Dr. Barter talks with the founder of FabFertile, Sarah Clark about functional and natural infertility strategies.

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Transcript

Intro [00:00:03] Welcome to the Fearless Health podcast with host Dr. Ann-Marie Barter. Dr. Barter is on a mission to help people achieve their health and wellness goals and help men and women live their best lives fearlessly. Dr. Barter is the founder of Alternative Family Medicine and Chiropractic in Denver and Longmont, Colorado.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:00:23] Sarah, thank you so much for being on today. I’m so excited to have you and talk all things in fertility.

Sarah Clark [00:00:29] Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:00:31] Awesome. So I am curious what got you into being a fertility coach? What’s your story?

Sarah Clark [00:00:38] Yeah. So I have my own journey with infertility, and I kind of share a little bit how that that came to be. So in my early 20s, I had a regular periods. I had this weird, fun little rash on my chest. I had at that point I had yeast infections and I always joked in my early 20s, I was having menopausal hot flashes because I was an H.R. at the time, I thought that was kind of funny, but it turns out that I was so I so I went off of the sort of I had this plan of getting married at twenty five and had my kids at twenty eight. So I still had those irregular cycles and I had acne as well. And then so the first line of defense was to be put on the birth control pill. So that’s one of the birth control pill and, you know, regulating my cycle, but in a in a non natural way and the acne didn’t really go away. So then when I was twenty eight, one of my kids, I went off the pill slightly. Before that, my periods were still irregular and that was still there. The yeast infections were still there. So I went to my OB-GYN and then I was told that I had premature ovarian failure, which is the loss of function of the ovaries before the age of 40. Until the only way I’d ever have children is by using donor eggs and beat her up on herself and the IVF brochure saying, OK, you know, and and I didn’t take any time to connect any of those other symptoms, and I went straight to the fertility clinic, got on a list for donor eggs. This is 18 years ago. My daughters just turned 18. So when you said donor eggs, people are like, I don’t know what you’re talking about now. We’ve got embryo adoption, embryo donation and a whole host of things going on with with the fertility clinic industry. And so we went on to list four donor eggs and we’re lucky enough on the first trust transfer to have our daughter. And then a year after that, we had two embryos left over. One had my kids close together and went back, and I was super stressed because I had this, you know, this mission have them close together, and that didn’t work one on a list for a separate donor. And then we’re lucky enough on the first fresh transfer to have my son and he’s 15. And so then fast forward, after I had my daughter, I had a really like nine colds every club into a sinus infection. I thought it was a great idea anyway. It’s very cold. Not a great idea. I completely destroyed my beneficial gut a gut bacteria. As part of getting chronic sinusitis, chronic bladder infections, peeing blood became allergic to all the antibiotics that I had thought I had fleas. At one point it was highest, and from the antibiotics, yeah, it was fun. And then I had vertigo, toenail infections, dandruff. And then I also had chronic yeast infections. Just thought it was normal to wear like a liner all the time and and never really properly diagnosed as, you know what that was. So, and at the time I was still in, H.R. wanted to bring coaching into the corporate environment to go life coaching course. And that’s when I had my own personal wakeup call. I wanted to go on to health and wellness, then took a health coaching course, and that’s why I discovered to had these food sensitivities. So for me, I’m sensitive to gluten and dairy, and I found out later corn. When I took out those those inflammatory foods, the bladder infections of sinus infections and yeast infections started to go away. And then a few years after that discovered it was corn as well as gut infections. So I. H. Pylori Streptococcus and fungal overgrowth so worked on that. And it’s not just what the diet and the gut infections were done, the lifestyle really slowing down. I didn’t discover this choice until I was forty four year menopause, so it was too late for me. But I but I had people really using the tools of using the functional approach to functional medicine approach to really help them make changes to their their diet and lifestyle, using functional lab testing to help them get to the bottom of what’s going on with their infertility. For me, it was it was too late.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:04:25] And wow, that is quite a story. And I mean, honestly, it sounds like you walked into the fertility clinic. You were not given any options other than IVF. Was there anything that you knew outside of the realm that would have helped? I mean, clearly now you’re in the functional medicine realm and you know that that actually creates fertility, but. But I mean, any options, additional options given to you.

Sarah Clark [00:04:53] I know I was literally given for my obligation was given that brochure to the fertility clinic. I didn’t even get a second opinion for the premature ovarian failure. I was like, OK, my FSA. Each was a night in the 90s. I have regular cycles couple of times a year. OK, that’s what it is. I’m like a somewhat smart, educated person, right? Like, why did I not get a second opinion anyway? Went straight in there. Thought that was my only option. I had no idea these other health issues were connected to my infertility. Now, as I learn more about all this stuff and it’s still a continual learning curve, what your health and all that. But really, looking back, I had these dark circles under my eyes when I was 12, which is indicative of food sensitivity for me. Was it gluten all along? You know, I have each of our one one of one snap of I think it’s I’m not sure which one it is, but there is. I do have at the stage of our gene, which then impairs my ability to light. So was the fact that I was we were raised in a house that was in a forest. It was a cedar house that was regularly blessed with ants and we always sprayed the house. You know, I have been fertility. My brother has blood cancer, my diet, my my dog died of cancer at 10 back that I was in handling all those environmental toxins that then, you know, the tipping point was the fact that for a payoff to be the first line of defense is to take you now to go on birth control. I was on it for 10 years, plus HRT did that to the point for food sensitivities, get infections. All the other host of things that I’m still freaking dealing with is that we’ll never know.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:06:30] I mean, I think I definitely think the environmental toxins contribute to genetic snips, a.k.a. amped up our in everything else. We know that environmental toxins are rampant, especially their sprays. We know that a lot of the things that sprays are carcinogenic. That’s right. And clearly, yes. So what do you think of birth control now? Because at this point, a lot of women, they come in with endometriosis, PCOS, they’re given birth control. So what’s your what’s your thought on on that as a first line of defense or the only line of defense really in in these in some of these conditions?

Sarah Clark [00:07:14] To me, it’s a Band-Aid approach, and a lot of times that’s so I speak to women all the time. Everyone comes to me and they typically find the functional approach less. They’re not like the first line defense is you go to your OB-GYN, they refer you to the RV, you go to the fertility clinic and they’re like, Great, you’re a great candidate for Iowa or an IVF. Off you go. You do on birth control to regulate cycles even before that. So everyone that comes to me has been struggling for years. And typically, when I ask them if they’ve been on long term hormonal birth control and a very high percentage of people struggle with infertility have been the ones I’ve talked to. Hundreds of people that are that are they were when they were put on the pill. It was not for prevention. They went on because they had a regular cycles. You know, PMS, acne, all sorts of things going on with their cycle. So the first line defense is here’s the pill, which is a Band-Aid approach to get to the root cause. And then they go off and those things are still there and worse. And now they’re struggling with infertility is there because it really does, because basically the pill will then impact your ability to absorb nutrients. You can eat this. You see it all the time. People eating organic, nutrient dense, beautiful diet. No, no processed foods. But then there are well-fed but malnourished, so it’s not being able to absorb it. And we do eye hair tissue mineral analysis test to be able to see, Oh yeah, these things are off. And then also the pill predisposing you to those food sensitivities and gut infections. So we see this all the time with people that are working that we’re working with. There’s food sensitivities and gut infections, and they would no one would think most people aren’t thinking when they have infertility, they have a food sensitivity or a gut infection.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:08:50] Yeah. And so ultimately, if somebody comes in to see you, how are you identifying these things? Like, What’s your approach if someone comes in and they say, You know what? My doctor told me I’m infertile, which is a terrible thing to say to somebody because they’re pretty devastated at that point. But what’s your approach with these women as they come in?

Sarah Clark [00:09:14] Yeah. So basically, as I say, most people, I’ve gone through multiple failed IVF with the emotional heartache associated with that and financial cost, as well as I was sharing, sharing my information on my podcast. People are starting to come before they go down that road, but most people are coming after. So really, we start people off by doing the elimination diet and we’re coaching couples beginning. I was just coaching women, even even though it is female factor in fertility that we believe that we primarily deal with unexplained low AMH and diminished ovarian reserve POI and Poppy because of my story. Those are the ones where we’re mainly dealing with.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:09:53] Can you define those terms because I don’t think a lot of folks know what those are?

Sarah Clark [00:09:57] Oh yeah. So premature ovarian failure, which is what I had said. So the last the function of the ovaries before age 40 and now they’re calling it premature ovarian insufficiency is the same thing basically being told. And so for me, I was diagnosed at twenty eight and most people that I speak to their, they’re diagnosed in like the late 20s, early 30s. And sometimes it is a true diagnosis of, you know, all your all the all your hormones are flatlined and it is is, you know, triple and other times we’re seeing that people’s engine is fine. It could have estrogen dominance and maybe their progesterone is low on their testosterone is low. And so we’re doing the Dutch test to see what’s happening with your hormones. And in a conventional approach, it would be like treat the numbers or we don’t. Our first thing is not like, Oh, bioidentical hormones, let’s like we dig into, well, why? Like, why is that often? Why do so many people are coming to us have thyroid dysfunction? So, yeah, so the back it up. So basically, we start off by doing the elimination diet. So we have people, both partners. And even though it’s female bathroom fertility, the man’s or whether to say My sperm is fine, everything’s great. Picking out those top allergens, which are dairy, gluten, soy, corn, peanuts, eggs. Take those out for 10 days, systematically reintroduce them as the gold standard for a month, or to determine if there’s a food sensitivity and see exactly how how food impacts your body with people. Bring back in corn flares of asthma, bring back in dairy, feel flimsy and gluten. You can you can have digestive issues, so it’s it’s different for everyone. And then we tweak it with the food sensitivity test. Now there’s a lot of people who say maybe a food sensitivity test is a good snapshot in time. Do we really need it? We because people on the fertility journey, everyone’s in a in a big panic at the, you know, the biological clock. So we well, we will have a great sensitivity test there to tweak it. And especially if you’ve been on birth control or antibiotics or chronic stress, these sort of things potentially that will then lead to a leaky gut. You could have the food sensitivity test come back and your intolerance, all your favorite foods, which I had that as well. But then as you start to heal the gut and heal all these these issues, you can potentially bring most of the foods back in if there’s foods that are really high sensitivity and we are seeing with the people that we’re working with. It’s a high sensitivity to gluten, so not not celiac disease, but not a celiac gluten sensitivity. So. And that’s that’s not necessarily showing up on the food sensitivity test. The world will use a leap m r t test or we’re now digging into the Zoomer Zoomer bundles. So there’s a zoomer wheat, sumer corn zoomer dairy. You can really drill down. I had Dr. Tom O’Brien on the podcast talking about he’s a world renowned expert, Trizano. I’m gluten and him talking about the current celiac test only test for one protein and gluten. There’s over 75. The Zoomer bundles will look for twenty six, so it’s not perfect, but at least it’ll give like a really good clue. And then we’ll say, Wait, if it’s really high, we want the whole household to be gluten free. That’s why it’s important to partner to be off, you know, having beer drinking or having a bun and then coming back to just the part, you know, kiss his partner and then that’s then causing inflammation in their body for four months on end. So it’s really important to get both partners into the into the diet piece. And if we find that there is additional sensitivities with gluten to really, really dig into that piece with diet, I think a lot of I just did. It didn’t episode today on on my podcast talking about what people get wrong with diet and they they get wrong, the gluten light. Everyone’s like, Oh, we’re going gluten free, but they’ve really only gone gluten light and not really fully taken it out with the elimination diet. They they also what they’ll do. There’s a craze like they’ve done Whole30, keto, vegan, paleo, all of those and didn’t notice any changes. I think a lot of times people just think with the diet piece that it’s just digestive digestive issues. But really, it could be like skin issues, mood joint things that people are missing there. And they just think, you know, that could be normal is coming, but not normal. So that like the diet piece, we regularly see people getting that wrong because they think and they could be having that, you know, super healthy organic, nutrient dense diet, because more often than not, those are the kind of people that are coming to me. They’re like, they’ve done all these changes, but maybe the lettuce that you’re eating, that’s super healthy. Maybe that’s not healthy for your body.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:14:34] Mm hmm. I like first off, I’ve never heard the term gluten, right? I think that’s great. I’ve never heard that. But I think you’re correct. Most people don’t realize how much gluten is in. And I mean, I think once you’ve made this, I didn’t realize this. But when you’ve made this a lifestyle, I’ve been doing pretty much gluten free for about 20 years. And I started like paleo when it was the low fat craze. And so that was really awkward to be sitting down with like a plate, like a steak during the low fat craze. And there were no gluten free foods, so I learned to eat pretty much doing paleo initially that way, right when I had to do my elimination diet for a very long time because I was sick. But I think now you have so many more options in there, so much more confusion. And so through the years, I feel like I’ve been able to keep up. But I see people when you hand them an elimination diet, they’re like, What do I do? And I love another piece. You said, that thing is so important when you talked about. The diets, the Cheetos and Paleo is that people are getting these wrong and that everybody, you know, these diets, when you’re running these tests, it’s individualized for each person. I think that that’s so critical because you’ll see somebody come in, especially women doing the keto diet and helping weight on it. And it’s maybe because they’re eating lots of squash and lots of these vegetables that are actually not included in the traditional keto diet. So maybe they’re not doing it correctly. Maybe the diet doesn’t really work for their body, whatever it is, but there’s no diet. It’s right for everybody. It just doesn’t work that way. So I just think that those things are so important and just really getting to the root of what is causing the infertility. But you said something interesting, which I 100 percent agree with. You said there’s a lot of thyroid issues. Do you want to go into that a little bit with infertility?

Sarah Clark [00:16:33] Yeah, we see this very regularly, either undiagnosed hypothyroidism. So people are saying, oh, first of all, so undiagnosed. They don’t even know that the test. So basically for, you know, for functional liking and below two or one point five. So they’re just looking at the test each and maybe there’s this five or in the fours. And I was like, Oh, it’s fine. So that being missed and then not looking at the full panel. So I’m missing that and looking at antibody. So we regularly see people actually being undiagnosed. Hashimoto’s so no one, even like there was antibodies and people were like, Oh, it’s fine and nothing was really done. And then while you’re doing what you’re dealing with, repeat miscarriage or unexplained infertility, that’s not unexplained infertility if you have an autoimmune disease. So we see that or then the subclinical hypothyroidism, so it’s not actually it’s not actually the thyroid is going to be the guy. There’s the issue going on in the gut or there’s food sensitivities. Other issues going on in the thyroid has gone on. So the three or four is also we. So it’s a really important. We always look at the full panel.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:17:35] Yeah. Or the thyroid markers just to see. I mean, and I think for women especially, it is just off the charts almost every time I personally see a high test age Hashimoto’s is following. And even if the age is normal, a lot of times there’s Hashimoto’s completely normal, not even like functionally normal, not even quote unquote like in the reference range. And one other important point I really love that you made me too, is men and women need to both be on this diet. And do you think that that’s really important? I mean, I think it’s best that both parents have high mineral status, high nutrition status because, you know, the baby is the sperm and egg are made for months in advance before conception. So, I mean, do you really coach your your clients in in that regard?

Sarah Clark [00:18:30] Absolutely. Yeah. Beginning I was just coaching women. And then there be even, you know, infertility impacts all aspects of your life, your relationship, your career, your joy, your social life and then just coaching women. You’re missing the whole connection with the partner. And maybe the partner thinks that you know the stereotypically, but maybe he thinks that he has to be strong for her, that he can’t really, you know, obviously, he’s equally hurting. He wants to have his, you know, have his child as well. So he’s sometimes don’t even know what he can do. Maybe he’s just taking multivitamins or he’s being very supportive, but he’s like, What else can I do? And so bringing them together, sometimes they’re having conversations that they never even talked about before. Maybe like, Oh, I know you felt that way. So the emotional side of this is is really key. And then from a physical standpoint, we’re looking at it. We’re doing a blood chemistry review not to diagnose but to educate. You really say, you know what’s been missed on his blood cam, even though he says his sperm is normal? You know, is there something been missed that way? And then we can recommend functional testing. We see something is off. We see regularly see infections being passed back and forth. H. Pylori being passed back and forth with no symptoms, whether it passed through through saliva. So we see that quite a lot with with partners. And that would be best if if if the testing wasn’t done and we’d be able to see the blood, can Rubio to see, oh, wait, there’s, you know, issues with infection. So we’re seeing that, but that the emotional side of having both partners together because it’s women that always reach out to me, they’re the ones doing all this research, doing all the work, you know, all these changes to their diet and potentially the partner doesn’t really know what to do. Mm hmm.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:20:10] So you’re seeing a lot of H. Pylori infections, are you seeing other infections? Quite a bit. You said gut infections in your story. You had Candida. Like, what are you generally seen in the infection realm?

Sarah Clark [00:20:23] Yeah, an infection. So we do a lot of people with with Pompeo at the low image. So basically, those are the kind of ones that people have been told. It’s donor eggs for you. You know, it’s nothing’s going to work. And we’ve helped people get pregnant naturally after, you know, three or four months. So and so with those we see people with like parasites, you can get a parasite inside of North America, don’t you, to travel parasite bacterial overgrowth, fungal issues, the H. Pylori, we see that regularly. So for people with nine different infections, you know, so there is there’s typically something going on in the gut. And so we use the GI map, that’s where we usually see that if there’s gluten sensitivity in there, that the anti gluten ways we actually see that one in there, if that’s high, then it’s indicator of high gluten sensitivity sort of making sure that to really be very diligent about gluten in your medication, in your personal care and you know, you can be exposed in a whole bunch of places, becoming a really detective to make sure your you are being gluten free because you can be gluten, you could be getting gluten somewhere and something that you’re doing.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:21:31] You cut gluten. How long does it take you to to reverse, you know, kind of a middle of the road infertility case?

Sarah Clark [00:21:43] You know, it’s it is so different because people come in and they would say, oh, it’s unexplained infertility or it’s it’s low, so it really depends like we’ve had someone with like she and Amy 2.0 nine, which is basically like the lowest you can get. Like blow, even though even though AMH, though, is only the indicator of how well you’ll do with iron. One egg. So, so for her, in this instance, she actually had multiple gut infections. She had she actually had celiac disease, undiagnosed celiac disease that was not picked up. And and then she had. So she found the VIP diet as we did the elimination diet. And then we had her do the VIP diet, the autoimmune protocol diet and just which is quite strict. And she she was really, really diligent with that. And we dress the gut infections and four months later, she was pregnant naturally. So she just had her little boy in September. So yeah.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:22:45] Mm hmm. That’s great. Do people. So when I’m doing a protocol, I tell people not to get pregnant due to the same thing. Or do you just like because you really want to clean you out?

Sarah Clark [00:22:57] Yeah, it is. It is hard because sometimes, yeah, like it is hard, though, because when we’re doing a protocol, the the the herbs or the supplements we’re using are contraindicated in pregnancy and we say we want you to not try during this time, right? So you do have to get pregnant, then we can. There’s only a couple of supplements we recommend. But yeah, and that can be hard for people actually coming because our program is six months and we’re like, OK, this, we’re going to fight if we find something we don’t want you to try and everyone’s in a panic like twenty eight or thirty eight, everyone’s in a panic to expand their family, and that could feel like three months could feel like a long, long time. But in the grand scheme of things of you know, of your your, your pregnancy, your postpartum health, the health of your children like my postpartum health was horrible. I had looking back, it was like postpartum rage. I was not crying in the corner. I want to kick the crap out of the corner. I was just like, I am so pissed off. And then the health of my children. So both my kids have food sensitivities. So keeping teenagers and young kids off gluten dairy is a nightmare. And so I didn’t, you know, I didn’t fix any of this stock until later. So those things kind of came home to roost. So to me, it’s like taking this time now and really working on your preconception health because, yeah, you can go to the fertility clinic and it can work, but you have an address like if we’re all meant to be able to conceive, why is it not working for you and going there? It’s just not addressing the root cause.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:24:27] Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, I always think the first thing to go away in the last thing to come back is the ability to conceive because it’s not something that we need for our own health as women. Right. And so that’s the first thing to go when we’re trying to deal with something else in our body, right? I mean, I think that that’s the bottom line, and I don’t know what you’ve seen with IVF treatments, but I’ve noticed that women seem to have a more a higher chance of being manic postpartum or depressed postpartum. I don’t know if you’ve seen that in your practice or if you’ve noticed that

Sarah Clark [00:25:09] because people were working with and they all have a really good postpartum. So yeah, like people like postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, all of that is because, like what was missed beforehand that you that you know, as you’re saying, the body wants to survive, not procreate, and we’re pushing it towards pumping and full of drugs. And we don’t know, we don’t know the impact of the drugs on the mother. There’s research saying, you know, link to cancer. We don’t really know the impact of the drugs on children again, cancer and other health issues. It’s all kind of preliminary. There was a there was a documentary. I interviewed the woman that was in this documentary, Kathleen Kathleen, digging through her documentary Secret Ingredients. And in there she heard our family had twenty one chronic diseases. They went organic and non and non-GMO, and they were able to heal. And in there there was a woman that had repeat miscarriage and they were talking about fertility, so she was able to to to to give birth after making these changes. But in the fertility industry, in nineteen eighty five was forty four clinics. In twenty fifteen there’s four hundred and forty in the US. What is going on and this is like a multibillion dollar trillion dollar business. And I are all these clinics like what is happening. You know, you see our food supply when it build be huge food experiment and its impact. It was 60 40 female Thatcher Male founder. Now we’re seeing more 50 50, you know, one in eight in the U.S., one in six in Canada are struggling with infertility. So, you know, this is like it’s like The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian kind of thing where wait a minute, our food is, is we’re in the middle of a huge food experiment and is impacting our fertility, and we’re just pumping drugs on it. And I’m like, Let’s just get this whole thing up.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:26:56] How much does IVF therapy cost, you know, like a ballpark?

Sarah Clark [00:27:00] Yeah. So basically, it takes an average of three cycles at a cost of $60000. So most people think it’s like, Oh yeah, because it takes an average of three. Goes to work so 60k now the functional coach obviously is an investment, but is nowhere near 60k, and the IVF doesn’t get to the bottom of why it’s not working in the first place. So for me, you know, 10 years later, at the age of 40, my my health just took a complete nosedive and I had to eventually deal with it. So you’ll eventually have to deal with it and ever either comes in the form of an autoimmune disease or something because you haven’t addressed what was going on in the first place.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:27:38] I mean, as a general rule, I mean, even if Hashimoto’s is that the underlying cause of it, I think people are saying they used to say 60 percent of thyroid cases were autoimmune. Now I’m hearing like 80 to 90 percent of all thyroid cases are autoimmune, and I think that 80 percent of people have a silent autoimmunity. So I mean, you’re going to have to pay the piper sometimes. And I mean, you might as well make the investment sooner because it’s going to be much faster. If you’re in your 20s, your 30s versus if you’re in your 60s is the honest truth. Yeah, just our body feels so much better and so much faster. So what would you say to somebody that’s just really on the banks and they are like looking down the barrel and they’re like, We have this. We should look at this medical treatment or we can potentially take a functional approach. I don’t know what’s better. I feel like maybe the idea is more researched. What would you what would your comment be to that?

Sarah Clark [00:28:36] To me, it’s interesting what the functional approach of the natural product people or all of a sudden we become these researchers. What are we going to research everything you know? And then when that when someone to give me go to the doctor and the first thing they do is they give us a pill, we just take it. We don’t research it. And there’s all these side effects. So the functional approach is digging into why. To me, it’s like with a functional approach. You either feel it or you don’t. So I’m not here to convince you if you’re what I’ve been saying. We’ve been talking about the last little while if you’re like, Oh damn, that’s how that makes sense. That sounds like something I like to explore. Like if you but if it doesn’t make sense to you, you won’t be able to do it because you have to be able to make diet and lifestyle changes. You have to be open. Other people I’ve coached and they’re like, This is crap, and it was crap for them because I didn’t do any any of the work. So we will coach you. That’s why our program is coaching you to help get out your own way. You could do it by yourself. You already would have done it. So helping like a life coaching side of this is equally as important the mental emotional side as all the testing and all of that. But really like if you’re trying to choose between Ivy, IVF is is a huge investment, but it’s not going to get to the bottom of why it’s not working in the first place and may impact like if it’s if you don’t want to think about yourself, at least think about your kids. Like I’ve got these kids with bit of sensitivity is autism is on the rise. Like what? I don’t know. Like what is being missed here, that we are pumping our bodies full of drugs and we think that is, you know, it’s an expensive magic pill because it can, you know, I can work. But eventually this stuff comes home. And if you haven’t really figured out you can have a really bad postpartum period, maybe you’re not even able to even look after your child because you’re in such a either a dark hole or, you know, you may not be feeling well. So but again, it’s very personal. You have to. To me, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, you’re open to it and you’re ready to make changes. You’ve found the functional side of things, so it is time to dig further. But most people are really the only think. The only way to do this is to go to the clinic.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:30:42] So in any of your clients that you have seen prior to. You know, helping them coach them through. Have any of the moms had a baby that was diagnosed autistic?

Sarah Clark [00:30:58] No, we haven’t had that. So but yeah, it’s interesting just with my kids being in school and a lot of friends that are teachers like them, the amount of like children with autism obviously has gone through the roof, right? And so that documentary I talked to you about secret ingredients with Catherine Kierra, which is I every time I see them, every time I see the trailer, I cry every time. Because her son was diagnosed with autism at two, they said he would never he would never do anything. He was basically going to be, you know. Anyway, she managed to recover. He is 16 and these are perfect,

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:31:37] and we all know that’s hogwash, right? So but you know that you can you can fix health conditions. You can fix things. Things can be fixed or things can be made better. Autism is something that you have to live with.

Sarah Clark [00:31:50] Exactly.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:31:50] So I think that’s really important. What are five or what are a couple of things that you do every day to keep yourself healthy myself?

Sarah Clark [00:32:01] So. So I like to meditate, so I’ll meditate. I will do that in the morning. I am really immune to like eating my my meals. Don’t mess with my food. I’ll eat three meals a day. I like to sit down and I eat them. I, you know, I work at home, so I’m I’m. I’m blessed to be able to be able to do that and be able to make a nice meal. So for me, it’s meditating is something I resisted for years and I tried to meditate. And that really has made the difference for me. The third piece, not me on the run, just actually. And try not to. I do. We’ll look at something at lunch with the rest, the other two meals I will try not to read or if I’m by myself, I try to just be with a meal. That is something I’m working on. It’s not always perfect. And then also moving. I used. I like to walk my dog a couple of times a day. I do like gentle yoga. I just go back into doing more like high intensity interval training. So like orange theory doing that, which is good for me. I do things that make me feel good. So for me, it’s moving, eating those foods and, you know, hanging out with like minded fun people.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:33:20] Yeah, I think that’s really important just to be happy and to be back. I think that’s awesome. And any tips that you would give somebody just struggling right now with infertility?

Sarah Clark [00:33:33] So first of all, depending on where they are, so they’ve just been diagnosed and you can dig into like looking at the diet piece and the minimum going organic and non-GMO. And then you can do the elimination diet with you and your partner. If you’ve been through like a couple of failed eyes or IBS, I would recommend digging into the might be the mindset side of things. So we run a mindfulness fertility program a couple of times a year or so, looking at meditation, looking at getting a journal or looking at your mindset to see what’s what’s going on here. And even just doing a couple a couple of minutes of breathing a day can be really helpful or mindfulness to bring that into your routine, either mindful eating, mindful handwashing, mindful shower like those really simple, simple tact tactics until and then when you feel and there’s either you’re in in two camps, you’re there saying, I’m totally not stressed, I’m fine. So that was me. I’m not stressed. I’m great. So to look into that because going through infertility is very stressful in itself. So if you say you’re not stressed, maybe to get honest about that a little more or you’re super stressed and overwhelmed, being able to, like, take a few steps back. And and a lot of it is like self-care, making sure you’re getting your your sleep, prioritizing sleep, getting a sleep routine and then really exciting boundaries. And especially there’s a lot of triggers around infertility. So being able to if you can tell a select few of you know, this is how I want you to handle a baby announcement or or a shower, and by this time, I want you to handle it. And then if people are asking you that when you have kids thing, have a response prepared because it can be people are just it’s like talking about the weather. It’s like small talk and people say, you know, when are you having kids or do you have kids? And then it can be a real trigger for people that are dealing with infertility. Some very, very painful. So depending on where you are, I would dig into self care if you had a couple of failed cycles. If you just just been diagnosed, I would look at the data first.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:35:38] Yeah, I think you made such a great point about what are you having kids or are you getting a little old for kids or is your window running out or whatever is said there? I just feel so bad for women that they take that in because they feel so much more pressure and that that clock is ticking, quote unquote just makes them feel so much more pressure. And we all know that that’s definitely going to interfere with right now. Yeah, that was just so, so great. So helpful today. So where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?

Sarah Clark [00:36:09] Yeah, totally. So they can find me. I only get pregnant naturally. Podcasts on iTunes and Spotify and I operate Free Fertility Diet Challenge. They can go to fertility diet free, be a freebie icon, and then there’s a three. There’s three days of fertility recipes, all anti-inflammatory foods.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:36:29] Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed learning with us today, please give us a five star review. Comments like and share our podcast with your friends and family. As always, if you’d like to learn more information about today’s guest, please head over to FearlessHealthPodcast.com for links to their site and other educational resources.