IVF Prep at HealthYouniversity

A new Lancet study on IVF add-ons made headlines, and acupuncture was one of the treatments under review.  Dr. Lee Hullender Rubin joins Dr. Susan Fox to discuss what the study actually found, what it got right, and what it missed.  Dr. Lee explains that 

• studies using one or two sessions on transfer day was an insufficient dose.
• research was done on fresh embryo transfers, but almost nobody does fresh anymore.
• “sham acupuncture” isn't placebo..

This episode is for you if:

• you saw the headlines and want the full picture
• you’re planning IVF and considering acupuncture 
• you’re thinking acupuncture on embryo transfer day will help
• you want to understand what "sham" acupuncture is and why it matters

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs 

Want to know more about the latest IVF acupuncture study? Read the full article here: https://www.rosefinchhealth.com/blog/acupuncture-ivf-major-new-study-fuller-story 

Website: https://www.rosefinchhealth.com/ 

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

Ever wonder why one glass of wine leaves you fine and the next one wrecks you? Paul Lagerstedt invented ALKAA® , a patented sachet you drop right in your glass to pull out the compounds in alcohol that makes you feel bad. He joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about what's behind that post-drink crash, and how it affects you if you're trying to conceive, going through IVF, or dealing with perimenopause. 

Paul explains the difference between absorbing and adsorbing. He also busts the myth that vodka and tequila are the "clean" drinks, and talks about the alcohol tax most of us pay with that morning-after “blah” feeling. 

If you could treat the glass to remove toxic compounds, would you?

This episode is for you if:

• you've noticed alcohol hits you harder than it used to
• you're trying to conceive but want to enjoy your social life at certain times in your cycle
• you're in perimenopause and drinks just don't sit right anymore
• you want one simple thing to try tonight

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs 

Website: https://alka.com/

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

Every single cell in our body needs glutathione.  Most of us are low without knowing it. 

Dr. Gina Nick is a naturopathic physician, researcher, and the world's leading expert on glutathione, which she has penned “Vitamin G”.  She joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about why this master antioxidant keeps showing up at the center of unexplained infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, and autoimmune dysfunction that standard labs keep missing.

She explains that glutathione lives inside the mitochondria of every cell, what happens when environmental toxins and aging deplete it, and why the form you take matters as much as the amount. More is not always better with this one. 

They also get into perimenopause, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, what Tylenol does to your glutathione levels, and why this conversation matters for male factor fertility too. 

This episode is for you if 

• you've been told your infertility is unexplained and something still doesn't feel resolved 
• you've had recurrent losses or failed transfers and want to know what else to look at
•  you have a known or suspected autoimmune condition 
• you're preparing for an IVF cycle and want to know what you can do before, during, and after
•  you're in your late thirties or early forties and starting to notice perimenopause symptoms you want one simple, practical thing you can start today.

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here:  https://healthyouniversity.co/programs 

Website: https://drgina.com/

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

For years, women with endometriosis were told their pain was normal. By the time they try to conceive, the disease can have progressed to be a real problem.

Dr. Susan Fox sits down with Dr. Farideh Bischoff, Chief Medical Officer, and Penny Wan, co-founder and chairwoman of HerAnova, to talk about their new innovative blood test that can detect endometriosis without surgery.

You'll learn why 40% of infertility cases are linked to endometriosis.

Retrograde menstruation happens in every woman, so why do only some develop endo? Dr. Bischoff gets into what we still don't understand about this disease.

A big takeaway is to realize that pain is not normal. We talk about what happens when it gets dismissed and what that costs women later on.

We also get into what the HerResolve test looks for in your blood and why a 97% accuracy rate is a big deal.

And why catching this early, even in your teens, can change everything about a woman's reproductive future.

This episode is for you if:

• you've had painful periods and been told it’s normal
• you've had failed IVF transfers with no clear explanation why
• you've been bounced between specialists and still don't have a diagnosis
• you're heading into a frozen embryo transfer and wondering if your body is ready
• you're a provider who wants to offer your patients something more 
• you know someone who is suffering 

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs 

HerAnova: https://heranova.com/

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

She spent six years trying to become a mother. Male factor infertility caught too late, a stillbirth, egg freezing, a divorce and then gestational surrogacy in the middle of COVID with a therapist who was not trained in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). 

What Leslie Lopez found on the other side was her daughter - and her calling.

Leslie is an independent mother and host of the Mothers in Arms podcast, whose mission is to address the emotional side of the reproductive journey. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about what the fertility world gets right and what it gets wrong. 

Learn why male factor infertility is still being caught too late (at home tests can fall short) and what "test, don't guess" really means when morphology and DNA fragmentation are the issue. 

The words “childless” and “child-free” are not the same.  Hear from Leslie why that difference matters. 

Understand the importance of having a therapist trained in ART. 

Discover the importance of sharing with your donor-conceived children the right information at the right time.

This episode is for you if:

• you're navigating infertility and feeling alone
• you're considering surrogacy or donor conception and don't know where to start
• you've been through ART and felt like the emotional side was an afterthought
• you're an “independent” parent or thinking about becoming one
• you're wondering when and how much to tell your donor-conceived child their story
• you're in the fourth trimester and seeking mental health support

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs  

Mother in Arms Podcast : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mothers-in-arms/id1768849257

Donor Conceived Community: https://www.donorconceivedcommunity.org/ 

US Donor Conceived Council: https://www.usdcc.org/ 

IVF and Surrogacy Calculator (Tsong Law): https://www.tsonglaw.com/ivf-calculator

Gift of Surrogacy Foundation: https://www.giftofsurrogacyfoundation.org/ 

Carrot Fertility: https://www.get-carrot.com/ 

Embrya Health: https://embrahealth.com/ 

Resolve Support Groups: https://resolve.org/get-help/support-groups/ 

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

Jodi Scott was pregnant when she opened her first aid cabinet and started reading the ingredient labels. What she found surprised her. The products people trusted for cuts, burns, and skin irritation contained ingredients she no longer felt comfortable putting on herself or her family.

So she built Green Goo to prove that plant based first aid works.

Jodi is the founder of Green Goo, a plant based first aid and herbal wellness company built from family remedies, herbal medicine, and a belief that what we put on our bodies matters as much as what we put in our bodies.. 

Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox for a conversation about skin, hormones, inflammation, and why the products sitting in your bathroom may be affecting your whole health and fertility.

You'll learn:

• Ingredients like parabens, phthalates, petroleum, and synthetic fragrances are still found in many skincare and first aid products.
• These chemicals are now being found in follicular fluid, amniotic fluid, and placental tissue.
• How the skin and nervous system are connected.
• Why chronic inflammation and high cortisol can affect fertility.
• Three to four months before conception to reduce toxic exposures to eggs, embryos and fetus.
• How your skin sends signals that prioritizes survival or reproduction 

If you've cleaned up your diet and supplements but never thought much about your lotion, this episode will make you look at your medicine cabinet a little differently.

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs  

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

She woke up with pain in her side and went to the doctor expecting an explanation.  She walked out having been told she might have late-stage ovarian cancer.  What it turned out to be was a rare disease documented in only 154 people on the planet. 

The next question Lauren Makler asked her doctor was, "Can I freeze my eggs?" The answer was no. They didn't know what caused her disease, and they weren't willing to flood her abdomen with hormones to find out.

So her sister froze eggs for her. By some miracle, Lauren kept her ovaries. And the experience of staring down egg donation as her only path forward, she was horrified by what she found.  Her conviction that there must be a better way to grow her family became the seed for Cofertility.

Lauren is the co-founder and CEO of Cofertility, a human-first fertility ecosystem that lets women freeze their eggs for free when they donate half. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about why the conventional egg donation model is broken and what egg sharing looks like when done at scale.

You'll learn how egg sharing differs from traditional egg donation and why cash compensation, which is tiered by heritage, education, race, and "pedigree" was the first thing that struck Lauren as wrong. 

We explain that anonymity is unfeasible with companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe. 

She explains how a single traditional donor's eggs can end up in 25 families and why Cofertility caps at 3 donor cycles.

We talk about secondary infertility.

And why women in medicine experience infertility at twice the rate of the general public.

Finally, we highlight that egg freezing is not an insurance policy but rather an assurance policy.

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

She had a baby. Then her cycle disappeared — and nobody told her what that actually meant, or when it might come back, or whether she could get pregnant again before it did. Rose McKenzie has spent over a decade helping women understand their hormones in the moments when they feel most invisible: irregular cycles, postpartum, perimenopause. And she'll tell you plainly — the postpartum body is not a mystery. It's a system coming back online. The problem is nobody's watching the data.

Rose is the clinical manager at Mira and a natural family planning practitioner with more than 10 years of experience helping women use hormone tracking not just for fertility, but for whole-body health awareness. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox for a conversation about what's actually happening to your hormones after birth — and why tracking them postpartum is one of the most informed things a new mother can do, whether she wants to conceive again, avoid conceiving, or simply understand her own body.

You'll learn why your hormones don't flip back on like a light switch after birth — and what the slow train analogy actually tells us about your return to cycling, why ovulation can return as early as eight weeks postpartum even while breastfeeding — and why that matters more than whether your period has come back, what the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM) actually requires — and why almost everyone gets "kicked out" of it sooner than they expect, why a positive LH surge is not confirmation of ovulation — and what progesterone has to do with it, what "cycle wonky" means and why your first one to four cycles back are not your baseline, what the teeter-totter between prolactin and the body's drive to ovulate looks like on a hormone chart, how intentionally disrupting your nursing pattern — carefully and with support — can help jump-start ovulation for those trying to conceive while still breastfeeding, why tracking postpartum hormones led to two PCOS diagnoses that conventional medicine would have missed entirely, what Mira actually measures and why an LH strip alone doesn't give you the full picture, and why Mira is data — not a diagnosis, not a treatment plan, and not a standalone method for avoiding pregnancy. 

This episode is for you if you've just had a baby and have no idea when your hormones will return or what "normal" even looks like right now, you're breastfeeding and want to understand whether pregnancy is actually possible for you right now, you want to conceive again and aren't sure if your body is hormonally ready, you've been assuming your period has to come back before ovulation does, you're curious about natural family planning and want to understand how hormone tracking fits into it, or you want to stop floating around postpartum and start actually knowing what your body is doing. 

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs  

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

She went through infertility twice. The first time, she learned the cause was male factor — and nobody talked about what could be done about it. The second time, “unexplained” — which, as Dr. Susan pointed out, is less a non-diagnosis. Both times, Gabie Peytchev found herself piecing together support from different corners, not knowing who to trust, spending money on the wrong things, and making decisions from fear.

She built Wova Health to help others avoid the same trials..

Gabie is the founder of Wova — the name drawn from the Italian word for egg, uova, reframed to center the woman and the ovum at the heart of the fertility journey. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox for a conversation about what coordinated, whole-body fertility support looks like — and why the IVF clinic, for all its excellence, was never designed to provide it.

You'll learn how Wova Health’s multidisciplinary model differs from seeing a nutritionist or a therapist in isolation. You’ll understand why the IVF doctor can only work with what you give them — the egg quality, the sperm quality, the uterine environment — and what that means for what whole body fertility care covers.  Beyond nutrition, there’s oral health, sleep disorders, EMF exposure, environmental toxins, smart technology, movement, and mental health to consider.  And you’ll learn that  unexplained infertility, which affects one in three couples can be helped in the 3 to 4 month window of egg development and the 74 day sperm window, and why ChatGPT can be a starting point, but is not a reliable source of action to take.

This episode is for you if you've been told you have been given a diagnosis of unexplained infertility, if you're heading into IVF and haven't yet addressed your whole-body health; if you've been piecing together your support team and they are not talking to each other; if you’ve been carrying the emotional weight of your fertility journey alone.  And if  you want to know what whole-body fertility coaching looks like.

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

Three women who've spent years inside the PCOS conversation — one as a clinician, one as a hormone tracking specialist, one as a board-certified OBGYN and culinary medicine physician — and they still said, out loud, that nobody has all the answers. That alone makes this episode worth your time.

Today Dr. Susan Fox is joined by Rose McKenzie, clinical manager at Mira, and Dr. Basma Faris, founder of her namesake practice and creator of the Adopt a Mediterranean Diet for PCOS course, for a conversation about what it actually looks like to track, understand, and act on your own hormonal and metabolic data — especially when you have PCOS.

Mira is a medical-grade at-home hormone monitor tracking four hormones using fluorescent technology. A CGM — continuous glucose monitor — shows you in real time how your blood sugar responds to food, stress, sleep, and where you are in your cycle. Together, these tools are changing what it means for a woman with PCOS to know her own body.

You'll learn 

• why PCOS is a metabolic disorder on a spectrum — and why where you are on that spectrum is not where you have to stay
• what a 2023 University of Toronto study revealed about how glucose levels shift between the follicular and luteal phases — and what that means if you have insulin resistance
• why 70% of people with PCOS have insulin resistance — and why the other 30% matters just as much
• how high insulin drives testosterone production, how testosterone impairs insulin sensitivity, and why breaking that cycle requires interrupting it at multiple points simultaneously
• what Mira hormone data actually looks like in a postpartum breastfeeding woman with PCOS — and why this population is almost always missed
• why elevated fasting glucose and elevated post-meal glucose are two different problems pointing to two different root causes
• how long to use a CGM before you've learned what you need to know, and 
• what "glucorexia" is — and why more data isn't always better.

This episode is for you if you have PCOS and feel like every protocol you've tried was designed for someone else;, you're postpartum and nobody has looked closely at your hormones; you're tired of being told what to eat without being monitored when you follow the rules; you want to understand the insulin-testosterone feedback loop in plain language; you're a provider curious about integrating hormone and metabolic tracking into your PCOS care; or you've been handed a diagnosis and told to manage it — when what you actually want is to reverse it.

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz:  http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress:  View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy:  https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186 

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...