Ep. 84: Early Pregnancy with NaproTechnology
Caitlin:
Welcome to the Woven Well Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started.
Caitlin:
Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast. I've talked a lot about how NaPro technology or other restorative approaches to reproductive medicine can really help a couple to find that root cause of infertility in order to conceive naturally. I've also talked about the benefit of working with a NaPro or restorative health doctor to address health symptoms to just improve your quality of life. And then whenever you're ready, make conception easier. But I don't think I've talked enough about the benefits of working with a restorative health professional. After you get that initial positive pregnancy test, I have a lot of ladies that come in, they say, you know, it was difficult getting pregnant, but now that we're here, does it really make a difference? Which Dr. I see, aren't they all kind of the same at this point? Can't I just celebrate, wait till my eight week ultrasound and then just focus on whichever doctor is going to support the way I want to deliver?
Caitlin:
I do think it's very important to find a doctor who supports your choices in the delivery room, but there are eight critical months between that moment and the positive pregnancy test. So we're going to dive in a little bit into what's the difference? Why is working with a restorative health professional in early pregnancy worth it? So first of all, I'll say that in an ideal world, you will already be working with a NaPro doctor before you get pregnant. This is because working with a doctor early on allows you to see any potential health or reproductive health issues that are going on. So if you have irregular cycles or unusual bleeding PCOS, all sorts of issues here, you can be addressing the root cause of those things. This is not only going to help you to conceive a pregnancy, but also feel better. Your quality of life will improve.
Caitlin:
But how does this relate to early pregnancy? Well, you'll know when to check for pregnancy. I have definitely had clients over the years who come to me and say, yeah, my cycles are irregular, or They're really long. And so I just sort of take a pregnancy test every two weeks and see if it turns positive, you know, like we're being together throughout the weeks, throughout the months, and we're just going to see if it happens. And you can absolutely do that. But that kind of an approach takes away a little bit from the knowledge of knowing when you could be conceiving and when you're not. And it is very expensive when it comes to pregnancy tests. So charting your cycles can help you know exactly when you've conceived. I mean, that little narrow window of fertility you can know it was during that time that you conceived.
Caitlin:
How does this help practically? Well, when you do go in for that first ultrasound appointment, knowing exactly how far along you are is a game changer. I unfortunately, have worked with women early on in my time who would go in to the doctor's office for their eight week ultrasound, and they would leave in tears because their doctor or their ultrasound tech who was not NaPro would say, oh, well you should be eight weeks along based on your last menstrual period. But when we're looking at the ultrasound, the baby's only six weeks along. So something is wrong. They're not given any information other than something is wrong, and come back next week to see if the baby has developed anymore. This is heart-wrenching. It is emotionally one of those painful things that a new mom and dad can go through, and I want to try to help prevent that.
Caitlin:
So when you are charting your cycles and you know when that window of fertility was, and you know when you possibly conceived, then you're walking in with confidence and you're walking in with dates, it's no longer based on your last menstrual period. Now it's based on the date of conception. And this is so much more accurate because what if you do have irregular cycles, right? Instead of being uncertain, well, my last menstrual period was probably three months ago, so I don't know exactly when I conceived. Even if that was the case, you're still going to see that window of fertility and can know how far along that pregnancy should be. Charting your cycles beforehand. Working with a doctor beforehand also just puts you in that mindset of preparation for pregnancy. So maybe there are lifestyle changes that you need to make. Maybe you want to start taking a prenatal beforehand, which I highly recommend.
Caitlin:
There is so much that happens from ovulation to fertilization to implantation. And when you have the folate, specifically the methylfolate that is within a prenatal in those early, early days, it can make a huge difference in the health of the embryo and ultimately the baby. Now, once you find out you're pregnant, this is when working with an NaPro doctor really ramps up. There's going to be a lot of intense initial medical support, but that's pretty different than what you would get in a general OBGYN. If you're working with your, just your local OBGYN, they may be extremely efficient and caring and knowledgeable, but the average go-to response is to test you for a beta HCG. They're trying to see is your HCG number increasing over several days. And then they'll say, see you in eight weeks.
Caitlin:
You know, see you at the first ultrasound, whether that's at eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, or beyond. NaPro's support is going to be much more specific, and that's because a lot is happening in that early pregnancy, and we want to be really mindful of any health issues that could happen during that time. So not only are they going to also test your HCG, that's an important thing to do, but they're also going to be looking at your level of progesterone. So if you've listened to previous episodes, in fact, you could go back to our basic series, which is at the very beginning where we talk about reproductive hormones. We learned that the two main reproductive hormones in any female cycle are estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen is what's going on. As your follicles are growing in preparation for ovulation and progesterone is what takes over.
Caitlin:
After that egg has left, the follicle ovulation has actually occurred, and you want to support that uterine lining for possible pregnancy. So progesterone is critical. Not only is it balancing out estrogen, not only does it help your body know when your next period should be, but it is also critical to the lining of the uterus in preparation for pregnancy. That lining needs to be very specific so that when that embryo comes to it, it can actually implant in. Now, we only know so much about this, if I'm being honest. When it comes to science, we understand a lot, but there's still a lot of mystery to it. But one thing we do know is how critical progesterone is. If you have a nice level of progesterone, then you are more likely to have a successful implantation, and then of course, pregnancy to go on after that.
Caitlin:
So progesterone is not something that should only be tested at that first ultrasound appointment at eight weeks or 10 weeks or beyond. It should actually be tested very early in pregnancy. This is also because that embryo cannot produce progesterone. That's coming from the corpus luteum, which is in the ovary. And so if the progesterone levels are low, then we need to supplement that with a bioidentical form of progesterone. Sometimes you'll hear people say that it's the placenta that produces progesterone, and that's true, but not until later on in the pregnancy. So before that, we want to make sure that the progesterone is at a nice, healthy, strong level, but that's not the only things that they're going to test. So if you're already working with a NaPro medical professional, then they've seen your charts. They know what issues, what little yellow flags may be there so that they can immediately test for those.
Caitlin:
Even at that first appointment, very early on after the positive pregnancy test, they're very likely to test things like thyroid clotting disorders or glucose or insulin, and that's because these things can actually change dramatically in early pregnancy. So if you're able to support them early on and make sure even medications that you're taking are being dosed correctly for these changes, then hopefully there's the decreased risk of pregnancy loss. That's probably the biggest concern when it comes to early pregnancy. No one wants to experience pregnancy loss, and especially when you're told that those are just things that happen, that there's not anything you can do about it. It can feel disempowering. Well, why ask the doctor about it? Why research? Why look into things? 'cause there's nothing I can do about it anyway, it's very defeating to be told that NaPro doctors are going to be a little bit different.
Caitlin:
They are invested alongside you from the very beginning of that life to see it flourish. They care very deeply about the health of that embryo just as much as they do as a nine month developed baby. So they want to be on top of things. They want to be proactive to try to help prevent pregnancy loss. Does that mean that those who use NaPro technology, those who use Creighton, don't have pregnancy loss? No. That does not mean that I wish that it did. I wish so much that we could rid the world of pregnancy loss, but we live in a fallen time, and that is not something that we have ultimate control over. There are circumstances that simply can't be avoided, and there are things that we couldn't see coming initially. What I can tell you is a NaPro technology or a restorative health doctor is absolutely not going to wait until you've had multiple losses before they look into the root cause of why if you have one pregnancy loss, they're going to be investigating what happened.
Caitlin:
What can we control? What can we improve for the next pregnancy? Because every life is meaningful. We don't want to lose three lives before we start investigating why. And that's a big difference. You may have OBGYNs that tell you, oh, well, nobody tests before then, or Your insurance won't cover it before then I encourage you to go ahead and reach out to a NaPro technology doctor and you'll be amazed at what they can go ahead and do. Very early on. If you're curious about who the NaPro doctor is in your area or what resources you have available to you in the restorative health world, I would love to support you in that. You can actually reach out to us through our website at wovenfertility.com. And there are also lots of free resources under the tab labeled resources. So we talk about how to advocate for yourself, what to look for in early pregnancy, things that can cause pregnancy loss, and our goal here is to empower you so that you can walk into that doctor's office, knowledgeable, confident, and able to advocate for yourself and this baby.
Caitlin:
These resources are all free. If you reach out to us and you want to know who the local doctor is in your area that you can talk to about this, that is free. Okay? We want you to get connected with these medical resources. If you're interested in charting your cycle with the Creighton system, which is the system used by NaPro technology medical professionals, we would also love to support you in that. In fact, every single month we offer at least one introductory session. This is an opportunity for you to come and learn more. We talk about what the Creighton system is, how the body works, what are these hormones, estrogen and progesterone? How can you use all of this to conceive a pregnancy? Or how can you use it to avoid a pregnancy? How can we identify what underlying health issues are going on and may cause an issue?
Caitlin:
We talk about all of that and more in this one hour online presentation. I would love for you to join us, and you can also find out those next dates on our website, wovenfertility.com/joinus. If you'd like to just look here in the show notes, we'll have links for all of those as well. I do hope that this has been helpful to kind of differentiate between what a NaPro technology medical professional, or even restorative health medical professional would do, versus maybe your local OBGYN. But I do want to say one final thing, and that is I'm not knocking your local OBGYN offices. These are wonderful people who care very deeply about women, but I do think there is a difference in medical approach, and I think when you sit down different doctors and they have conversations, they would acknowledge those different approaches, and so I'm acknowledging those here so that you can feel more informed and empowered as you're making those early decisions. As always, thanks so much for listening. As we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.