alison Mitchell  1:21:48

Yeah, a few a few pregnancy friendly things that help to reduce potential side effects. So yeah, like improve the, the way that the immune system responds,

Brooke Blair  1:21:58

yeah, yeah. So I started taking those and then I we booked in and I still felt nervous having my first vaccine. But I had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever, no side effects, nothing. And then, by the time that I was it was almost like when I was driving home from it, I had my 15 minute wait, and I was like, No, I feel fine. I feel normal. Everything’s okay. It was almost like this weight off my shoulders that I’d done. And I was like, Okay, I’ve made my choice. I’ve done it, it’s fine. So then we had the second one. And I wasn’t nervous for that one other than the possible side effects because Adam had had horrendous side effects. After his second one with the second one. He was really quite unwell. I had mine and I was fine again. So yeah, that was good. But yeah, it was a stressful time. Like I spoke to a lot of clients who were also pregnant at the time. And we’re all kind of working out what we wanted to do and what we felt comfortable with. And there was lots of my clients had already had it. And they felt very strongly in their decision that they’d had it. There was lots of clients who felt really strongly against it. So yeah, it was kind of one of those people would ask me what I felt. I was like, I don’t know what I feel yet. I have no idea. Um, so yeah, it was really stressful making that decision. But then once I’d kind of made it and once I’d had the vaccine and went from there, it felt I felt much more protected being at work. Because up until that point, I thought maybe the best option for me is just to work from home and do telehealth consults only. But yeah, then I felt more comfortable being at work after I’d had it. So

Alison Mitchell  1:23:29

that is hard in your line of work as well. If you do want to have that physical nature

Brooke Blair  1:23:33

to it. Yeah, yeah, I would have been working from home because that would that was September, I think so would have been like three months of working from home and not seeing people in the clinic, which I didn’t. I didn’t like the idea of that. I wanted to be there.

Alison Mitchell  1:23:48

Yeah. And like, you’re so busy. Yeah, like that would have made a big production. Yeah.

Brooke Blair  1:23:53

And I think also, because a lot because of COVID. A lot of our clients who were birthing in hospitals, they weren’t having those face to face sessions with their health providers. So maybe seeing us as physios was the one person like the one health professional that they were getting that face to face contact with. Yeah. And so I thought if I then move to telehealth, of course, they couldn’t see the other girls at work. But I just felt like I wanted to support women face to face in person as much as possible when they weren’t getting that elsewhere. Yeah,

Alison Mitchell  1:24:23

I think that I think that’s definitely important. Yeah, treatment, isn’t it? Yeah, exactly. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Or any other words of advice, like looking back that you wanted to impart?

Brooke Blair  1:24:37

I don’t know. I just think birth is amazing. Yes. Um, however you birth I know that like there’s all these things about some people portraying one type of birth is better than another type of birth. And I just think that women as women who can birth amazing, and however you can birth is incredible. Obviously, I feel super lucky that I got the birth I said I’d hoped for. And I really wish that all women no matter how they birth really felt that way. And they felt really encouraged and supported and empowered no matter how they give birth, because it is such a life changing experience

Alison Mitchell  1:25:12

so much. And like, if anything I learned from the birth time documentary as well is that it’s all about as long as you feel like you’re not having something done to you out of your control exactly. And other knowledge, that’s the main thing. So as long as you’re okay with your decision, then like, that’s, that that’s the main thing.

Brooke Blair  1:25:30

Yeah, I think as long as we can. And I mean, that’s what I love about our work so much is being able to help women, be informed. But I think as long as women are informed about their choices and feel supported in the choices that they’re making, no matter how they birth, then that’s kind of what we asked for. I think birth trauma comes from being uninformed, and not knowing and feeling forced into making decisions, as opposed to knowing that you’re making the decision that’s right for you at that time.

Alison Mitchell  1:25:57

Yeah. And you were obviously in a position where you had a lot of knowledge about birth and pregnancy. And I think that’s a really powerful position to be in as well. Yeah. I see a lot of women who have had birth, and then when they’re pregnant with their second they think I wish I knew what I knew. Now, for my first one. Yeah. And so being educated and empowered about birth is such an important thing.

Brooke Blair  1:26:22

Yeah, yeah. At times, I think having more knowledge was scary. And my midwife kept saying to me, we need to switch off the physio side of you that has all of this knowledge, and you just need to be a birthing woman. Which I think we were able to, I was able to do during the labor and during the birth and definitely in the postpartum because I did not think of any of the important things that I tell my girls. I was definitely in the newborn bubble. Yeah. But yeah, having that knowledge and being able to make that decision and having a supportive partner who was able to go, you know what, this is how you feel most comfortable giving birth. This is, you know, really important to you. Let’s look into it and make sure it’s safe. In our head.

Alison Mitchell  1:27:01

He sounds like he was amazing.

Brooke Blair  1:27:03

Yeah. Oh, he was so good. Yeah. He, I said to him, when we’d set up where the birth pool was going to be, we bought a lounge for downstairs to be beside the pool. I said, just in case you pass out, you know, because I’m expecting that you’re faint. At one point during this whole process, which he didn’t hear is amazing. Like, faint like, Oh, yes. Yeah, he’s he’s not good with pain or blood for himself. And so I thought that watching mean pain might be intense for him. But he was amazing every time like when he’d be walking up and down the backyard and I’d be squeezing holding him so tight. And he just like give me little kisses or little cuddles. I just been there. He offered me my water like every after every contraction and make sure I had a drink of water so that I was staying hydrated. Yeah, he was he was so amazing throughout the whole thing. And even since having Byron has been incredible, though, just nice.

Alison Mitchell  1:27:58

It makes such a big difference to have that support.

Brooke Blair  1:28:00

And yeah, even now, like yesterday when I said I just desperately wanted to go for a run. And I because I didn’t want to drive to the pool and swim and then drive back. So I thought then I’m away from the baby for a bit longer. And I’m said no, go. Go and swim. You know, that’s better for you than running is right now. Take some time. Have some time to yourself. We’re fine here. So yeah, even just having him to go. No, no, I’m cool. I’ve got the baby. I’m a dad. It’s okay. You can leave the house. It’s okay. That’s been a big help to you.

Alison Mitchell  1:28:30

Yeah, I’m so glad that you’ve been able to have this experience.

Brooke Blair  1:28:35

Just amazing. Yes. Go back to sleep again.

Alison Mitchell  1:28:40

such a beautiful age. Yeah,

Brooke Blair  1:28:43

it’s nice. It really is. A lot of people have asked me how it is and I was worried about the first couple of months thinking that I’d miss a work and I you know, I feel a little bit down for missing work, but he has just been such a dream. I haven’t missed it. I’ve been still going into work occasionally. But I’ve loved loved this change so so much. It really is more like more incredible than what I thought it would be like I just feel very blessed. Yeah, it’s such a beautiful time. I could have 10 babies if it was all like this.

Alison Mitchell  1:29:21

And I just keep them just like repeat this stage and like repeat it and then not have to deal with them when they’re four.

Brooke Blair  1:29:27

Yeah, well, I would have said to Adam, because we have agreed we only really want to I’ll see after have my second if I’m done but in an ideal world we prior to having babies we said no we just have to one baby and one dog in each hand for each of us that works. But I said to him if all of my pregnancies because other than the blades that my pregnancy was amazing. I felt so beautiful during my pregnancy. I loved having my belly. So if all of my pregnancies and my Labor’s and my births were the same, I could do it 10 times. So how about I just, you know, surrogate for women? If Adam was like, I don’t know, you kind of your brain doesn’t function too well when you’re pregnant. So maybe we can’t afford to do that 10 times. But yeah, I love it that much.

Alison Mitchell  1:30:14

I know. I mean, I’m very happy with my two kids. When I was coming here, I was thinking, I want to have a birth again,

Brooke Blair  1:30:25

so nice. It’s crazy that it’s 10 weeks ago, already.

Alison Mitchell  1:30:31

A lot more joyous moments to come.

Brooke Blair  1:30:33

Yeah, we love him. And all the changes that we keep seeing.

Alison Mitchell  1:30:37

Your smiley little boy. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and so that anyone who’s listened as far along, thank you.

Brooke Blair  1:30:51

Thank you for listening. Thank you for having me and chatting with me about my birth and supporting me throughout all of the phases.

Alison Mitchell  1:30:58

Absolute pleasure. Bye, everyone.

Brooke Blair  1:31:01

Bye

The post Brooke’s Pregnancy and Homebirth story appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits Episode 52 with The Alternative Mumma

In this podcast I’ve asked a clinical aromatherapist to join me to chat about essential oils. But it might not be the sort of discussion you’d expect – we’re not talking about different remedies for conditions or anything like that, but rather, I’ve asked her onto the show to chat about essential oil safety and sustainability.

Do you use essential oils? I would expect the majority of those listening to this show do use them to some extent, given how popular they are becoming amongst those people who are interested in natural medicines. There’s a lot of awesomeness about essential oils, but there is a lot of people using them that haven’t been given the full story about their potential side effects, and how to use them safely.
Given that the amount of essential oil poisonings has been increasing each year, and the majority of cases of harm are in those under 15 years of age, I really feel it’s important to share the importance of knowing how to use essential oils safely to keep yourself and your children safe.

In this episode, I am joined with The Alternative Mumma aka Raine. She is a clinical aromatherapist and student naturopath with a bachelor of environmental science. Raine is passionate about sharing essential oil safety information and is a wealth of knowledge about this. Her Instagram is full of great information about this, so head over to her page after this and check it out.

Have a listen here or on the embedded player below.

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Get in touch with Raine

https://thealternativemumma.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thealternativemumma/

The post Essential Oil Safety & Sustainability appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits Episode #51

In this episode I interview Women’s Health Physiotherapist Brooke Blair (previously Hile) about her health journey. We discuss how naturopathy and women’s health physiotherapy can work alongside each other. We chat about period pain, bladder health, prolapses, rectoceles, constipation and of course, poo.

This episode was recorded in early 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak had just begun in Australia.

Listen to the audio:

Get in touch with Brooke

https://www.herhealthphysiotherapy.com.au/ 0423471651 Instagram

 

 

Guts and Girl Bits is now on teachable where you can find a collection of e-courses on womens health, children’s health and more.

http://gutsandgirlbits.teachable.com

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Transcript

Alison Mitchell 0:00

Hi everyone, you’re listening to Guts and Girl Bits, I’m Alison Mitchell a practicing naturopath, and I hope to share with you all sorts of information about women’s health and digestive health to educate and empower you to make informed choices about your own health. Please remember that all information is general and does not replace consulting with a health care practitioner. Hi everyone welcome to Guts and Girl Bits. Today, I’m joined again with the lovely physiotherapist, Brooke, no longer Brooke Hile… We have a newly married woman- Brooke Blair! Welcome.

Brooke Blair 0:40 Thank you.

Alison Mitchell 0:42 It’s so exciting. You had a little surprise wedding didn’t you?.

Brooke Blair 0:47 It was a bit stressful, having everything happening with Coronavirus around the time of it but it worked out perfectly and it was beautiful, and everyone was surprised, which we didn’t think they would be.

Alison Mitchell 1:00 I was certainly surprised when I found out

Brooke Blair 1:05 Noone was expecting it, which was good.

Alison Mitchell 1:07 Yeah. And so for everyone listening, we’re kind of in that stage at the moment of that level one lockdown but Brooke was able to sneak her wedding her surprise wedding in just before all of these massive isolation started so it was literally like two days before.

Brooke Blair 1:25 Two days before they stopped all weddings unless it was just the five people there so we’ve managed to have 60 I think 55 to 60 of our closest family and friends and it was perfect. It was very good timing. Couldn’t we couldn’t. If we hadn’t had it a day later, it wouldn’t have happened.

Alison Mitchell 1:45 so exciting and today we’re going to be talking about your personal history and how you’ve gotten into your realm of work and how you and I have come to work together as well so yourself as a women’s health physio and myself as a naturopath and talking about some of the areas that these two types of modalities really mesh nicely together. So, if you haven’t had a listen before, Brooke and I have done some really interesting podcasts on how your body changes during pregnancy, and about hypertonicity, which is like when your pelvic floor is really overactive and causes vulval and vaginal pain, and also we talked about mastitis and how physiotherapy can be helpful for that. So have a listen to some of those if you want to as well. And yeah, let’s get started let’s talk about your history.

Brooke Blair 2:45 Yeah, it’s a very long one. So I’ve got lots of notes here about where everything started, but I feel like. So I did get into women’s health physio therapy in my third year of uni and everyone says to me they say why, why women’s health like that’s such a bizarre area of physio to get into. And if you have asked me in my second year of uni, I was definitely going to be a sports physio had never considered the realm of women’s health, that was just something really bizarre and weird to me and pregnant women were terrifying because what if you lay them the wrong way or something like that so that was not in my realm, at all. But then in our third year of uni we started covering women’s health, and we were lucky enough to be taught by the wonderful Taryn Hallam who is amazing in the women’s health physio world and all women’s health world in general. And so that’s what really started my love of women’s health. And then I think it kind of made sense when I then started to look back at my history as to why it sparked my interest. So when I was younger I think I started getting my period when I might have been 13 or 14. And they were horrendously painful, and I would have one or two days of school each time I got my period, or I would just have to sit at the back of the classroom, sometimes I take a heat pack with me, definitely always armed with my Panadol my Nurofen Naprogesic when that was around as well, and I was trying everything and still was in a lot of pain, and even though my mom had gone through the same thing she would just say to me, it’s all right darling like it’ll be okay this is just your period and you’ll get better. And it obviously didn’t. So eventually we ended up going to see a gynecologist, and my options she basically said yeah sounds probably like you’ve got endo. Options are, we do a laparoscopy, which is the operation that you know about where they open you up and they check and see if you’ve got endo there and at that stage I think they were still burning it out rather than removing it. So it was that as an option, or the pill. So, as a 14 year old who was not sexually active, had never heard of any of these things before. My mum was a bit like I don’t really want her on the pill and I don’t really want her having an operation. So eventually we did come to the conclusion to go on the pill that seemed kind of like the lesser of two evils. At that point in time. And it didn’t really do anything other than giving me the ability to be able to stop my periods, a little bit so I’d still get my breakthrough bleeds when I got a period, it still sucked, and I hated it. So I think it would have been so I went on it when I was 14, and then stayed on it until uni, and in that time I was still having lots of issues, not only with my period but with my bowels. So, it would have been in year 10. So 2010 I might have been 15 Maybe 16 And I’ll never forget it. I was constipated for four weeks over Christmas, we were away on holidays and it was the most horrible most uncomfortable four weeks of my life and my mum just kept saying well you know have some bread maybe that’ll be good for you but I felt like I was up to my eyeballs in things inside of me. So I was in lots of pain before and after that I was bloated I was uncomfortable. So there was a lot going on in that side of things as well, so things just weren’t great with my bowels, things weren’t great with my hormones my periods. So eventually we got home from holidays and we went you know what this is just ridiculous I tried gluten free diet I tried dairy free diet. I was still getting abdominal pain, period pain, the whole shebang still constipated and then I’d get diarrhea for a little bit. So that was really fun. So we thought, let’s maybe start to yeah so fun, so we thought let’s start to look into it a little bit more. And the first avenue that we went down was we went back to the naturopath. I mean, the gyneocologist sorry, you came in a bit later. We went back to the gynecologist who said right, let’s do the laparoscopy then and let’s just see. So, I had my laparoscopy just before I started at uni, where they did find they confirm that I had Endo, but also she said I had a very distended bowel at the same time. So she said that might be something worth looking into as well. So she’d removed my Endo, or however much she could remove of it. Put me straight back on the pill so nothing there really changed. And then from there, my periods, pretty much stayed exactly the same, we I skipped them so that I was only having three maybe four periods a year. And my gut and my bowels still were horrendous, so I then went to a gastroenterologist and did a colonoscopy endoscopy, which he came back and said well you’re not intolerant to anything but you’ve got irritable bowel syndrome. And at that point in time I went, Oh cool, like I’ve got a diagnosis it all, it all makes sense. Knowing what I know now I’m like, okay, that just tells me that I’ve got the symptoms, I’ve got it gives me nothing else but all right. Um, so from there I trialed a FODMAP diet, which really stressed me out because I felt like there was not a lot I was able to eat, and if I do eat something that I wasn’t meant to, I got stressed about it, which made me realize a lot of my gut problems were made worse by stress. So it made a lot of sense that in year 10 I was constipated for four weeks because that was around the time I had school certificate. Then, around HSC, I would get bowel issues because it was that time and everything was stressful. I’m starting uni, it was really bad because I was really stressed at uni. So then the FODMAP diet added that extra layer of stress of I know I shouldn’t be eating this but I have nothing else that I feel like I can eat right now, I’m stressed about it and it’s not going to do me any good. So then it kind of all just culminated and became this really vicious cycle that was quite horrible. And so I never really got to the bottom of that except for going, Okay, I know that stress really affects me so I’m going to try and avoid stress, which is not always easy to do, as I’m sure you’re aware, but I managed to sort of go okay if there’s a scenario that I’m putting in, I can try and not stress about it, and then hopefully my gut will be okay, but my gut also gave me a really good indication of when I was stressed so I knew that I needed to do a bit more self care and take care of myself a little bit more. Then to add on top of that I started getting thrush really chronically, which fantastic. So I probably would have been all through uni, I would have thrush, at least once every two to three months, sometimes I would trade it but it wouldn’t really be 100% So I just keep having these thrush flare ups wondering why my vagina just felt so horrible all the time. Around that time I’d also become sexually active so sex was quite painful and uncomfortable. Of course, having thrush and being irritated in the vagina didn’t help anything. So there was those things that were starting to happen at the same time as well, which then come the time that we were in our third year covering Women’s Health physio, and we started to talk about how all of these conditions can really be affecting one another, and that conditions of the uterus, of the vagina can affect the bowel and conditions of the bowel can affect the bladder. Thankfully I never had any bladder conditions. But just knowing that there was that really big Interplay it made me go well hang on I know I’ve got endo technically they didn’t find anything on my colonoscopy, so maybe I don’t actually have a true bowel issue, but maybe there’s something that’s happening that’s got to do with my endo that’s causing things to be a little bit flared up and so then I started really loving women’s health and that’s how I got into it and just the idea of pain with sex which I’d experienced and pregnancy, which I haven’t experienced yet will one day soon, maybe. But yeah, all of those different conditions but I think a lot of women get told, Oh, it’s just a period you’ll be fine or, you know, it’s fine. You’ll be okay just take some Panadol and everything will be okay, or yeah pain with sex is normal, get over it. A lot of those really resonated with me because I’ve been through a lot of them and I didn’t really feel like I had any answers as to why those things were affecting me. So that’s why I so much love women’s health and love being able to work with you because we can kind of cover things from both sides, both the anatomical side and the muscular side, as well as what’s happening at an internal cellular level and hormonal level, and being able to actually start to get to the bottom of things, which is really nice.

Alison Mitchell 12:42 Oh my gosh, it’s, it’s such a connected thing everything’s all so connected, and all of those things working together. Oh my gosh what a journey.

Brooke Blair 12:57 Yeah, so it took some time it’s still ongoing as you know we’re currently working on lots of things at the moment. But I think that having been through all of that has made me very much, empathetic towards the women that come in who are having these conditions who they might have seen a practitioner who said, Oh yeah, that’s just normal, that’s just what happens in women. And they’ve been constantly told it’s normal, it’s okay, everything’s fine. It’s all in your head. And then when they can come in and sit down and I can go. I’ve been there and I know that there’s things we can do to treat it and no it’s not all in your head. It’s really quite a lovely process and quite a nice journey to be able to go through with women.

Alison Mitchell 13:39 I think a lot of the time when people feel heard, they feel acknowledged that they’re not crazy about it, that this is such a big relief for them in many ways. Oh, I’m not making this up so I know a lot of my patients say that and I know that some of yours do too. And like you were saying like sometimes other practitioners might say yeah that’s just part of having periods but sometimes it can be because things evolve and we know that certain things aren’t normal anymore, but our parents practitioners might have told them that their stuff was normal. Until then, our parents have told us here, that’s just normal, that’s what I had. That’s what my sister had that’s what your sisters had all of that sort of thing and so you just come to expect it and so it’s just breaking that cycle and, you know, takes one person to say, Hang on, we can actually do something about that. And that’s what I love about what we do as well as we’re with we’re popping that bubble we’re saying: You don’t have to have people sex and didn’t have painful periods, and you shouldn’t even notice your digestive system, they should just be like, La-La-La Everything feels wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. But it is a journey isn’t it.

Brooke Blair 14:54 absolutely is. I’m trying to think how many it’s probably been 11 or 12 years but I’ve been working through all of this stuff and we’re still going. And that’s being educated and knowing that there’s things that we can do to help. That’s, you know, other women don’t have that education and they haven’t been told that there’s things they can do so it’s gonna take a lot longer for those women.

Alison Mitchell 15:21 I definitely see that with naturopathy because it’s not as conventionally well known, it’s not as accepted, and what sort of avenues you can work on with with diet is not that well known, so I might have like someone that’s never really even realized they can work on them for something until you know they listen to a podcast or they read an article and they’re like, I wish I had known that earlier.

Brooke Blair 15:48 Absolutely. So I hope that this podcast goes out and people listen and go, oh hang on a second, I can go and get help, amazing.

Alison Mitchell 15:57 Yes. And, you know, I know that some of the things that you and I are working on together, it’s, it can be a little bit off putting when you hear that like it’s actually a bit of hard work that you have to do for a little while.

Brooke Blair 16:13 It is.

Alison Mitchell 16:13 *Nodding vigorously. But it’s worth it because it doesn’t last forever. And so, like, a month of hard work. Compared to years of pain and discomfort is so much better.

Brooke Blair 16:28 Yeah, it’s worth it, that’s for sure.

Alison Mitchell 16:32 So, I guess we could talk about how you and I came to me. Well I guess I should we say that because we might have actually spoken about this in some previous podcast but I’ll say it again anyway. I was pregnant with Lara with my second baby, and I had had a caesarean section with my first baby, and it was a bit of one of those situations where you’re not completely sure what happens, like I was very much adamant that I was going to have a natural birth but then all of a sudden, something like, like there was a non reassuring heartbeat, and my obstetrician had said to me previously I’m not sure about the shape of your pelvis, and I was very unsure what she meant by that. So she was basing that on like some internal examinations and I was like, like what does that even mean and so I was adamant. I was going to have a really great natural birth for my second baby. And so, I’m just, I’m very grateful that Ash is healthy and I recovered fine but I also had some really bad abdominal separation following him, and I had heard some great things about about you, about Brooke, about helping with abdominal separation or, because I had only heard that you know you just shouldn’t do sit ups. Okay. Bring it on, never get up out of bed. And so this was two and a half years that was two and a half years was no it was probably two years that I had had this abdominal separation for and it was. I mean, it was fairly severe, wasn’t it like five fingers. At that point is that moderate or severe or moderate,

Brooke Blair 18:32 moderate, I’m trying to think back to the integrity of your abdominal wall as well.

Alison Mitchell 18:37 thats a long way back for you to remember. anyway I thought I put on a bit of weight but now I just had like my abdominal muscles were just so weak, and then I had all this back pain because of that. So all of these sorts of things that started to fall into place like my back pain. The abdominal separation and then I also just wanted to make sure that everything was in tip top shape ready to have a natural birth. And I think it was like, probably our third appointment, where it was a natural person you’re like, oh, I should thinking about doing a community for women’s health, with one of the Chelsea from Mummy Movement. And I was like, Y’all be involved in that I love spreading awareness and then it just blossomed from there.

Brooke Blair 19:31 And I think I said let me tell you all about my horrible periods.

Alison Mitchell 19:34 I think there might have been a couple of people that, because you were like what did what do you treat with naturopathy and I was like, I do lots of children’s health. Lots of women’s health, and you were like “hmm.. hmmm… I might send some of my bed wetting children to you and period pain people and then yeah it just grew didn’t it.

Brooke Blair 20:02 It did, and now we have this very good communication and lots of clients that we share together which is amazing,

Alison Mitchell 20:07 and it just it just gets that next level of results really doesn’t it.

Brooke Blair 20:13 Absolutely, absolutely.

Alison Mitchell 20:15 And I think for me, I’ve always, I’ve always had that awareness, pure hypertonicity so pelvic floor problems can worsen Endo, because it creates this local inflammation that worsens pain, but I also didn’t have anyone that I could refer to, because you women’s physio is a few and far between.

Brooke Blair 20:38 Yeah, it’s a growing field which is amazing. There’s actually a lot more of us than what most people know about and it’s funny going to courses and you meet and you go oh hang on, you work in the mountains, I’m like not that far away from you. And then there’s about six people who work in the mountains and you oh wow okay there’s a lot of you in the mountains im just down here. There’s actually a lot of women’s health physios, it’s just that, a lot of us work in musculoskeletal physio practices so it’s not necessarily a world that people know so much about. Whereas if you are either a sole practitioner like I currently am, who has a business name that sounds like women’s health, or who specifically says Women’s Health physio as the main point of call. That tends to be how people are finding us a little bit easier, but there is actually a lot more now, which is amazing.

Alison Mitchell 21:32 That’s so good.

Brooke Blair 21:33 Yeah, yeah.

Alison Mitchell 21:36 first before you I only knew of one, and then you showed me a few more and then all of a sudden you do start to see it when, when you’re looking around for referrals for people. Oh, it’s a lot more.

Brooke Blair 21:49 Yeah, which is nice because there’s so many women who have so many concerns and just like a naturopath I’m sure everyone does things slightly differently in women’s health physio, everyone does things slightly differently. So, what works for one person might not work for the other and a different type of treatment might be what that person needs that maybe this other person couldn’t give you. So it’s always nice that there’s lots of people out there lots of different opinions and ways of doing things and ways of looking at the body that helps women to be able to get their best results which is nice.

Alison Mitchell 22:24 Yeah, that’s lovely. So I guess we could, you know, move on from that to talk a bit more about how much Naturopathy and physio work well together. So I think the probably the one of the things we could start with our favorite thing to refer for which is period pain.

Brooke Blair 22:41 Yes, personal experience of course we’re going to refer for that.

Alison Mitchell 22:48 So you and I both have a strong history of period pain. And so mine has settled down a lot with a little bit of time and using herbal medicine and possibly even having kids as well that might have something to do with it too but we’ve both got that passion for it and also that level of empathy for our patients that have it too. But there’s a really strong correlation between like having the stuff going on internally, like you said before at a cellular level hormonalIy as well as having the physical, the muscular component to. So, working on one side of those without addressing the other is going to be not as complete as could be. And this is actually applies to everything else that we’ll be talking about. So, you can’t do as good a job without doing both sides of it.

Brooke Blair 23:43 Exactly, you just get that extra bit better so that you get that extra little bit so you can get to 100% Rather than just sitting in being happy at 90%. If you know both working together, then you can get such better results and it’s amazing to see.

Alison Mitchell 23:58 Exactly. So, in terms of how I as a naturopath go about addressing period pain. I’m looking at, like there’s a few different aspects of what causes period pain and so when I’m working, I’m looking at people from a more energetic constitutional level as well when it comes to pescribing herbs which I mean might sound a little bit strange, but I do find that it gets the best results so you’re looking at like a person is hotter or colder. And so if you’ve got a lot of cold. For instance, like, there would be stagnation and dark red blood and clots, and they feel better for applying heat and so we use herbs that are going to be warming and stimulating. And then if they’re very hot person to then there’s usually that bright red blood, and they feel better for having a cold bath or a cold shower or buying an ice pack, and like there’s various other things that you look at in like the tongue, their skin and their hair, or like, assessing where they are at a constitutional level, but using herbs that are specific to that, as well as thinking about what are their hormones doing and what is their immune system doing because with things like endo with endometriosis, it’s very immune driven condition, so you need to think about what’s causing your immune system to go shonky in the first place, like is it a bit of a bug that’s hiding around, or is it something that you’re eating that your body is reacting to, and then it’s also things like is there a nutritional deficiency, that’s causing your body to be more immune driven, or is it an deficiency that’s causing you to become tighter and more crampy. So those are some of the areas that I look at with period pain.

Brooke Blair 25:48 Okay, I sort of way that as women tell physios we, that’s why I love working with you because you can work with things that are causing some of the pain. And then I can treat some of the byproducts of that pain, so a lot of women, particularly with endo sometimes with polycystic ovaries or just women who do have incredibly painful periods. I’m more so looking at the musculoskeletal system and the neural system to work out what’s happening more so at a pelvic floor level, but more recently we’ve sort of been looking all the way up basically to your neck and all the way down to your toes to work out if there’s something that may have set off some of the pain. So, for girls who have endo/ polycystic ovaries, some of them will be coming in not just because they get pain with their periods, but because they’re now starting to experience sexual pain, or they’re getting difficulty using tampons or different things like that that they starting to notice that isn’t normal. They shouldn’t be having where previously they were able to use tampons just fine. Or they’ve had sex pain free, but something has triggered this pain to start up. And so we’re starting to look at why is that happening, is it because they’ve had these pain because of that inflammation that you were talking about, for such a long time that the body has just started to go into a protective cramping type state trying to protect all of the organs and protect everything vaginally and saying no I don’t want anything inserted here because it could cause me pain. In some women, I see they could have had an injury so they may have had completely fine periods, they may have always had endo but not had any symptoms of Endo, but their periods were fine, and then all of a sudden they’ve had an incident where they’ve fallen and they’ve hit their tailbone, or their hip or they’ve whacked their knee, and all of a sudden they’ve started to get painful periods crampy sensations the pain with sex. Sometimes even leakage, and those sorts of things are very different for them and so yes we know there’s probably going to be findings in a pelvic floor level but also elsewhere throughout their body we might need to see what’s happened at their knee, we might need to see why their tailbone is sore and work out that perspective rather than just going straight to treat vaginally.

Alison Mitchell 28:08 Exactly because the body is a unit. And one thing is going to be like causing another area to shift and your body will always try and compensate, and just keep compensating compensating until it’s current anymore and then it’s like, ouch!

Brooke Blair 28:23 what’s happening here. Yeah, so it’s nice to be able to see and unravel all of those sides of things I had a lady in the other day, and I think she was in her 50s and she was having period troubles, and no one had ever brought up the idea that potentially there could be something hormonally or systemically like Endo, or something like that, but she has had painful periods and vaginal pain for the last 40 odd years. And so I sat down and I took her history with her for an hour, and we took it all the way back to as a child, she’d had eczema vaginally, and she had, I think she had constipation and gut issues as a child, and then all of a sudden she got her periods and they were really painful and then she woke up one day with vulvodynia and that’s never gone away. And even just sitting with her and going back through her whole history and her going wow no one’s ever sat with me and gone all the way back to my childhood to work out that actually, these things have been happening since I was very young, before I got my periods. So she’s another person, I’m going to get to come and see you to work out what’s happening at a gut level because she was close. Yep. Yep, exactly. Yeah, it’s lovely to be able to work on those sides of things and work out where the pain is coming from rather than going yeah cool you’ve got Period Pain what next. Yeah.

Alison Mitchell 29:49 Oh my goodness, I can’t believe that it was going on for that long, but this is this is often what happens in this realm of vaginal pain period pain but also digestive pain is because you don’t, you don’t get people asking you about these things and, often, if it’s something vulnerable, you to be too nervous to bring it up. So like what situation and will you be and so going to the doctor directly about that where that will get asked. Apart from an appointment, like a women’s physio or a naturopathic appointment or potentially even the gyno but often they’re very focused on a specific issue in conventional appointments, and so it doesn’t get brought up unless you specifically do so it is important to talk about these things. And I know that I mean, I probably ask the weirdest questions when I do my naturopathic screening I’m like, do you like talk about poo a lot people say I’ve never had a conversation about my poo as in depth.

Brooke Blair 30:49 Likewise, love a poo chat.

Alison Mitchell 30:53 And, Yeah. And do you give any vulval pain, any vaginal pain if you get pain during intercourse like all of those sorts of things that people like, what, why are you asking me that

Brooke Blair 31:04 some women say, yeah, no one’s asked me that before and, but actually yes I do have these issues and it’s until you raise that conversation, they’re not going to be forthright with it and say, Actually my vagina hurts all the time. That’s just not something that a lot of people feel comfortable saying yes, and there is such a stigma around it. We just love popping. So, I think that’s just such an important area that people need to know that you don’t have to put up with

Alison Mitchell 31:36 sex should not hurt

Brooke Blair 31:38 No exactly and if somebody tells you it’s all in your head it’s not and you need to see somebody else.

Alison Mitchell 31:44 Yeah, exactly what some other areas that we love to trade together so I love working with urinary conditions. So, chronic UTI’s, and a bladder pain as well so when people are constantly getting symptoms that are not not related to an actual infection which is one of those things. It’s just like so much mind boggling for so many people but they just came back negative and why am I still getting the pain, what’s actually causing that.

Brooke Blair 32:21 Yeah so that’s definitely something that we work together on which is lovely. I see that quite a lot, a lot of women come in and they say, because if oftentimes if they’re getting symptoms like that like UTI is a lot of them are leaking as well. So they might come into the session because their GP referred them for incontinence, but then when you sit down and chat to them will actually I’ve got pain when I pass urine and I go to the toilet and I empty my bladder but even though I know I’m empty it still feels like I need to go or I never get the sensation that I’m completely empty, or things like that pain with bladder feeling all of those symptoms that you shouldn’t be aware of that. A lot of women do actually notice can be coming from something anatomically, so I treat a lot of women who they sometimes have overactive pelvic floors like we just spoke about. And it’s because of that over activity that all the nerves in that area are quite overstimulated causing bladder pain sensations. Also not allowing the bladder to fill completely or empty completely. So I go through about 20 Questions about when you sit on the toilet does your flow start straight away does it stop start does it go off in a funny direction do you feel empty, all of those sorts of questions because if that’s what your body has always been doing, you don’t know if that’s wrong or right, you don’t know if there’s an issue there.

Alison Mitchell 33:44 You’d just think it’s a funny Quirk.

Brooke Blair 33:46 Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I’ve had women who say Oh yeah no every time I sit down I have to wait 10 seconds before my urine starts to come out and I have to really think about it, that’s not what should be happening. And so, if then they have issues with what’s happening around their urethra where the urine comes out and around their pelvic floor they might not be able to completely bladder empty, which will put them at risk of having UTI over and over again because they’re not allowing that urine to exit their body. But also, if they are constantly having an irritated bladder, whether that’s from infection or not, and they’re leaking, then they’re definitely going to be getting more at risk of having irritation infection, things like that so it’s definitely something to try and work out, why is that happening.

Alison Mitchell 34:34 And the way that I would be working with these people is using mostly herbs that work on improving the mucous membrane health of the vagina and the urethra and all of that so nutrients that work on that sorry and then herbes that work on reducing spasm of the fine, finer muscles in there and then soothing bladder herbs so we’ve got one of my favorite of all time is Crataeva because it’s just this nice most beautiful bladder tonic, but it’s so soothing. And so that’s like my staple with chronic bladder conditions of all forms, really loving Kava relaxing the muscles down there too. And that’s also really useful in treating UTI as too. And then probably leads us on to the next topic which is prolapse.

Brooke Blair 35:23 Yes, I love prolapse, I don’t love it when it happens to women, but I love trading. So I think there’s a big misconception about prolapse, in that it only happens to older women. And it means that everything is falling out of you and it’s the worst thing in the world and all you can do for a surgery. So when I have women coming in who’ve been told that they have a prolapse or who think that they have a prolapse, it’s all doom and gloom and it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, and prolapse isn’t something like that, most women. I think the stat is that 75% of women will experience some level of prolapse across their lifetime. And what we’re coming to realize is that prolapse, to some extent might actually just be normal because we are upright mammals, and our pelvis and our pelvic organs are at the very base of us, and they don’t have bony support underneath them, they only have muscular support. So over time there is going to be some degree of movement that happens purely because of gravity and because of how we move around. All other animals are basically on all fours, so they’ve got the whole abdominal wall but all of their organs or the pelvis that their organs are supported by, But we don’t have that support structure. So, most women that I assess there will be some degree of prolapse that I go okay, I’m not really going to call this prolapse because it’s just the natural movement that’s happening in your body, and everyone will have some normal amount of movement, some women move not at all and some women are quite mobile in their tissues, and they are going to be the women that are more at risk of prolapse, whether it means that things have dropped internally one centimeter three centimeter five centimeters. It’s one of those things that it’s quite scary for women, to hear the term prolapse and to get the symptoms of prolapse, which are things like heaviness or vaginal discomfort or feeling like you’ve got a dislodged tampon internally but you don’t have a tampon in. I also have lots of women who start to experience sexual pain if they have a uterine prolapses. So that’s one of the really lovely things to be able to treat, is being able to work on either pelvic floor strengthening or using pessaries which are pelvic floor support devices to help support the organs, and to get rid of those symptoms and change how women are functioning so that they can feel symptom free and comfortable.

Alison Mitchell 37:49 Definitely I feel like there’s, there’s various levels of it and sometimes people are not sure whether what they’re feeling is normal or not. It’s good to also just get it assessed to like to give you that peace of mind for someone like yourself to say, actually, where you’re at right now is fairly normal for your stage of life or for everything else that’s going on. Yeah. And then, how can we work on it naturopathically Well I actually really liked working alongside acupuncture too but I look at this from structural integrity of this muscle cells themselves. So things like nutrients that help with connective tissue strength collagen strength, and then using herbes they’re have lifting actions, and reducing inflammation and then also some hormonal support too so, working on a that oestrogen level in a very gentle way. And then using herbs that help with improving digestive function because we want to be reducing any sort of pressure from their digestive system that might also be affecting it too. Which I guess is another segue into digestive digestive stuff so one of the main things that I would probably be sending people to you for in regards to digestive stuff is constipation so when I feel like there is just a poor nerve signal going on or people are deciding, they’re just not getting that urge to go to the toilet because they’ve been constipated for such a long time. So do you want to talk a bit about that.

Brooke Blair 39:27 Yeah, I love treating poo conditions, could talk about poo all day long. So when women come into me for any sort of bowel conditions more often than not it is constipation related, but oftentimes I also do treat fecal incontinence which no one really loves to talk about but it’s actually really, really common and can be caused by constipation. So, in terms of treating something like fecal incontinence, which I’ll talk about first and then talk about constipation because that’s quite commonly related. So people experiencing fecal incontinence, I think the studies, wanting for one in four men and one in five women will experience fecal incontinence in their lifetime. Oftentimes, it can be post childbirth. After third or fourth degree tears, or after nerve injuries. It can come on with things like back conditions and back pain as well. And so a lot of it comes from the muscles at the back passage not functioning optimally, meaning that people aren’t able to hold on to this tool for as long as possible and can become fecal incontinence. A lot of the time, the women that I say for this, it’s because their bowel motion isn’t where it should be. So whether it’s too soft, so it’s like your type five six or seven on a Bristol stool chart, it’s just far too soft and the body’s not made to hold on to a bowel motion like that. So working with you and giving women techniques of how to bulk up their bowel motion can be quite helpful. Then from the constipation side of things. If they come in with fecal incontinence, we need to make sure there’s no constipation there, otherwise we need to treat that first and not worried about the fecal incontinence, because what people don’t realize is, in your rectum, if you’ve got a really big firm hard bowel motion sitting there, your body’s not going to be able to push that out without extra assistance. And so what the body does is it sends this mucus layer to try and help to lubricate the rectal walls to help pass about motion. And if your body doesn’t feel like it can pass it, you just won’t feel that there’s all this mucus there and it will leak out of the rectum, like it’s a fecal incontinence, where it’s really just your body tried to help you to pass this bowel motion. So we need to try and work out. Is it true fecal incontinence or is it that there’s an underlying constipation there. Then in terms of constipation a couple of the things that I see quite commonly is women feeling like I know that I have the sensation that I need to go to the bathroom, but I just don’t feel like I can empty myself, or I feel like something gets stuck. And so from that regard, if we talk about what their bowel motion type is like, sometimes it’s a perfect bowel motion and we’re going okay we don’t need to change your bowel motion type at all, we need to change either the sensation of you going to the toilet, or what’s happening. Anatomically, so really frequently I see rectal prolapses so we call them Rectoceles, not where the bowel is dropping out at the back passage but where the bowel creates a pocket more towards the vagina, and it allows bowel motion to get caught in there, so that women pass a bowel motion but then they just feel like something’s getting stuck, and they can’t quite get it out, and they’re always gassy and uncomfortable, and they might need to go to the bathroom six or seven times in a day but they still just never feel empty. So that’s something that I really love treating because doing a good poo is actually life changing. And if you sit down on the toilet, you do a great poo and you feel empty it’s a wonderful sensation. So that can definitely be something that I work with, but then also making sure that women know what the sensation of bowel emptying should feel like. And when they should emptying, empty their bowels. So working a little bit more with their nervous system to change that up. But yeah, sometimes it’s anatomical work sometimes women don’t actually relax their pelvic floor to empty their bowels they tighten it, instead, which makes it far more difficult to empty their bowels and it’s not that there’s an issue with the bowel motion, it’s just that they’re not relaxing and we can change that also.

Alison Mitchell And I think that with the rectocele, the way that I treat that is very similar to the prolapse stuff, but also yeah like getting all, there’s so many things that can be going wrong with digestive health, and natural remedies, it’s one of my main things that I treat your digestive health, for women’s health and digestive health, so it’s very very satisfying things to treat.

Brooke Blair 44:20 Yeah absolutely people, I have women who all of a sudden they can relax their, their pelvic floor muscles and all of a sudden they do this amazing pool and I say when that happens, I want you to message me because it’s going to be the best day of your life, and they go oh my gosh I didn’t realize that I could do like that and feel this good and it’s, it’s wonderful when you get a lot of neurotransmitter release when you’re actually doing a nice big poo.

Alison Mitchell 44:40 So if you haven’t been able to do for a long time, then you’re not going to get those neurotransmitters, but then it works the other way is if you’ve got constant, diarrhea, you kind of be running low on those. So having that perfect balance makes you happy lately.

Brooke Blair 45:05 Good poos are good.

Alison Mitchell 45:10 Did you want to talk about anything else.

Brooke Blair No, I think we’ve covered off a lot of it.

Alison Mitchell 1:54 My kids are going insane so I should probably wrap up now. like there’s, so many ways that we can work well together. I just so happy to be able to share this information to people and whether they do decide to see both of us or even do some of it, I just want people to know what is available to them. So I’m just so grateful that you and other women’s physios are around and thank you so much for sharing all of your amazing information today already

Brooke Blair 45:54 thank you and thank you for helping me to work on my body. At some point we’ll have to talk about everything that’s amazing that’s happening in my body at the moment which will be wonderful. Alison Mitchell So we’ve got a little bit of a teaser there and then we can follow that up later once we’ve we’ve got you towards the end of your health journey too. perfect. Alright, well thank you everyone so much for listening. Bye! Brooke Blair Bye

Alison Mitchell 46:40 Thank you so much for listening. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. Please join me over at the Guts and Girl Bit’s Instagram page and share any other words of wisdom that you would like to contribute as well. Guts and Girl bits now has a collection of eight courses that you can view online. The primary course available at the moment is Natural menopause support, which provides information on supporting yourself through the latest symptoms of menopause and easing through this transitional life. You can find the collection of E courses at gutsandgirlbits.teachable.com And they will also find a course of understanding underactive thyroid and coming up soon will be a courses called cyclical woman. Navigating the teenage years, children’s health, nourishing the mother, and more. If you’ve enjoyed today, please leave a review and share this episode to help spread the word. Thank you.  

The post Brooke’s journey with endometriosis plus how women’s physiotherapy works with naturopathy appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits Episode #50

As we reach the end of Endometriosis Awareness Month I wanted to release a little recording I made a while ago for women’s health week, in which I spoke about Endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a condition that can significantly affect a woman’s quality of life, however, there is a lack of awareness and understanding of this condition.

It is estimated that 1 in 7-10 women may have this condition, however it can take many years to receive a diagnosis. In this video discuss some considerations of addressing this condition with naturopathic medicine, addressing the root causes of immune imbalance.

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Related posts:

Endometriosis

10 Ways to reduce period pain

Updates on Endometriosis

Heavy periods

Choosing the right products for that time of the month

Thrush

Transcript

0:08
Hi, everyone, you’re listening to Guts and Girl Bits. I’m Alison Mitchell, a practicing naturopath and I hope to share with you all sorts of information about women’s health and digestive health to educate and empower you to make informed choices about your own health. Please remember that all information is general and does not replace consulting with a healthcare practitioner.

0:31
It’s the end of March and March is Endometriosis Awareness Month. So I wanted to share a little video that I recorded a couple of years ago for Women’s Health Week as my latest podcast because in that video, I share all sorts of information about endometriosis, and about how to get to some of the underlying drivers that causes it. So I hope that that’s helpful for you. There has been more research coming out since then, as well. But most of the new stuff that I shared in that one is still relevant. So if you want to hear more information, then please subscribe to me on @gutsandgirlbits. And stay tuned as well for all my e courses that are coming out all about how to understand yourself by understanding your cycles and understanding your hormonal balance in more depth, which you can find over at my teachable account, which is gutsandgirlbits.teachable.com

1:30
Hey, everyone, I want to talk about endometriosis today. This is the last day of Women’s Health Week. So I wanted to finish it off by talking about a condition that I really love treating and that’s that’s endometriosis. So if anyone doesn’t know what endometriosis is, basically, it’s a painful condition that affects women. And it affects almost one in seven women approximately. And it can cause quite a lot of issues. So what’s what seems to be happening is that we women get these endometrial cysts, also known as endometriomas, or chocolate cysts, which are basically the content of the lining of the uterus being where it shouldn’t be. So when we normally have our period, what should be happening is that the lining should just you know, break down and dissolve and come out as normal menstrual blood. But sometimes what’s happening is that this isn’t staying in the uterus. This is actually forming little adhesions or cysts elsewhere in the body, such as around the lining around the outside of the uterus or in the fallopian tubes or stuck to the ovaries. And it can also happen in their peritoneal cavity where it’s actually attaching to the intestines, the bowel, bladder and those sorts of things.

2:55
So back up back when I was a student naturopath, we were taught that endometriosis is a condition caused by a hormonal imbalance. But with recent research, what we’ve come to understand is that endometriosis is actually an immune condition or an inflammatory condition. So it does have a hormonal component. There is certainly a hormonal driver behind endometriosis. And that is estrogen, but the immune system is actually the biggest player when it comes to endometriosis. And so there are a lot of different factors that actually feed into why the immune system is disrupted in the first place. But what we what we’re finding is that inflammation, in particular, coming from histamine imbalance, and coming from genetic imbalances and gut health is some of the biggest issues that seem to be driving our immune immune dysfunction. So there’s currently not really a great testing option available for endometriosis. It’s unfortunately something that can only be definitively diagnosed with a laparoscopy, which is a type of keyhole surgery where there will be some small incisions made in the abdomen, abdomen, and then they go in with a little camera. And so if they can see the presence of these chocolate cysts, then that’s confirmative of endometriosis. But the laparoscopy at the same time can be used as a treatment. But that’s not that’s not always the best option for every woman. Because for some women who are particularly inflamed or have a strong immune activation, then the actual incision or the actual surgery itself can actually worsen endometriosis. There, they will find that they might actually get some further adhesions developing where those original cysts were removed. There seems to be more of an issue when the laparoscopy is performed with the laser where it’s actually burnt off rather than incised. And that’s that’s something that again, has only really been discovered recently, but it seems to be

5:00
You know, while it’s a good thing for some women, but not for every woman, and again, it goes to show that endometriosis is a really, really complex condition. And so because of that complexity, everyone needs to be treated a little bit differently. And we need to try and figure out the cause of what’s going on for those women. So there’s a few, you know, possible causes as to why women can have that particular immune imbalance. And one of those things is a gut imbalance, so and or an infection. So if you’ve got an infection, then your immune system is going to be disrupted. And then if you’ve got that genetic tendency for endometriosis to go wrong, then that’s where it’s going to go out of whack for you. There’s some some naturopaths in the field at the moment that are doing research in this and they’re finding that there’s actually a whole different microbiome, which is your bacteria balance within the peritoneal cavity, which is basically the fluid that our organs swim in, and also within the vagina itself within our reproductive organs. And so if they are out of balance, if that microbiome in that area is out of balance, and our immune system is going to be unhappy, and correcting that can be helpful. Dealing with infections can also be really helpful to under to address that underlying imbalance. Now, the other thing that can sometimes happen is because what we know that it’s an inflammatory condition, and there’s an immune imbalance going on, but there’s certain genetics that are involved in that issue. And I find that the mthfr gene, which is a pretty common gene to have, and it doesn’t having the gene doesn’t always mean that there’s an issue, but it’s if that gene is not acting properly, then it affects the enzyme that deals with a lot of different processes in the body. But in regards to endometriosis, in particular, it affects our our main antioxidant recycler, glue to fire recycling of glue to fire. And now, if we don’t have enough antioxidants in endometriosis, then we can’t really mop up all that immune damage that’s going on. So it makes the inflammation worse. And so then, as a result, that makes pain worse. And that can also, you know, make all those other sorts of reactions worse as well.

7:17
One of the things that we also find going on is that mthfr gene affects the detoxification of certain hormones throughout the liver. And if we’re not detoxifying our hormones effectively, then we get that recycling and that uptake of those hormones through through the system, and so then we lead to having too much of certain hormones where they shouldn’t be.

7:41
In the case of endometriosis, what we used to think, as I said before was that it was a excess of oestrogen. But in this case, it seems to be that it’s a displacement of estrogen. So there’s too much estrogen being activated in the area of the endometrial tissue lining going on. And that’s causing a reaction with some of our other immune chemicals. So one of these immune chemicals is histamine. So histamine, can you probably know about histamine as an allergic sort of issue like, you know, hay fever and sneezes and rashes, and, and all of those. Well, when are mast cells, the immune cell that causes the histamine to be in excess is actually in reaction to the estrogen. And that causes more of that inflammatory reaction. And so then, you know, you get the pain and the redness and, and those painful reactions, that’s so common with endometriosis. And as a result of the inflammation that takes place, then when there is that, I mean, immune activation in that area, that’s why we’re more you’re more likely to actually get adhesions forming. And so this can be a really big problem for women with endometriosis is that the adhesions can cause a lot of damage, they can stick for free, you can stick your organs together, you can get the uterus can be stuck to the bow or bits of the bow can be stuck together. It can, you can have the bladder being involved as well. And all of that can cause quite a lot of pain. And it can also affect fertility quite significantly as well.

9:14
Now, and adhesions do seem to have a bit of a problem and that they can only really be resolved with surgery. So as we were talking about before that surgery isn’t certainly a good option for some women, but it’s not not the first line option for every woman. It’s actually better if you can try and get on top of endometriosis in the early days. But the thing with endometriosis is that it’s actually a condition that a lot of people are getting dismissed and missed about, if that makes sense. What I mean is that women are going to and young girls are going to their doctors and they’re complaining of pelvic pain, period pain, and they’re basically getting dismissed and it seems to be about 70% of young women with endometriosis are getting dismissed and that’s a huge number 70% so if we can get on top of this condition in the early days before adhesions formed and things are going to actually work out a lot better for these women what we need to do is we need to have the funding into a better research system but we also need to have more awareness and women need to be more empowered and educated so that they can make make these make these choices make ask the right questions so i think the fact that the main testing method is a form of surgery is probably pretty off putting but we can do a lot in terms of natural treatment and dietary techniques to actually take this under control one of the things we need to do is to get our gut flora and underbalanced under control and we also need to look at reducing our inflammation levels throughout diet for a lot of women with endometriosis one of the main inflammatory things that’s going on is that they intolerant to certain foods and the key food that i find a lot of women are reacting to is is actually dairy or cow’s protein in particular and this can be you know pretty hard to give up for a lot of women but getting that out of the system can make a big big difference now we also need to look at supporting that mthfr gene which is the one that i was talking about before so the mthfr gene basically it works on a particular enzyme which is can never remember the name of it and let me find it – methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase – and basically that works on the conversion of our fault for late into its activated form in the body now it’s more than just taking folic acid in fact if you’ve got issues with this gene you probably shouldn’t be taking folic acid you should be taking different b vitamins or activated b vitamins and so this is where it gets pretty complicated because depending on what you’ve got going on with this whole methylation pathway taking methylated b vitamin can actually make you feel a lot worse because you can be methylating too fast or too slowly and so if you’re methylating too slowly and you take methyls then that’s going to make you feel like help so we don’t want to do that so that’s where you know seeing a practitioner can come in really handy but if you can get your methylation under control that does a few things it brings histamine into balance it improves your detoxification of your hormones through the liver and it can dampen that immune dysregulation and therefore inflamed inflammation that’s going on so those are some really key things that’s going on and one of the other things is that it really really really helps with your glue to fire and recycling which is what you need to mop up all that damage that’s taking place now there are a lot of other things that we want to work on with endometriosis and as we’ve said a few times get that inflammation level under control so one of my favorite things to do is Turmeric. now turmeric does have a little bit of a blood thinning properties so depending on what your your bleeding is like if you tend to be quite heavy bleeder it might not necessarily be the thing there’s something called VAGF which is basically your some women have a higher level of capillary growth to these endometrial lining and certainly doesn’t happen with everyone but actually getting improved mop up of that area can be quite helpful with certain again immune herbes and things like that as well we also want to again work on those antioxidant levels so working on methylation is helpful but herbs and nutrients that will actually help with your antioxidant levels can be helpful to one of those is n acetylcysteine or you potentially taking gluta thione itself but n-acetylcysteine is a lot cheaper and also it can be converted into the body in the body to glorify and so that’s something that can be quite helpful for people as i was talking about before in terms of diet you want to reduce the foods in your diet that you might potentially be intolerant to that could potentially cause some inflammatory reaction for you so those are some things that you want to do and you also want to work on while it’s not hormone only cause to condition it is hormonally affected so if we can work on getting estrogen detoxification under control then that’s going to help with the estrogen displacement that’s going on some people might know that sort of concept as estrogen dominance what’s really happening though is that there’s too much estrogen in the wrong place not that there’s necessarily a lot of estrogen everywhere going on because for women with with this sort of condition they might actually experience some symptoms of estrogen deficiency like you know brain fog or hair loss and skin dryness and thinning and that sort of thing but then in other instances they’re going to be experiencing symptoms of estrogen excess such as their their period abnormalities and or pms symptoms and those sorts of things so again it comes down to the individual so that’s where you know seeing a practitioner can actually be really helpful to get that under control

15:35
so i think i’ve kind of rambled a little bit there that seems to happen when there’s topics that i’m quite passionate about i guess one of the take home points that i really want to say with endometriosis is that we know a lot more about it now we know more about the immune involvement about the inflammatory involvement and so because of that we can actually do so much more for it we can actually get really better treatment happening and so if you know if you if you were seeing a naturopath for endometriosis five or 10 years ago you’d get completely different treatment most of the time now so i would say you know if you want to get some treatment ask your naturopath what they think is the main cause of it what they would do to treat it and if they’re talking about some of these new research that’s going on then give it another try because i have a lot of patients with endometriosis nowadays that i get real good success with and we follow these these routes of look at the infections that might be driving immune imbalance and support methylation support the detoxification of the estrogen but as less of a priority you got to get all those other factors under control get that inflammation down once that see improves things start to get better for them much quicker than it used to back when i first started trading where it would take you know a good half a year’s 12 months maybe to get things much better under control whereas now it’s it’s you know half a year mostly it does always depend on the person always depends on the severity of the condition as well you know for some women their endometriosis is so severe that you know surgery is what is really really required and sometimes even going on something taking something like the marina or getting the marina in is important because that actually helps to improve local progesterone in the uterus and so that can help to improve that imbalance and so if you’ve got less of that estrogen activity taking place then you get to have less of that histamine reaction most of that immune reaction going on so you know one of the first things i would say is get your gut the gut microbiome in the gut and also in the vagina under control is blackmores women’s bio balanced is a product that i do recommend as a retail option there’s also practitioner ones that i use Femex have you know a really fresh diet full of antioxidant rich foods lots and lots of veggies eat your rainbow every day those things are really really important and you also really want to get your stress under control because i mean as you know stress has a big role and a lot of different things so we’ve got this thing called the the hpa axis hpo axis hpt axis where all of our hormones are talking to each other all of the time and if there’s some other things going out of balance for instance our hpa axis which is where our adrenal glands are out of balance that’s going to throw out our hbo axis which is where we’re talking to our reproductive hormones so we want these to be under control and calm so doing some mindfulness and some meditation taking stress herbes taking all your nutrients those are really important too in regards to nutrients i mentioned in acetylcysteine i think that can be really helpful but i also do think that you need to get your core reproductive nutrients under control so that’s firstly get using copper ratio right because excess copper can affect your estrogen levels i also think that you need to get adequate magnesium for your stress levels also to reduce into smooth tissue cramping and calcium is important too you need to have that right ratio going on and i and is is really important so you don’t want to have too much iron because iron in excess can cause oxidative stress which can be inflammatory but if you’re into if you’ve got insufficient levels of iron then you’re going to be more likely to bleed more and that’s going to be a big factor for a lot of women a lot of women with endometriosis have really really heavy blades so we don’t want that that with iron that’s one of the things that i always recommend getting iron levels tested before starting supplementation and get the dose, right? I think vitamin D is important vitamin D is really important for your immune health. And I recommend getting your vitamin D levels over, over 80. You don’t want it to be higher than 150 or so.

20:19
And you also need to be considering things that are going to help to bring down your inflammation levels. As far as Herbs and so I’ve said, I’ve said tumeric, I do love tumeric. But again, you just got to be a little bit careful with it, depending on the periods. And I also think that good quality, facials can be helpful, but the same same sort of thing. Although they do they, we’ve always had this bit of a concern with fish oils is that you know, they can cause they can cause a blood thinning activity, or they could cause excessive bleeding. But some studies that actually measured the amount of bleeding that you create with officials has shown that it doesn’t seem to actually cause that greater quantity. So it’s not like you know, you’re going to bleed out or you’re going to have like massive amounts of blood loss or anything like that. Anyway, so activated B vitamins and stay away from synthetic B vitamins, and try and also stay away from foods that are fortified with synthetic B vitamins too, because while not everyone has this mthfr gene, if that mthfr gene enzyme gets unhappy, regardless of the genes presence or not, then that’s going to cause issues with all of those other factors. So it’s going to cause issues with the histamine, the hormones, the antioxidants. So all of those things that we want to work with. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. Please join me over at the Guts and Girl bits Instagram page and share any other words of wisdom that you would like to contribute as well. TGuts and Girl Bits now has a collection of E courses that you can view online. The primary course available at the moment is natural menopause support, which provides a whole heap of information on supporting yourself through the major symptoms of metaphors and easing through this transitional life. You can find the collection of E courses at ghttp://gutsandgirlbits.teachable.com. And then you’ll also find a course of understanding underactive thyroid, and coming up soon will be a courses called The Cyclical Woman, Navigating the teenage years, children’s health, nourishing the mother, and more. If you’ve enjoyed today, please leave a review and share this episode to help spread the word. Thank you

The post Endometriosis- Natural Management Options appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits Episode #49

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode which I’m so pleased to be able to share with you. Have you ever thought about the things that you wish you’d known when you were younger? Or what advise you would give yourself in the past, or what you’d wish for your children?

As I watch my children growing I find myself thinking of all the things I need to remember to teach them, to show them, wisdom I wish I’d learnt earlier in life.

A little while ago I asked those of you who follow the Instagram page for guts and girl bits what you’d love to hear about, and a common response was how to help your daughters.

It certainly matches a topic for an episode I’d been thinking about, and so this episode was born. I have approached several of my friends and colleagues who are wise women and asked them to share a piece of wisdom or advise to the future generation of girls. The result was an incredibly beautiful and inspiring collection of wisdom that at times reads like poetry.

I will mention that I certainly don’t mean to exclude males in this episode, but have focused this topic here based on two reasons – the requests for the topic from listeners, plus the fact that I work with women’s health predominantly and so it happens that not just this episode, but most of my podcast episodes are centred around women’s health.

Renee Lynch

Renee Lynch is a naturopath and mother, she currently practices in the beautiful Orchard St clinic, Sydney. She shares with us wisdom about being in tune with your menstrual cycle and their relation to the seasons and having a positive relationship with our bodies.

https://www.reneelynchnaturopath.com.au/

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Dear Daughters. I wanted to talk to you about your menstrual cycle, because if you’re anything like me, the chat that I had with my mum when I was 11 years of age basically consisted of her showing me a pad and a tampon and telling me that I’d need to choose one of these methods every month for many, many, many, many years come. 

It wasn’t overly inspiring, it didn’t make me want to have my period, I felt weird, nobody at school talked about it, it was just not a conversation that I would have had with my friends and I find that really sad because it is something that connects women universally and yet we turn our backs on it. We don’t talk about it, and we’re embarrassed by it. 

So as the years have gone on I’ve looked to different cycles in nature or the Universe and now I actually think that women are incredibly blessed to have this cycle to live by. If you think about the moon cycle, the tides in the ocean, the astrological calendar, there are so many incredible cycles that we live with that harness, you know, if you think of even the seasons of the year  – winter how we feel in winter is so different to how we feel in summer. and so I wanted to explain to you today about how I relate to the menstrual cycle and the different stages of our cycle, similar to the seasons of the year.

So we start on day one and that is the first day of your bleed. And this is what I like to call ‘Inner Winter’ and some of the feelings that we have in winter really correlate with how you feel in this first few days of your menstrual cycle. You may feel a little quiet, not as social, you may want to slow down, to go inward we may be feeling sensitive, you want to keep warm so this is beautiful and this should be honoured when you have your menstrual cycle this is a chance for you to slow down let go of things and just go inward. sS that might mean saying no to plans with friends on the weekend and just spending some time at home doing things for you. 

So then we go into roughly day six to 16 and this is your inner-Spring, and this is a beautiful time for creativity. you’re starting to feel more energized a little bit more playful, a little bit more social, more active, you’re definitely a lot more focused and that really correlates with how we feel in springtime especially coming out of winter. You know that feeling from Winter to Spring – everything seems more doable, you have more energy it’s exactly the same. 

So then we move into day 17 to 22 and this is when ovulation occurs and this is what we call our Inner Summer. so this is often when a woman feels her best you are definitely more social you’re feeling fresh, fun and flirty. this is often a time if you play sports that you will have your best performance, you might kick so many more goals in soccer or whatever sport you play, you’re just feeling your absolute best and that again correlates with how we feel in summer. so it’s a really great time to make plans with friends go out to enjoy yourself. 

Then as we come to the end of our cycle roughly days 23-29 this is our inner Autumn and so again this is where we’re starting to quieten down as we go back into winter so it’s a really great time to finish projects, going inward nourishing your body and just winding down for that winter. There’s even different ways that they say we can eat without cycle in that first half of your cycle which is spring summer having a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables and then in the autumn winter as you wouldin autumn winter having things that are a lot more easier to digest like slow cooked meat soups Broths that kind of thing. so this happens to us every month and i think thats just absolutely incredible and if you can understand these different elements of your menstrual cycle you can really harness that power to help you in everyday life. 

I know for me I would always seem to get quite emotional around day 21 and this is before I would track my cycle and that would be something that wouldn’t usually bother me or upset me and by tracking my cycle and understanding these different phases it made sense to me that ok this happens every month it’s just time to slow things down and focus on myself and honour that inner autumn. So I hope this helps you I really really hope to help as many women as possible get in touch with their cycle and not dread it every month and think of it is this beautiful gift that we’ve been given it’s more than just our ability to create life it’s so much more and if you want to do some more research just look into the menstrual cycle and seasons. I really hope this is helped.

Kira Sutherland

Kira Sutherland is a practicing naturopath and nutritionist with a focus in sports nutrition. She is a lecturer at various universities in Sydney, sharing her wealth of information in both nutrition and naturopathy. She is a mother to a 14 year old daughter and has been in clinical practice for 25 years.

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Dear Daughter’s, what would I like you to know or what would I have liked to have known that I’ve learnt over the years what I think will be of great benefit?

I work with a lot of teenagers and I work with a lot of women having issues around eating, emotional eating, how they feel about their body and just what society tells us we should look like and you know social media is not making it any easier for us and I just see the distress is getting bigger and bigger for teenagers twenty-something you know for everybody actually but especially for you, for you in your youth. What I really wish for you is to understand there are many different body types. We always hear this – you come in all different shapes and sizes. But if you actually go into the science of it there are three main body types and we call then an ectomorph, a mesomorph and an endomorph. 

But we don’t all just fit into these three body types. There are actually combinations of each of these body times. In reality, we actually have 6 main body types. And some people are forever going to be trying to put on weight and they’ nerve can and they’re either very short or very tall and they’re that little bird-like body build and unfortunately, in social media and in the modelling industry that’s what we get shown super tall super skinny and they’re a ‘clothes rack’ and that’s their body type and were not all built like that. There are people that put on muscle a lot more easily than others there are people that put on body fat a lot more than others. But in reality, we all have these amazing bodies that all have strengths, and yes all of our bodies have weaknesses but I would really encourage you to learn about different body types and to learn about what your body type is and to try to embrace that because fighting your genetics and fighting your body type to fit into what society says is normal is gonna crush you over time and it’s going to depress you and it’s sometimes goals that are not attainable. So you know look at how tall your parents are or your siblings, look at your grandparents. Yes if your parents are holding too much bodyweight that might now be you, you don’t have to go down that route, you can go and educate yourself on healthy eating and nutrition. but I really would love you to learn about the different body types that there are in the world and embrace the fact that if you’re not the Skinny Mini you might be the one that lays down incredible muscle and there are all kinds of sports that you’re going to excel at that other people won’t. so it’s about finding your strengths and playing to your strengths is what is actually going to make you feel more at peace with your body and with yourself and that is probably the biggest gift I wish I had been given and I try to give to my daughter very frequently we often talk about body types and it’s really powerful to watch her understand that and then learn to embrace how she feels about her body. So that is what i wish for you all. I know people always say ‘I would love for you to find self-love’ but find out who you are and what you’re made of and what you’re going to look like.   And play to the strengths in how you’re built so that’s what I ask of you. thank you very much for having me record this session.

Brooke Blair

Brooke has been a guest on this podcast many times before. She is a Hawkesbury based women’s health physiotherapist who works with women of all ages, making everyone who walks through her door feel comfortable and empowered.

https://www.herhealthphysiotherapy.com.au/

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Dear Daughters. Pain is something you will experience across your life, however there are times that pain is not normal.

For One – your periods should not be painful.

For Two – Sex is definitely not something that should be painful.

There can be many reasons for pain, and all of these can be worked on. Please don’t bottle it up, and don’t let anybody tell you to ‘deal with it’ or that ‘it’s all in your head’ or something that you need to ‘deal with’ for the rest of your life.

Listen to your body, and if it’s not feeling right, speak up. There’s always help available.

Justine Curran

Justine Curran is a Sydney-based photographer – specializing in raw family photography + Children’s editorial/fashion portraits. Inspired by femininity, Motherhood and Summer vibes — Justine’s work is playful, emotive, and nostalgic.

She home schools her two children and will often share wisdom and insights into the world and motherhood that are very inspiring.

https://www.justinecurran.com.au

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Dear daughter, you are a wild creative being.

Everything you touch turns to gold.

 You are one with all and you get to choose your own reality. Choose love and magic will always follow.  In times of darkness, and there will be my love, remember to breathe. You will find the light within.

You get to own your own feelings as others own theirs.

The world is your mirror, a reflection of your agency. The playful self can seem like a trickster. But it is wiser than you think. Make sure to visit her every now and then. She will show you what is true.

Sing ever so loudly My darling. Let our ancestors hear from the stars. Your voice is powerful, my dear, don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. You are a wild creative being my love.

Laura Harrison

Herbs and healing were woven into my life from infancy. Growing up with holistic parents, the support and tool of natural medicine was our go to. As I grew up, it seemed that naturopathy was going to be my path, as it held my heart, my longing to learn and my need to connect deeper with herbs, as plants and healers.

I studied naturopathy at Nature Care College, graduating in 2011. From there my husband, Damian and I travelled to England to spend some months living with and learning with a knowledgeable herbalist in the picturesque Cotswolds. Here we gardened, foraged and created all things herbal as we emerced ourselves deeply into a land where a lot of the herbs we use today grow wildly in abundance. We attended herb festivals and met with a handful of the herbal greats of our time, including Matthew Wood, Sebastial Pole, Romy Fraser and of course our dear Anne McIntyre.

Moving home, coming back to my heartland of beautiful Bellingen we knew we wanted to start our own practice, and that is where Chamomile Naturopathy was born. The far majority of my work is with women, through life’s complexities and challenges. From menarche to menopause and all the chapters in between.

http://www.chamomilenaturopathy.com.au/

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Dear Daughters.

The other day, I called out to find my daughter and I saw her halfway down a muddy bank. She’d lost her shoes some time ago and her hair was curly and wild. Her face was beaming with radiance. She was deep in nature, deep in play and deep in happiness. What I want to teach her, what I wish I knew more when I was a young girl and what I want to learn more about as an adult and a guardian to my small folk is all about nature. 

I want my daughter to be skilled in reading the patterns of nature from the seasons to the specifics. The coming and going of creatures. The Wonder of fireflies, the breezes of springtime, the koala tracks up a tree, the honey smell of a tea tree in full blossom. 

I want her to be patient enough and quiet enough to watch the Platypus play in our river. to walk outside after the sun has gone to bed and to gaze up and watch a shooting star. I want her to be able to read the sky the stars and also the shapes between the Stars hiding their patterns within the darkness. 

I want her to be able to catch a fish and cook it on a campfire that she lit herself. 

I want her to feel her body soaked from the summer storm and give herself permission to Retreat in winter. I want her to be able to whittle herself some bush tools, even if it’s just for the fun of it. I want to walk in the forest, to swim under waterfalls and to find her way home again. 

I want her to be in her body, to feel the earth beneath her feet The Sensations of dirt, rocks sand, water and clay. 

I want her to stand tall knowing the world in which she is apart and knowing that she is a part of her world and I would love for all of our daughter’s to also take on life with this sense of belonging.

Alison Mitchell

Remember that your worth is not defined by what others think of you. When you’re growing up, it’s a challenging time of life because you are figuring out who you are as a person, but also feeling so desperate to fit in and be loved. You don’t have to put a label on yourself, now or ever, but you need to just keep doing what you love and what brings you joy and eventually that will evolve into your own unique loveliness. Don’t feel you need to change this to be like other people. This can be hard. There are so many people out there that don’t know how to feel good about themselves, and they will bring others down to make themselves feel better. Don’t be one of these people, but importantly don’t let these people hurt you. Hold on to the knowledge that you are capable, beautiful, strong, and worthy of love and adoration. Other people may seek to bring you down, by harming your self esteem, but this is a reflection of them, not you. Retain your kindness and your strength, and move on.

There is a saying that first you must love yourself. I think this is true in this case. If you don’t respect and love yourself you won’t believe yourself worthy of love, and dear daughter you are worthy. Somewhere there is a person, no, there are people that love you and adore you and don’t ask of you to change who you are.

I so want for my daughter to be kind and caring, but to be strong and resilliant at the same time. Be confident that you are awesome, just the way you are.

You can listen to the podcast on almost all channels…

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Guts and Girl Bits is now on teachable where you can find a collection of e-courses on womens health, children’s health and more.

http://gutsandgirlbits.teachable.com

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The post Dear Daughters appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

PCOS, also known as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is a complex condition that can significantly affect a woman’s quality of life. One of the biggest ways it does this is by impacting on a women’s ability to conceive and maintain a pregnancy, but it can also impact a woman’s self-esteem by making it difficult to lose weight, it causes acne and hair issues, such as too much hair where a woman doesn’t want it to be, and potentially thinning of scalp hair.

Of course, there is more to it than that, but those are the major things that women report as the issues they’re most upset by.

In this article and podcast I will discuss the lack of awareness and poor understanding surrounding PCOS, how it is often misunderstood and why its name has a role in this. I discuss the common, and not so common signs and symptoms of PCOS and talk about the driving factors that can cause PCOS to develop. I talk about how PCOS is often diagnosed and discuss some of the key ways PCOS can be addressed naturally.

You can listen to this article on the podcast links below, or in the embedded player.

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Understanding PCOS

Lack of awareness

Sadly, but not unexpectedly there is a lack of awareness and understanding of PCOS, with many people who have not been diagnosed not aware of the condition at all, but also women who have been diagnosed, and some health practitioners as well, not properly understanding the condition. A big part of this lack of awareness is the lack of research into the condition, but also I believe it is part of the bigger picture of gender bias in medicine, and many conditions that are specific to women do not have the attention they deserve, perhaps the exception being breast cancer. One of the other things that doesn’t help this lack of awareness and understanding is the name of the condition itself – polycystic ovarian syndrome.

The name makes a few false implications which cause overall confusion – so here are a few points I want you to know:

1. The condition doesn’t originate in ovaries and the condition is not all about ovaries either, after menopause, the condition can persist. It is more of a metabolic condition, with systemic high androgens and insulin resistance being the core drivers.
2. A PCOS ovary doesn’t actually have ‘cysts’, rather what you can see on ultrasound is immature follicles. Follicles are the little sacks that your oocyte, or eggs sit in waiting for the hormones from the brain to tell it to mature and then ovulate. The issue is these follicles in PCOS is they aren’t developing properly, so if we got them to develop fully these so-called cysts would be a baby (if met with a sperm).

A new name?

Many physicians and researchers have proposed a name change for PCOS, however, that was being proposed in 2013 and it’s 2020, so who knows when that will happen. I agree the condition does need a name change, as I feel PCOS is not a good representation. One of the names suggested which I like is ‘metabolic reproductive syndrome’, however other names suggested were Poly-follicular ovarian syndrome with metabolic dysfunction and/or hyperandrogenic manifestations (PFOS-MD and/or -HM).

The list of potential signs and symptoms is long for PCOS, which explains why there are so many women out there that don’t know why they have the symptoms they do.

PCOS Symptoms

Most common symptoms of PCOS include:

• Irregular periods or absent periods
• Acne
• Weight gain
• Excessive hair growth, also known as hirsutism. This can vary in locations and intensity and it will also be different dependant on your nationality.

Less well known, but still common symptoms:

• Anxiety and/or depression
• Fatigue
• Brain fog
• Skin tags
• dark patches on the skin
• low libido
• Sleep disturbances and snoring (Sleep apnoea can also be more common due to the higher level of androgens. Poor sleep can worsen PCOS by worsening insulin resistance.)

And more than that, there are other complications, especially regarding fertility and baby’s health. The higher levels of androgens can increase the risk of miscarriage and are also linked with some increased risk for baby such as higher birth weight. Women with PCOS also tend to have difficulty with breastfeeding and a higher risk of diabetes after birth.

Thankfully, many of these risks are modifiable by correcting the underlying causes of PCOS, which I will discuss later.

Causes of PCOS – How does the switch get turned on

There are different ways PCOS can express, and for these different subtypes, there are different causes.

The main cause is insulin resistance, which causes the male hormones androgens to become high. Insulin, when it is too high, can trigger more production of testosterone, but it can also lower the amount of SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin) which means our bodies can’t bind up the excessive testosterone as well, and so more is circulating our body, causing the symptoms of PCOS such as acne and hair issues. Insulin excess also affects our FSH : LH ratio which is important for ovulation, and high testosterone stops our follicles from maturing completely, so this means woman’s ability to ovulate is affected, and if that is affected their chances of conceiving is reduced, and oestrogen and progesterone balance is also affected.

There are different types of androgens, such as testosterone, DHEA and androstenedione, and depending on which one is elevated we can get an idea of what is driving your PCOS. For instance, if DHEA is high, we know that stress is a big driver.

It is also possible to have PCOS without insulin resistance and this is typically due to inflammation. this is a much rarer subtype, but certainly something to consider.

Something else to consider is your gut health can play a role in both hormone balance and metabolism. Your gut bacteria are responsible for so many things in the body, and if you’ve listened to my previous podcasts or read some of my other blog posts you’ll know that your microbiome is of vital importance in improving health. How does it affect PCOS? Well, if your microbiome is out of balance it can affect your metabolism, which can worsen insulin resistance. And an out of balance microbiome can also cause hormone problems, by allowing more of your ‘bad’ hormone metabolites to cycle back through the body.

Why do you have a PCOS ‘switch’ in the first place?

We know there is a genetic component to it, and there is some possibility that your genetic likelihood can be influenced by exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in past generations, substances that are passed through generations. So effectively, what chemicals and diet your Grandmother was exposed to will impact your risk for PCOS.

This transgenerational effect has been demonstrated in animal studies when mice were fed an obesogenic diet and were given substances that mimic a high androgen state to bring about a metabolic state of PCOS, and it was found that their subsequent generations also expressed this condition.

It was also found that women with PCOS had levels of chemicals in their system that were not in use anymore and was found to have been passed through in utero from their mothers and grandmothers.

These chemicals are increasing the activity of the androgens and also acting as obesogens, contributing to the weight gain and insulin resistance.

Diagnosis issues

So how common is PCOS? The prevalence is about 8-13%, effectively 1 in 10 women. But it is a condition that is it is both over-diagnosed in young girls, and under-diagnosed in older women.

One of the issues in getting diagnosed is that there isn’t one specific diagnostic criteria, so you can get mixed messages.

Three main diagnostic criteria exist- the National Institutes of Health, the Rotterdam criteria and the Androgen Excess Society criteria.

All of the criteria require all other possible endocrine disorders to be excluded.

My criteria of choice is the Rotterdam diagnostic criteria. It requires a female to have two of these three criteria:

1. Irregular periods
2. Clinical and/or biochemical hyperandrogenism
3. “Polycystic ovaries”

Many young girls are being prematurely diagnosed with PCOS. But it is normal for young girls to present with some symptoms of PCOS and this often resolves in a few years without intervention. It can take 3-6 years for a menstrual cycle to regulate itself, however if there is early intervention this can prolong this process, and it is thought that the most common recommendation given at this time – the oral contraceptive pill (OCP) can worsen insulin resistance, which perpetuates the condition.

What are the other causes that need to be excluded?

This could be conditions such as Cushing’s, Adrenal tumours or congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Screening would include blood tests for TSH, prolactin, FSH and anything else your practitioner feels warranted based on your signs and symptoms.

PCOS and Teens

Getting back to teenage girls and their periods, it’s not uncommon for girls to have irregular periods when they’re young, and this will usually regulate itself within 6 years. My personal preference in clinic is to not interfere with hormones in young girls but to allow their bodies to regulate themselves. If hormones are interfered with too early, then it will typically delay the regulation until later. This is relevant to not just herbs, but especially to things such as hormonal contraceptives.

A common understanding is that women with PCOS literally have cysts on their ovaries. But this isn’t the case, as the name implies. the polycystic ovarian appearance that some (but important to note, not all) women have on ultrasound is actually a higher count of immature eggs within their follicles. These eggs aren’t getting the signal from the brain to mature further, triggering ovulation and release.

If you can remember the diagnostic criteria, the presence of 2 of the 3 criteria is what it takes to get diagnosed, so if a woman has irregular periods and signs of high androgens, she can have PCOS without the presences of any ‘cysts’ on her ovaries at all.

A more positive perspective.

One of the perspectives I have heard before about PCOS which I love is that this is an evolutionary trait which in years gone by was protective. if you consider that being pregnant and giving birth was a life-threatening thing at worst, and a depleting event at best, it can make sense why a condition like PCOS which can reduce one’s fertility may be protective in tough times. Insulin resistance is beneficial in times of scarcity as it allows you to store more of the energy from foods, which in famine times if beneficial. In times of plenty such as now, this, unfortunately, works against us. In a time without contraception, women may have gone from one baby to the next without a break, which can be quite a high level of stress and depletion. So, for women with PCOS who have longer times between ovulation, and so fewer opportunities to conceive, this could be considered a positive thing. Nowadays this might not be much comfort especially if you’re wanting to conceive, but I believe anytime you can view your health from more a positive light it is beneficial, so ladies with PCOS you might like to shift your frame of thinking to more of an ‘I’m a survivor’ mindset.  

Other considerations for PCOS

Sleep

Sleep disturbances are reported to be twice as likely for women with PCOS. Studies show found that women with PCOS are more likely to report difficulty falling asleep, to have restless sleep occasionally and often feel severely tired. Sleep problems also occurred in women with PCOS who were in the normal weight range.

It’s still unclear how PCOS affects sleep but we know that the metabolic impacts of the condition play a big role. The hormones melatonin and cortisol are responsible for our sleep cycles to a large degree and these are strongly influenced by insulin resistance and elevated testosterone, as well as the stress placed on the body if obese.

Sleep apnoea is also often reported in women with PCOS, more often in those who are overweight. In those people who are considered to be ‘severely obese’, (BMI >40kg/m2) the prevalence of sleep apnoea in both men and women can be as high as 92%.

The mental health impacts of PCOS which is an increase of anxiety and depression have a bidirectional association with poor sleep quality and insomnia.

Weight loss and exercise is one of the best ways to improve sleep quality in women with PCOS, and if needed there are herbal medicines which can be of support.

Nutrients such as magnesium and calcium and the amino acid l-theanine can also be supportive to calm the nervous system and promote relaxation and sleep.

PCOS and Mental Health

Women with PCOS have higher rates of anxiety and depression. PCOS can be a very distressing condition for many women and this varies from person to person, with some of the highest reported contributors to the anxiety and depression is the impact to fertility, the impact on physical appearance and self-esteem such as weight issues, hirsutism and acne, and also the frustration about the lack of a clear cut solution, and a lack of awareness and understanding of the condition. There was a study that found that women with PCOS were physically active reported less depression and anxiety than those who were inactive. So, while I love to use herbal medicines to support mood and the nervous system, I do frequently recommend exercise to support mood in women with PCOS.

Potential pregnancy risks

There are a few things to consider when trying to conceive, as women with PCOS have an increased risk of some complications during pregnancy. The good news is that if PCOS has been treated, these risks return to almost the same levels as women who do not have PCOS. The risks include an increased likelihood of developing gestational diabetes, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preterm birth, and an increased risk of neonatal complications.

The increase in birth weight of babies born to women with PCOS also suggests an increased likelihood of c-section deliveries.

The treatment used in the study I mentioned before was anti-androgenic therapy, which means correcting hormonal balance before conceiving will improve pregnancy outcomes.

one small study looked at the incidence of gestational diabetes in women with PCOS and found the prevalence was 30.2%, and that these women had impaired blood sugar levels after having their babies. What we can take from this is that PCOS can have a long term impact on glucose metabolism, and again it highlights how important it is to try and take steps to improve your hormones and blood sugar level balance before conceiving.

I recommend that all couples do a preconception care program before conceiving, which at a minimum entails taking a high quality preconception care nutrient complex for 3-4 months before conceiving but if there are hormonal imbalances its important to work on this with a practitioner before trying to conceive.

Complications with breastfeeding

A lesser-known complication with PCOS is that it can cause some difficulties with breastfeeding and milk supply – however, this can also be supported by working on hormones before pregnancy, and with the support of a lactation consultant after birth. Thankfully not all women with PCOS experience difficulties breastfeeding and the information that says it is potentially problematic is only based on small studies. In the research that we do have available, the breastfeeding difficulties were only experienced in the first 3 months and seemed to regulate after that time.

Breastfeeding requires the hormones prolactin and oxytocin to work properly, but we also need adequate progesterone during pregnancy for the breast tissue to develop properly. Insulin resistance and high androgens can affect hormones in all these aspects.

How to manage PCOS

There are so many options for treating PCOS, and as it usually the case with naturopathic remedies, you get the best results when you are treated holistically. This means considering various things like what exactly is happening with your PCOS subtype.

The information I am giving you is a starting point to take to your practitioner to discuss whether it is right for you and to give you hope that there are so many possibilities to help.

while there have not been studies finding some remedies that tend to be universally helpful for most PCOS sub-types, and one of that does seem to be of great benefit is the amino acid Inositol. Taking 2g twice a day is my recommended dose for this.

Diet and lifestyle changes are great for treating insulin resistance, and while it’s tricky to find research specifically for this in PCOS we know it helps address the cause.

I recommend 150 minutes of exercise a week, which can be split into small blocks of exercise such as 30 minutes 5 times a week, or larger chunks such as 50 minutes three times a week. Eating a low GI/GL diet is also very important to address insulin resistance, and having a diet rich in antioxidants and low in inflammatory foods is also very helpful.

If you are overweight and have PCOS, then aiming to lose 5-10% of your body weight is a fantastic goal, and this amount seems to be the magic number that improves fertility rates and reduces risks for diabetes. Losing weight ideally would be done through a combination of diet and exercise.

Nutrients such as magnesium, b vitamins, particularly activated B vitamins, vitamin D and chromium can also be helpful.

Omega-3 fatty acids such as fish oil or algae oil can also help with some of the components of PCOS such as high cholesterol and inflammation.

Other herbs that I would consider is Berberine containing herbs such as Phelledendron which helps with improving insulin resistance and regulates blood lipid levels. There is also evidence showing that Black Cohosh can be helpful alongside other PCOS treatment.

The combination of Peony and Licorice has been looked at in Chinese medicine studies, and this is still a good inclusion in treatment, depending on the individual. Bulgarian Tribulus can also be helpful to regulate ovulation.

Spearmint can be helpful to reduce excessive androgens. I like this when used in a tea and is why I included it in one of my tea blends that supports skin health, to address this aspect.

Supporting gut health is also very important, as a poor microbiome can impair metabolism and worsen inflammation. So eating a diet rich in vegetables with lots of diversity is fantastic for improving the flora diversity in the gut, but it can also be helpful to take probiotics or prebiotics, so discuss this with your practitioner to make sure you’ve got the right type for you.

References

Bahri Khomami, M., Boyle, J. A., Tay, C. T., Vanky, E., Teede, H. J., Joham, A. E., & Moran, L. J. (2018). Polycystic ovary syndrome and adverse pregnancy outcomes: Current state of knowledge, challenges and potential implications for practice. Clinical Endocrinology, 88(6), 761-769. https://doi.org/10.1111/cen.13579

Bahri Khomami, M, Joham, AE, Boyle, JA, et al. Increased maternal pregnancy complications in polycystic ovary syndrome appear to be independent of obesity—A systematic review, meta‐analysis, and meta‐regression. Obesity Reviews. 2019; 20: 659– 674. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12829

Fernandez, R. C., Moore, V. M., Van Ryswyk, E. M., Varcoe, T. J., Rodgers, R. J., March, W. A., Moran, L. J., Avery, J. C., McEvoy, R. D., & Davies, M. J. (2018). Sleep disturbances in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: prevalence, pathophysiology, impact and management strategies. Nature and science of sleep, 10, 45–64. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S127475

Guerrero-Bosagna C, Weeks S, Skinner MK (2014) Identification of Genomic Features in Environmentally Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inherited Sperm Epimutations. PLOS ONE 9(6): e100194. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100194

Guo Z, Qiu H, Wang L, et al. Association of serum organochlorine pesticides concentrations with reproductive hormone levels and polycystic ovary syndrome in a Chinese population. Chemosphere. 2017 Mar;171:595-600. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2016.12.127.

Holton, S., Papanikolaou, V., Hammarberg, K., Rowe, H., Kirkman, M., Jordan, L., McNamee, K., Bayly, C., McBain, J., Sinnott, V., & Fisher, J. (2018). Fertility management experiences of women with polycystic ovary syndrome in Australia. European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, 23(4), 282-287. https://doi.org/10.1080/13625187.2018.1483020

Mo L, Mansfield DR, Joham A, et al. Sleep disturbances in women with and without polycystic ovary syndrome in an Australian national cohort [published online December 26, 2018]. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). doi:10.1111/cen.13922

Rosenwaks, Z. (2017). Polycystic ovary syndrome, an enigmatic syndrome begging for a name change. Fertility and Sterility, 108(5), 748–749. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2017.09.030

The post A Holistic Guide to PCOS appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Guts and Girl Bits – Podcast Episode #46

I am joined once again by Naturopath Lisa Costa-Bir to discuss the topic of thyroid nodules.

Thyroid nodules are typically identified via an ultrasound and indicate the presence of growth of abnormal cells within the thyroid gland. Nodules vary in their sizes and impact, and while some may wish to manage this, many people may be told they have a nodule yet can observe no negative impact from it. It can be a diagnosis that brings uncertainty and confusion, and so we would like to share information about what thyroid nodules can mean, as well as how to help manage them naturally.

The Podcast

Have a listen here or on the embedded player below:

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Get in touch with Lisa…

Lisa is a leading Naturopath in the Sutherland Shire. Lisa strives to show her clients that good health is not be simply the absence of disease but rather a state where they find mental, physical and spiritual balance in all aspects of their life.

Lisa is also a lecturer and clinical supervisor at Endeavour College of Natural Therapies where she mentors students completing degrees in Nutrition and Naturopathy and has  taught nutrition to dancers at ED5 performing Arts School.

• https://www.lisacostabirnaturopath.com
• 0404 070 142
• lisa@lisacostabirnaturopath.com

Check out previous podcasts that have featured Lisa here:

• PMS and PMDD
• Thyroid Health
• Ayurvedic Medicine
• How to lose weight without changing your diet (much)
• Adrenal fatigue (part 1)
• Adrenal fatigue (part 2)

Featured Webinar

Understanding Underactive Thyroid – Webinar

Have you been diagnosed as having hypothyroidism?

Do you struggle trying to understand the right things to do to help your thyroid out?

Perhaps you’re on thyroid medication but you still don’t feel any better for it.

Maybe you feel like you’ve got some symptoms that suggest your thyroid might be a bit sluggish, but your blood test come back as “normal”.

If that sounds like you then this webinar is for you. It will shed some light on the topic of under active thyroid and provide you with some tips to help yourself.

We will talk about:

• What are some of the common symptoms of under active thyroid
• How to interpret your test results and what to do if your test come back as normal but you still feel like something’s going on
• What it means if you’ve got high antibodies but your hormones are in normal range
• How to get the most out of your thyroid medication
• What are the nutrients that your thyroid needs to work properly
• What is peripheral thyroid hormone conversion and why is it important
• The right type of exercise to do for someone with hypothyroidism
• How your thyroid affects the hormones in your body such as in PCOS and adrenal fatigue
• How your diet can make a big impact on thyroid health
• What a naturopath can do to help thyroid problems

 

This webinar is awesome value at only $25 so to register today to get access .

 

As a bonus you will get my cheat sheet to understanding your thyroid hormone test results, plus 5 recipes to nourish the thyroid.

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The post How to Manage Thyroid Nodules Naturally appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.