After being told at a young age that she might struggle getting pregnant, without receiving adequate support or guidance, Dr. Kelsey embarked on a mission to offer better healthcare to women. She firmly believes women deserve the information to make quality decisions, the support they need to be successful, and the confidence in knowing they are doing everything within their power to make a baby. Through her 3 pillar Fertility Success System, Dr. Kelsey and her team have helped bring hundreds of babies into the world using evidence-driven medicine and supporting couples regardless of where they are in their fertility journey.

When she’s not helping couples reach their fertility goals, you can find Dr. Kelsey spending time with her 2 kids, watching trashy reality tv when they go to bed, and enjoying time up north by the water.

Free Webinar: Five Strategies to Build Fertility Confidence: https://kelseyduncan.com/ondemand/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fertilityconfidencemethod/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.kelseyduncannaturopathi9750

Fertility Confidence Podcast

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:

Michelle (00:01.572)

So welcome to the podcast, Kelsey.

Dr. Kelsey (00:04.43)

Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to see you again.

Michelle (00:07.236)

Nice to see you as well. So I was on your podcast. Now you're on my podcast.

Dr. Kelsey (00:11.566)

Yeah, getting very familiar, which is always good.

Michelle (00:16.26)

Yeah, for sure. So I'd love to have you share your story, your background story, which I always love hearing how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Dr. Kelsey (00:23.346)

That's it.

Yeah, amazing. Well, it started with an acne journey, which I feel is very common as a young woman, but I had really horrible cystic acne. And I went through all the traditional medical route of what can you do to help me? It was a 14, 15, 16 year old girl. I was really looking at anything to make my skin clear. So,

I was really just routinely offered various forms of birth control and some different antibacterial creams. And anytime I went on birth control or any of the birth controls they switched me on to, I never felt great. I was incredibly nauseous for a good portion of the month. It was really impacting my quality of life. But like I said, my skin felt like my number one priority. So I just sort of like suffered through that for many, many years.

Michelle (01:07.812)

Mm.

Dr. Kelsey (01:22.158)

And then I actually saw a naturopath in my journey once I was probably 19 or 20. And I just had one appointment with her. And it was like finally being heard after so many years of feeling like no one was taking me seriously of, you know, she's just another.

that doesn't like her skin, like nothing crazy. And it wasn't, you know, this huge, profound like skin clearing experience either, but it was something that made me really start to question my journey and route in terms of how, what I wanted to do with my life. I knew, I always knew I wanted to be in medicine and help people. I just wasn't fully sure at that point what that really looked like. And so it was my first introduction to naturopathic medicine.

And it felt really lovely. And I just kind of kept going through I thought I was going to be a pharmacist kept going through the motions of like going through that journey. And when that didn't work out, I had this like light bulb moment of like, well, I really liked that. Like, why don't I see you know what that's all about. And the stars sort of aligned that I had all the prerequisites to apply the applications were open, it all kind of worked out really well. And I landed myself.

Michelle (02:18.788)

well.

Dr. Kelsey (02:41.038)

in naturopathic college very shortly after I graduated. And fast forward a few years, I then had another experience in the medical community that pertained to my fertility. And it was my like last ditch effort in my hormonal birth control phase of again, trying to figure out my skin. And I was told that we would likely struggle, I'd likely struggle to get pregnant whenever the time came. Here's another.

you know, birth control prescription, like, see you later. And that was sort of the breaking point for me of like, okay, at that moment, it wasn't like, hugely about the fertility piece, though that was, you know, a big factor for me of like, my gosh, you know, I have to have this conversation with my boyfriend, who's now my husband, but

you know, what is that gonna look like and where the heck do I go from here? And it really propelled me into the field of women's health medicine in general. But I also felt very fortunate that I got this warning when I was young that my fertility is something I need to pay attention to. And a lot of women don't get that, right? We often don't.

Michelle (03:53.86)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (03:54.446)

get to even start having these conversations until sometimes you're six months into trying and then you're like, what the heck, it's not easy, what's going on? And now we're learning, whereas I, you know, my journey wasn't awesome, but I was blessed with this opportunity to really dig into that piece many years before we were even ready. And I attribute that to our very fortunate success down the road.

Michelle (04:00.452)

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (04:20.558)

of being able to set my body up for success and have those conversations. And I was obviously already embedded in a community that took a very natural whole body focused approach. And when I came out of school, I knew that that's where I was meant to kind of put my expertise was in helping couples, A, hopefully, you know, create content and get the word out there that like we should be having these conversations.

earlier than when we're even ready, but be okay, if you're not getting the support on your fertility experience in mainstream medicine, like guess what, there's other options. And that's how Fertility Confidence Method came to be.

Michelle (04:50.212)

Yeah.

Michelle (05:05.604)

That's awesome. We have very similar stories. We talked about that before. And if I might ask, what were they basing the fertility, well, what they were perceiving as fertility issues on?

Dr. Kelsey (05:09.678)

I see you. I see you.

Dr. Kelsey (05:19.534)

Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to, it was a botched IUD insertion, which if anyone listening has ever, you know, had an IUD put in or unfortunately had a similar experience to me, it was not awesome. So there was a lot of like medical trauma that came out of that appointment just as a whole. But she kept telling me that like my uterus was a funny shape. It wasn't.

Michelle (05:26.436)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (05:40.772)

wow. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (05:48.814)

the way that it should be, that there was something wrong with it. And it was quite literally just based off that, you know, assessment alone. There was never an ultrasound done. And I was 21. Like, I didn't know any better at the time to like ask more questions or get more knowledge at that moment. I did seek that out down the line and was told like, you know, yes, there are factors here, but like,

let's just try and see what happens. And I had put my body in a very, you know, privileged stance at that point of like, I had years to work on egg quality and balance my hormones, you know, coming off of birth control, I actually had quite a few hormonal issues with that, that the birth control was just masking for me this whole time, right? So I had years to fix that.

Michelle (06:36.516)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (06:43.15)

But the physical piece that they made like a big stink about truly at the end of the day, I don't think was as big of a factor as they made it seem, which is another big piece of the story of like getting factual information into the hands of women so that we're not, you know, walking around thinking we're barren because I spent a good portion of my 20s assuming that because that's how it was explained to me. It wasn't really.

Michelle (07:10.148)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:11.246)

discussed in an appropriate manner, right?

Michelle (07:14.98)

Totally. And I've heard people say, you know, they've been told, you have PCOS, you're likely to have issues getting pregnant. You're going to have a hard time. Like really, it's just, just give that information to somebody, get that in their mind and then let them leave the office. Yeah. Yeah. There is a thought.

Dr. Kelsey (07:23.598)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:30.798)

Yeah, let's actually help them. What does that that conversation can happen in a far more appropriate manner that supportive versus like you're going to struggle. It's like, well, okay, we know this is here. We know that this has the potential to decrease fertility rates. So let's, you know, dig deeper, find the root cause work on that. So that's not your story. Instead of just

Michelle (07:44.132)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (07:58.084)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:58.702)

putting women on birth control and saying like, when you wanna have kids, we'll just see what happens is kind of the route with PCOS. It's the route with endometriosis as well often, any sort of like period concern. That's sort of how we tackle it, unfortunately.

Michelle (08:03.812)

Totally.

Michelle (08:08.676)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (08:16.1)

Yeah, it is unfortunate, but it is out there, which is why I like getting this message out for people. I've had naturopathic doctors on before, but somebody might be just kind of stumbling upon this podcast. I would love for you to just give an overview on how that's different than mainstream medicine and how you guys approach really the body and like health.

Dr. Kelsey (08:26.35)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (08:38.446)

Yeah. Yeah. I love to explain it in a way of like, in terms of like a general practitioner, we're not vastly different, but we have different tools in our toolkit. So we still learn a very similar education as your like standard GP, obviously, when we're getting into like more specialty realms, that's a different journey. But we are more focused on looking at the body as a whole and getting down to the root cause versus treating the symptom, which tends to be how mainstream medicine approaches the majority of complaints, right? I often call it it's reactive healthcare when we're going that route. It's like, I have a problem, this might fix that problem. And if that works, cool.

we're not gonna dig any deeper. And if that doesn't, we might then assess different. Whereas with naturopathic medicine, we really don't wanna be just putting band -aids on things. We wanna be getting down to the root cause and understanding like, why is this happening? And what is our body trying to tell us? And the reality is, is that a lot of times with hormones, for example,

we, you know, there's supplements and things we can all read about and blogs and see on TikTok. But at the end of the day, if it's your gut, that's the problem. Like none of those things are going to help you. So we want to just pick away at the pieces and see in the layers of the body versus just looking superficially at the front. And then we use our different tools. So for me, for example, and not all NDs are going to

hold the same value, but it's all about gold standard of care for me. So I'm not anti -pharmaceutical. I'm not anti -mainstream medicine. A lot of my clients work with fertility clinics still. I think there really needs to be a synergistic approach between Western medicine and alternative care. I think that's the way of the future to lessen the burden on mainstream medicine truly, but we're going to come in and look at, okay,

Dr. Kelsey (10:53.006)

How are you eating? How are you sleeping? What's your stress like? Are you moving your body? Like there's so many fundamental pieces of health that don't really get talked about in mainstream medicine. And for two reasons, one, they're not trained in that realm. You know, their nutrition training is like a day or something like that. Like it's not a lot.

Michelle (11:06.084)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (11:19.47)

They don't learn about supplements unless they're pharmaceutical branded and they don't have the time, right? Like here in Ontario, we have quote unquote free healthcare, but your appointments are like seven to 10 minutes and then they got to see the next person and the next person. I know it's like that in many places. So we're now not getting the time to have these fundamental conversations. It really is just how quick can I fix the problem?

So as an ND, I have the flexibility of having longer appointments if I'm in private practice and spending the time and doing the digging. And I have the extra training to put the pieces of the puzzle together from a whole body systems approach.

Michelle (12:06.404)

And how do you uncover it? Do you do different testing? Like what's the difference between the testing that you would run versus the testing that people would get more mainstream?

Dr. Kelsey (12:13.71)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (12:17.454)

Yeah, we run a lot of blood work with our clients, which is similar to what, you know, your fertility clinic would run. But I do find that in the fertility realm specifically, lab assessment is still very surface level. Like your first kind of look at, I'm walking into the clinic, my first appointment, they're going to do some testing. It's still not deep enough for the majority of couples. So we're then getting that unexplained tag instead of actually going down that next rabbit hole. So we dig a little bit deeper just with a variety of labs looking at nutrient deficiencies and blood sugar management and things like that, that the clinics don't often look at first and foremost, unless there's like a big glaring red flag in your health history, then they might. And then we do sometimes use some various functional testing, it depends who I'm working with. So,

And for me with testing, I really wanna make sure that we're using resources, we're spending money and we're ordering tests that are going to change the treatment protocol. So I'm always very strategic there with like what makes sense per couple in terms of what we wanna look at. And then if any of you listen to the Fertility Confidence Podcast or follow me, you'll know I'm very passionate about male fertility. And so regardless of where you're at in your journey,

It's not all about you and your partner needs a semen analysis. Even if you're one month in, doesn't matter. We need to be uncovering that as well. So if that's not something that's been done early on, and usually if a couple isn't in the fertility clinic realm yet, I find that their doctor might run them some labs, but their partners are kind of just left off to the side for a while. And in our world, that's not okay. It's a whole couple approach. We want to see both factors.

Michelle (13:45.572)

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Michelle (14:07.876)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (14:12.036)

Do you typically see both at the same time every time you speak to people?

Dr. Kelsey (14:17.358)

Yeah, we want to, yeah, we use a very whole couple approach. So I want to make sure that we're not missing something. And I've missed things before by not having their partner in on the assessment or doing that testing or having those conversations and then having them down the line and being like, damn, we just like wasted so much time by not doing this earlier. So

Michelle (14:26.884)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (14:43.342)

Right from the get -go, like I said, no matter how long you've been trying, no matter if you've had kids previously or not, we wanna see those numbers. And at the very least, we wanna get partners involved in prenatal care, even while we wait for a semen analysis, because sperm's 50 % of the equation. And all the things we talk about from female perspective and egg quality and blood sugar and balancing hormones, we could literally...

Michelle (14:56.964)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (15:02.052)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (15:12.462)

flip that script to men and it's equally equally as important. So that's another big piece that's missing in the conversation right now.

Michelle (15:21.06)

Yeah, it's true. And what do you find is a core reason for men having sperm quality issues or even motility and count? Like what are some of the factors that you've seen impacting that?

Dr. Kelsey (15:40.27)

Yeah, I think they need to do more research in the overall why, but we've seen in the data that in the last 40, 50 years, sperm numbers have decreased a significant amount, and they're decreasing at a rate of something like 2 .5 % a year right now. So there's a huge issue happening. And the reality is, is I don't think we'll ever fully know why, but I think we can make some assumptions.

Michelle (15:58.66)

That's crazy.

Dr. Kelsey (16:09.582)

One of those assumptions being our environment is very different than it was 50 years ago. We're exposed to more chemicals, toxins, pesticides, radiation, and they need to do more data into that. There's a recent study that's kind of circulating right now about glyphosate being found in semen specifically. And so now we're starting to see direct correlations, but there's already lots of research in men who have

high levels of parabens or phthalates in their urine having lower sperm quality and count numbers. So we know that environmental toxins are likely a culprit of the global decrease. And I do think that stress is probably a contributing factor. Life is different now. We live in a very go, go, go society. If you're not hustling, you're not winning. And I think we don't take...

Michelle (16:46.244)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (17:08.686)

enough, you know, as we could have this whole conversation for women as well. But, you know, cortisol is in men and cortisol impacts many things. And there's a really fascinating study that looked at men who lived in like war zones and men who like college men, for example, who had to write exams.

Michelle (17:15.012)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (17:31.758)

And they did see a decrease in those time periods in their sperm numbers. So we know that stress plays a factor. So that's my assumption right now. Like I said, I don't know if we'll ever fully, it's so multifaceted that I'm not sure we'll ever have like a clear answer, but I think environment is playing a role. And I do think that stress is likely playing a role and we can couple in, you know, with our environment, food quality.

Michelle (17:31.812)

Mm.

Michelle (17:40.676)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (17:47.524)

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Kelsey (18:01.71)

Overall has gone down, processed food and the access to processed food and our consumption of sugar has gone up over the years. All of these things, they're all playing a really big factor in not just how a male's body makes sperm, but testosterone levels, which are also important for sperm production.

Michelle (18:09.828)

huh.

Michelle (18:23.364)

Yeah, a couple of things came to mind. I actually remember reading something about sperm production and count relating very much to nervous system imbalances, which really kind of speaks to the stress aspect of it. But also, I mean, you see, I see guys carrying their phones in their front pocket.

Dr. Kelsey (18:34.254)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yeah, totally.

Dr. Kelsey (18:44.142)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Michelle (18:44.9)

It's got to play a role. I mean, we're, you know, we know that that's what's happening recently is that like technology is increasing and there's so many more waves that we're exposed to that we have not been exposed to before.

Dr. Kelsey (18:57.838)

Yeah, we need more research for sure. I'm always scouring for EMF data because I get asked all the time, right? And I'm like, we don't, we know a little, but we don't know a lot. Like, we don't know enough to be like, everyone put it all away. Like, this is the culprit, right? But but that is one really easy recommendation, like just in case that we can give and we know that phones are giving off, you know,

Michelle (19:05.284)

Yeah.

Michelle (19:12.292)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (19:24.334)

lots of things and we also know that they get warm, right? And testicular heat is a big factor. And so I'm in Southern Ontario and yeah, yeah, no kidding. Yeah, just put it in your back pocket. That's what I tell my clients. I say, if you're moving around, put in your back pocket. When you get there, when you get to wherever you're going, if you can take it out of your pocket and put on the table, just do that.

Michelle (19:29.892)

Yeah.

Michelle (19:33.956)

I would say be careful anyway, even if you don't have the data. I mean, don't wait for the data to be careful. Yeah, I see the same thing.

Dr. Kelsey (19:52.558)

Like just get in the habit of not always having to have it in your pocket. And that was something I really had to train my husband with too, because he would just leave his phone in his front pocket all the time. And I was like, we just, just, it's super simple. You just have to change your habit. And it feels weird at first, sure. But overall, like, and not just in the fertility journey, but it is likely causing testicular damage. And so when we're thinking whole health long -term,

Michelle (19:53.092)

Yeah.

Michelle (20:04.132)

Yeah.

Michelle (20:09.54)

Yes.

Dr. Kelsey (20:22.094)

We don't want that either, right? Because now we're gonna have testosterone issues and now we've got all the fun side effects of that as well.

Michelle (20:24.932)

Nope.

Michelle (20:30.564)

I just remember a couple of years, and this is before it was as strong as it is now. I remember seeing this maybe even like 2008, 2009. There was a girl and her mom that went on the Dr. Oz show. And the girl at the time, I don't know if you remember, sometimes girls would put their cell phones in their bra. She would always put it on her right.

Dr. Kelsey (20:45.55)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (20:52.942)

Yep.

Michelle (20:55.012)

side of her brow or like one side over the other. And she ended up getting an aggressive tumor, cancer at 18 years old. And she said, there's no way that this naturally happens for an 18 year old in the same exact spot that she kept her cell phone. So I want to get this message out. And this is years ago, like years and years ago. And that never left my mind. And I was like, you know, that

Dr. Kelsey (21:02.408)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:11.886)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:17.198)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yep.

Michelle (21:24.068)

is not, it cannot be random. It cannot be just left to chance. And this is way back when, when the technology and the radiation was less than it is today. So I'm thinking people need to pay attention to that.

Dr. Kelsey (21:33.038)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:38.446)

Yeah, yeah, there's this whole like when we look at the sperm decrease data, it's starting looking at like 1940, like we didn't have cell phones back then, right? Like that is a big change in our society that has to be playing a role with both men and women in some way. And whether or not we'll see like the good confirmation, like you said, it doesn't matter. Like it's an easy change that we can.

Michelle (21:48.644)

Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle (21:57.796)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (22:06.382)

you know, feel comfortable with the assumption that it's likely not nothing. Even if it's just a small piece, every little bit helps. And so it's not a pill. It's not something you have to buy. You literally just have to move it off of your body.

Michelle (22:10.788)

Yeah.

Michelle (22:16.644)

No.

Right, right. We're such creatures of habit though, so I get it. Like it is hard. It's hard to break a habit. If you're used to something and actually there's science behind it because like you have a certain pattern, certain triggers and certain behavior that it feels very like unnatural to change. So, you know, it's a known thing, but it's not forever. You're going to eventually shift it. Same thing with diet, you know,

Dr. Kelsey (22:23.694)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (22:40.174)

Mm.

Michelle (22:48.932)

Diet is very behavioral and that's one thing that I noticed too. It's not something that is just physical. It's not just something that like impacts your nutrition. I mean, yes, it does, but like the behavioral aspect is a big component to it. What have you seen as like pretty common, I guess, lifestyle choices that happen that you feel need to get attention?

when it comes to fertility health from both men and women or both.

Dr. Kelsey (23:23.214)

Yeah, I think like we can talk a lot about the nutrition angle for sure, but a really big one that doesn't get as much attention that actually has fascinating research behind it is sleep. And, and again, kind of in our like higher stress society and our go, go, go lifestyle, we've sacrificed sleep to like fit it all in, right? And,

Michelle (23:37.22)

Hmm.

Michelle (23:46.948)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (23:48.238)

From a male side of things, we have research showing men who sleep less than seven and a half hours a night have lower sperm numbers and poor quality. And we also see by increasing sleep, those numbers actually improve. So it's not just the detriment, but by actually improving the habit, we see improvement, which is what we want at the end of the day. And we see similar patterns with women.

Michelle (23:58.436)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (24:03.588)

wow.

Dr. Kelsey (24:14.766)

as well in terms of hormone disruption and cortisol and cortisol is an umbrella hormone, right? So it's going to impact everything. So I think that that's a big piece for a lot of couples where they're like, I feel like I'm doing everything. But if we're still, you know, lying in bed, scrolling on our phones or watching shows till midnight or later, and then getting up to start our day at like six, six, 37, you're and you, you know, you've always done that. So it just, it's a habit. It just,

feels normal in your body to live off five, six hours of sleep, but you're likely not getting enough deep or REM sleep in that timeframe. And that long -term is going to contribute to hormonal dysregulation, but it also can be impacting your fertility journey from a root cause perspective if it's impacting cortisol in that way. So sleep is always like a sneaky one, I feel, where people kind of, when they come in and work with us and we start talking about it, they're like,

Michelle (24:52.74)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (25:13.838)

I never thought of that. And it often, women definitely have sleep issues and things to work on, but it almost always is like, yeah, I sleep well, but my husband stays up till like one, two in the morning and he's a night owl, right? Like that's just his normal and that's his habit. And it's not a quick switch to go to bed earlier because your body's not used to it.

Michelle (25:15.108)

Yeah.

Michelle (25:36.452)

Right, yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (25:39.694)

I notice that all the time. I don't know if you notice this, Michelle, but like if I have a couple late nights and then I'm like, okay, I gotta go to bed like at a normal time. I'll just, my body's like, well, you're not ready for sleep. Like I thought we were staying up late now, right? It becomes a bit of a struggle. This was me last night. I'm like, we were away for the weekend. I was like, okay, I really need to get some sleep. And my body's like, do, do, do. So it takes time. So if you're working on sleep, we don't want you going from.

Michelle (25:52.196)

Yeah. Yes. Yep. It's true. Yeah.

Michelle (26:02.34)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (26:08.046)

Midnight to be like, okay now you go to bed at 930 because you're probably gonna lie there very Frustrated and then the frustration is just gonna keep you awake so I usually tell people like go back in 15 minute increments every few days or even every week and just work yourself back into that more like appropriate Crocadian rhythm time frame because we all can go to bed at 9 930

Michelle (26:11.748)

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (26:36.59)

What's happening for our night owls is they're pushing past their natural sleep signals and getting a surge of cortisol around 10, 10 .30. And once you get that and your body's like, we're not sleeping. Okay. Like, let me help you know. Right. And then you're like, well, why to wake? So now you're just paying up later. And so we need to find everyone's sweet spot is a little bit different, but in general, like most humans,

Michelle (26:51.908)

Yeah, and then you wake up.

Michelle (26:56.42)

Right.

Dr. Kelsey (27:05.134)

do better being asleep before 1030. And for some people, that's really early. So it takes time to sort of shift that back. But we do see in the data that longer and better quality sleep improves fertility parameters, which is really like simple thing to change.

Michelle (27:26.756)

my God, I feel like that by itself is a game changer because it's going to also impact what you eat the next day. If you're tired, you tend to go for sugar and it impacts how like, you know, your cravings. So it's such a cascade of events when you're not getting the rest that you need. And then it also goes back to the nervous system because your body's able to regulate or rejuvenate and really heal itself too.

Dr. Kelsey (27:31.758)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (27:35.662)

Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (27:50.702)

Yep. Totally.

Michelle (27:56.644)

when you're going through that and clean out hormones. And I mean, there's so many things that sleep does and I love sleep. I really do. But I've always been a night owl. And you know what, my hormones and my menstrual cycle was very regular when I was younger and I had a very irregular circadian rhythm. So it really was thrown off and looking back on like it makes a lot of sense. But I think the devices too, like having it at night.

Dr. Kelsey (28:02.83)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (28:19.278)

Hmm.

Michelle (28:22.82)

those things are giving your brain a signal that it's daytime when it's really not. And that's why one of the, you know, sleep hygiene, like lowering the light so that you're not getting bright light and it's not confusing your brain. But also like what you said, I loved what you said about 15 minutes, because I think that the big part about it is really wrapping your mind around the, the,

Dr. Kelsey (28:38.862)

Yeah.

Michelle (28:49.38)

idea, you know, we sort of like judge the idea of like, my God, before 10 o 'clock, no way or 1030. Like that's crazy. So it's kind of like the judgment that we have on that seems like that's not me. And so I think being aware of that, that block that you could have very easily and then just easing into it, but not ruling it out because it could really impact. I mean, cause we'll do anything else. Like why not?

Dr. Kelsey (28:55.982)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:06.222)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:16.846)

Yeah. Yeah. It's free. I'm trying to tell people it's free. Like we don't have to do anything crazy. We just, it's going to take time and we have to be okay with that. And we have, we're okay with flexibility because you don't have to be perfect to get pregnant. You're, you're going to have some late nights and then you're probably going to have some retraining of your brain to do. Like I was easily falling asleep by nine 30, 10 o 'clock before I went away this weekend. And then now,

Michelle (29:17.54)

Look into that as well, because it's huge. It's free. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle (29:28.964)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:46.862)

like, okay, now we gotta start over and that's okay. Like, nothing wrong with that and there's gonna be times where that's worth it to you to go back to your night owl tendencies but the consistency of the majority of the time we are getting to bed at an appropriate hour for your cricketing rhythm and for your hormones and giving your body the time that it needs like for the nervous system like you said to rejuvenate and recoup and.

Michelle (29:49.316)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Michelle (29:57.604)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (30:14.67)

and deal with all the stuff from the day before. And that really does bleed into your decision -making the next day, your nutrition, your cravings, but also your ability to handle stress in general. So that I think is a huge win for a lot of women and men, especially if we're identifying on our intake forms that...

Michelle (30:18.532)

Yeah.

Michelle (30:23.555)

It does. Yeah.

Michelle (30:31.236)

100%.

Dr. Kelsey (30:42.126)

they're really, really stressed and then they're only sleeping five to six hours a night. It's like, well, we're never gonna be able to manage the stress that you are having unless we give your body the tools to do so. And sleep is a really big one.

Michelle (30:58.5)

Yeah. It's like you need energy to cope with stress. Right. Well, to conceive, I mean, think about all the mitochondria we have in the egg cells and the, you know, like it's there for a reason. I mean, we need it. And, and actually on this topic, let's talk about melatonin because I know that melatonin is actually really important for egg quality, possibly sperm quality. I know more for egg quality. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Kelsey (31:01.358)

Yeah, you need energy to live, so just go to sleep. Yes.

Dr. Kelsey (31:18.35)

Hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (31:27.822)

Yeah, I love melatonin. The IVF research is good in terms of seeing higher numbers of embryos form. So we make that assumption from an antioxidant perspective that it's improving egg quality, which we want. But we also see melatonin improving implantation rates in IVF pregnancy. So we're actually not just seeing.

a clinical pregnancy or we're not just seeing an embryo development improvement, we're actually seeing clinical pregnancy rate improvement. So we like melatonin and how I approach it is like, this is not for sleep. So it's not just for people who don't sleep well because the majority of time people who don't sleep well, it's actually not a melatonin problem. There's usually more of a sleep hygiene issue that has to be dealt with or stress, right?

Michelle (32:12.004)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yes. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (32:18.094)

So I get asked that a lot, I was asked that just last week actually, like you put melatonin in my plan, but like I sleep well, do I still need to take this? And it's like, yeah, we're actually not using it for sleep. Maybe it might help you get deeper sleep, awesome. If it makes you feel groggy and gross in the morning, some people just can't hack melatonin, I can't. It does not, it makes my sleep opposite. So some people react poorly to it.

And if that's the case, it's just not the product for you on your fertility journey. And that's okay. No, there's lots of other things we can do. But the research is compelling enough. I'd love to see more male research because we haven't or I haven't seen a ton or anything really like pushing melatonin from a sperm perspective yet. But given the power of the antioxidant potential that it has, it wouldn't surprise me if it was also a really good option for men as well.

Michelle (32:49.636)

Right, right.

Michelle (33:15.012)

Yeah, cause we know that both men and women can benefit from antioxidants in general and really antioxidants work as an anti -ager. I mean, it's funny cause if you think about fertility health, just think anti -aging, like that's the protocol. And we can luckily, I mean, there are definitely things that we can do to actually change the biological clock, which is fascinating.

Dr. Kelsey (33:19.534)

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Dr. Kelsey (33:27.79)

Right. Yeah. We're literally wanting to turn the clock back a little bit.

Dr. Kelsey (33:41.198)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Michelle (33:43.204)

Awesome. I mean, this is great conversation. We can keep talking. And I love, I really love the things that you brought up because they're important, you know, especially like the sperm, which gets ignored often. Sleep was another thing really that gets ignored often. And then the question about melatonin, I love melatonin and I love about what I love about it is that it's non habit forming. So you can get off of it and it's not going to impact your sleep.

Dr. Kelsey (34:08.398)

Hmm.

Yeah, and people are always afraid about that. So I think that's a really important piece.

Michelle (34:13.188)

Yeah, yeah. For sure, no doubt. So for people who are listening and want to hear more about you, you have a great Instagram also, by the way, with lots of amazing content. So how can people find you?

Dr. Kelsey (34:23.566)

Thank you.

Dr. Kelsey (34:27.694)

Yeah, come find me on Instagram at Fertility Confidence Method. And then I also host the Fertility Confidence Podcast. So there's tons of resources and information inside there. I do have a on -demand webinar that you can download. It's an hour long. We talk all about the fundamentals and five strategies to build your fertility confidence. So you can grab that at downloads .kelseyduncan .com slash on -demand.

Michelle (34:54.212)

Awesome. Well, Kelsey, this is such a great conversation and we definitely hit it off from the beginning. I agree on a lot of what you talk about.

Dr. Kelsey (35:01.654)

Thank you.

Dr. Kelsey (35:13.486)

Mm.

Michelle (35:21.668)

But thank you so much for coming on today.

Dr. Kelsey (35:26.734)

thanks for having me, Michelle.

.”

Quote Caption:

On tomorrow’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Kelsey Duncan of @fertilityconfidencemethod. Dr. Kelsey shared her journey into naturopathic medicine and her focus on women's health and fertility. The conversation highlights the importance of a whole-body approach, including nutrition, sleep, stress management, and environmental factors. Dr. Kelsey emphasizes the need for a synergistic approach between Western medicine and alternative care. She also touches on the role of melatonin in improving egg quality and the impact of sleep on fertility. Be sure to tune in!

Guest Bio:

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I interviewed Dr. Kelsey Duncan of @fertilityconfidencemethod. We had an amazing information and spoke about:

Takeaways

The importance of a whole-body approach that includes nutrition, sleep, stress management, and environmental factors is crucial for optimizing fertility.
Melatonin playing a role in improving egg quality and implantation rates in IVF pregnancies.
Sleep being a critical factor in hormonal regulation and overall health, and improving sleep quality can have a positive impact on fertility.
A synergistic approach between Western medicine and alternative care is the way of the future for addressing fertility issues.

Dr. Kelsey Duncan, ND Bio

After being told at a young age that she might struggle getting pregnant, without receiving adequate support or guidance, Dr. Kelsey embarked on a mission to offer better healthcare to women.

She firmly believes women deserve the information to make quality decisions, the support they need to be successful, and the confidence in knowing they are doing everything within their power to make a baby.

Through her 3 pillar Fertility Success System, Dr. Kelsey and her team have helped bring hundreds of babies into the world using evidence-driven medicine and supporting couples regardless of where they are in their fertility journey.

When she’s not helping couples reach their fertility goals, you can find Dr. Kelsey spending time with her 2 kids, watching trashy reality tv when they go to bed, and enjoying time up north by the water.

Free Webinar: Five Strategies to Build Fertility Confidence: https://kelseyduncan.com/ondemand/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fertilityconfidencemethod/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.kelseyduncannaturopathi9750

Fertility Confidence Podcast

For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

Transcript:

Michelle (00:01.572)

So welcome to the podcast, Kelsey.

Dr. Kelsey (00:04.43)

Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to see you again.

Michelle (00:07.236)

Nice to see you as well. So I was on your podcast. Now you're on my podcast.

Dr. Kelsey (00:11.566)

Yeah, getting very familiar, which is always good.

Michelle (00:16.26)

Yeah, for sure. So I'd love to have you share your story, your background story, which I always love hearing how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Dr. Kelsey (00:23.346)

That's it.

Yeah, amazing. Well, it started with an acne journey, which I feel is very common as a young woman, but I had really horrible cystic acne. And I went through all the traditional medical route of what can you do to help me? It was a 14, 15, 16 year old girl. I was really looking at anything to make my skin clear. So,

I was really just routinely offered various forms of birth control and some different antibacterial creams. And anytime I went on birth control or any of the birth controls they switched me on to, I never felt great. I was incredibly nauseous for a good portion of the month. It was really impacting my quality of life. But like I said, my skin felt like my number one priority. So I just sort of like suffered through that for many, many years.

Michelle (01:07.812)

Mm.

Dr. Kelsey (01:22.158)

And then I actually saw a naturopath in my journey once I was probably 19 or 20. And I just had one appointment with her. And it was like finally being heard after so many years of feeling like no one was taking me seriously of, you know, she's just another.

that doesn't like her skin, like nothing crazy. And it wasn't, you know, this huge, profound like skin clearing experience either, but it was something that made me really start to question my journey and route in terms of how, what I wanted to do with my life. I knew, I always knew I wanted to be in medicine and help people. I just wasn't fully sure at that point what that really looked like. And so it was my first introduction to naturopathic medicine.

And it felt really lovely. And I just kind of kept going through I thought I was going to be a pharmacist kept going through the motions of like going through that journey. And when that didn't work out, I had this like light bulb moment of like, well, I really liked that. Like, why don't I see you know what that's all about. And the stars sort of aligned that I had all the prerequisites to apply the applications were open, it all kind of worked out really well. And I landed myself.

Michelle (02:18.788)

well.

Dr. Kelsey (02:41.038)

in naturopathic college very shortly after I graduated. And fast forward a few years, I then had another experience in the medical community that pertained to my fertility. And it was my like last ditch effort in my hormonal birth control phase of again, trying to figure out my skin. And I was told that we would likely struggle, I'd likely struggle to get pregnant whenever the time came. Here's another.

you know, birth control prescription, like, see you later. And that was sort of the breaking point for me of like, okay, at that moment, it wasn't like, hugely about the fertility piece, though that was, you know, a big factor for me of like, my gosh, you know, I have to have this conversation with my boyfriend, who's now my husband, but

you know, what is that gonna look like and where the heck do I go from here? And it really propelled me into the field of women's health medicine in general. But I also felt very fortunate that I got this warning when I was young that my fertility is something I need to pay attention to. And a lot of women don't get that, right? We often don't.

Michelle (03:53.86)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (03:54.446)

get to even start having these conversations until sometimes you're six months into trying and then you're like, what the heck, it's not easy, what's going on? And now we're learning, whereas I, you know, my journey wasn't awesome, but I was blessed with this opportunity to really dig into that piece many years before we were even ready. And I attribute that to our very fortunate success down the road.

Michelle (04:00.452)

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (04:20.558)

of being able to set my body up for success and have those conversations. And I was obviously already embedded in a community that took a very natural whole body focused approach. And when I came out of school, I knew that that's where I was meant to kind of put my expertise was in helping couples, A, hopefully, you know, create content and get the word out there that like we should be having these conversations.

earlier than when we're even ready, but be okay, if you're not getting the support on your fertility experience in mainstream medicine, like guess what, there's other options. And that's how Fertility Confidence Method came to be.

Michelle (04:50.212)

Yeah.

Michelle (05:05.604)

That's awesome. We have very similar stories. We talked about that before. And if I might ask, what were they basing the fertility, well, what they were perceiving as fertility issues on?

Dr. Kelsey (05:09.678)

I see you. I see you.

Dr. Kelsey (05:19.534)

Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to, it was a botched IUD insertion, which if anyone listening has ever, you know, had an IUD put in or unfortunately had a similar experience to me, it was not awesome. So there was a lot of like medical trauma that came out of that appointment just as a whole. But she kept telling me that like my uterus was a funny shape. It wasn't.

Michelle (05:26.436)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (05:40.772)

wow. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (05:48.814)

the way that it should be, that there was something wrong with it. And it was quite literally just based off that, you know, assessment alone. There was never an ultrasound done. And I was 21. Like, I didn't know any better at the time to like ask more questions or get more knowledge at that moment. I did seek that out down the line and was told like, you know, yes, there are factors here, but like,

let's just try and see what happens. And I had put my body in a very, you know, privileged stance at that point of like, I had years to work on egg quality and balance my hormones, you know, coming off of birth control, I actually had quite a few hormonal issues with that, that the birth control was just masking for me this whole time, right? So I had years to fix that.

Michelle (06:36.516)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (06:43.15)

But the physical piece that they made like a big stink about truly at the end of the day, I don't think was as big of a factor as they made it seem, which is another big piece of the story of like getting factual information into the hands of women so that we're not, you know, walking around thinking we're barren because I spent a good portion of my 20s assuming that because that's how it was explained to me. It wasn't really.

Michelle (07:10.148)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:11.246)

discussed in an appropriate manner, right?

Michelle (07:14.98)

Totally. And I've heard people say, you know, they've been told, you have PCOS, you're likely to have issues getting pregnant. You're going to have a hard time. Like really, it's just, just give that information to somebody, get that in their mind and then let them leave the office. Yeah. Yeah. There is a thought.

Dr. Kelsey (07:23.598)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:30.798)

Yeah, let's actually help them. What does that that conversation can happen in a far more appropriate manner that supportive versus like you're going to struggle. It's like, well, okay, we know this is here. We know that this has the potential to decrease fertility rates. So let's, you know, dig deeper, find the root cause work on that. So that's not your story. Instead of just

Michelle (07:44.132)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (07:58.084)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (07:58.702)

putting women on birth control and saying like, when you wanna have kids, we'll just see what happens is kind of the route with PCOS. It's the route with endometriosis as well often, any sort of like period concern. That's sort of how we tackle it, unfortunately.

Michelle (08:03.812)

Totally.

Michelle (08:08.676)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (08:16.1)

Yeah, it is unfortunate, but it is out there, which is why I like getting this message out for people. I've had naturopathic doctors on before, but somebody might be just kind of stumbling upon this podcast. I would love for you to just give an overview on how that's different than mainstream medicine and how you guys approach really the body and like health.

Dr. Kelsey (08:26.35)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (08:38.446)

Yeah. Yeah. I love to explain it in a way of like, in terms of like a general practitioner, we're not vastly different, but we have different tools in our toolkit. So we still learn a very similar education as your like standard GP, obviously, when we're getting into like more specialty realms, that's a different journey. But we are more focused on looking at the body as a whole and getting down to the root cause versus treating the symptom, which tends to be how mainstream medicine approaches the majority of complaints, right? I often call it it's reactive healthcare when we're going that route. It's like, I have a problem, this might fix that problem. And if that works, cool.

we're not gonna dig any deeper. And if that doesn't, we might then assess different. Whereas with naturopathic medicine, we really don't wanna be just putting band -aids on things. We wanna be getting down to the root cause and understanding like, why is this happening? And what is our body trying to tell us? And the reality is, is that a lot of times with hormones, for example,

we, you know, there's supplements and things we can all read about and blogs and see on TikTok. But at the end of the day, if it's your gut, that's the problem. Like none of those things are going to help you. So we want to just pick away at the pieces and see in the layers of the body versus just looking superficially at the front. And then we use our different tools. So for me, for example, and not all NDs are going to

hold the same value, but it's all about gold standard of care for me. So I'm not anti -pharmaceutical. I'm not anti -mainstream medicine. A lot of my clients work with fertility clinics still. I think there really needs to be a synergistic approach between Western medicine and alternative care. I think that's the way of the future to lessen the burden on mainstream medicine truly, but we're going to come in and look at, okay,

Dr. Kelsey (10:53.006)

How are you eating? How are you sleeping? What's your stress like? Are you moving your body? Like there's so many fundamental pieces of health that don't really get talked about in mainstream medicine. And for two reasons, one, they're not trained in that realm. You know, their nutrition training is like a day or something like that. Like it's not a lot.

Michelle (11:06.084)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (11:19.47)

They don't learn about supplements unless they're pharmaceutical branded and they don't have the time, right? Like here in Ontario, we have quote unquote free healthcare, but your appointments are like seven to 10 minutes and then they got to see the next person and the next person. I know it's like that in many places. So we're now not getting the time to have these fundamental conversations. It really is just how quick can I fix the problem?

So as an ND, I have the flexibility of having longer appointments if I'm in private practice and spending the time and doing the digging. And I have the extra training to put the pieces of the puzzle together from a whole body systems approach.

Michelle (12:06.404)

And how do you uncover it? Do you do different testing? Like what's the difference between the testing that you would run versus the testing that people would get more mainstream?

Dr. Kelsey (12:13.71)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (12:17.454)

Yeah, we run a lot of blood work with our clients, which is similar to what, you know, your fertility clinic would run. But I do find that in the fertility realm specifically, lab assessment is still very surface level. Like your first kind of look at, I'm walking into the clinic, my first appointment, they're going to do some testing. It's still not deep enough for the majority of couples. So we're then getting that unexplained tag instead of actually going down that next rabbit hole. So we dig a little bit deeper just with a variety of labs looking at nutrient deficiencies and blood sugar management and things like that, that the clinics don't often look at first and foremost, unless there's like a big glaring red flag in your health history, then they might. And then we do sometimes use some various functional testing, it depends who I'm working with. So,

And for me with testing, I really wanna make sure that we're using resources, we're spending money and we're ordering tests that are going to change the treatment protocol. So I'm always very strategic there with like what makes sense per couple in terms of what we wanna look at. And then if any of you listen to the Fertility Confidence Podcast or follow me, you'll know I'm very passionate about male fertility. And so regardless of where you're at in your journey,

It's not all about you and your partner needs a semen analysis. Even if you're one month in, doesn't matter. We need to be uncovering that as well. So if that's not something that's been done early on, and usually if a couple isn't in the fertility clinic realm yet, I find that their doctor might run them some labs, but their partners are kind of just left off to the side for a while. And in our world, that's not okay. It's a whole couple approach. We want to see both factors.

Michelle (13:45.572)

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Michelle (14:07.876)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (14:12.036)

Do you typically see both at the same time every time you speak to people?

Dr. Kelsey (14:17.358)

Yeah, we want to, yeah, we use a very whole couple approach. So I want to make sure that we're not missing something. And I've missed things before by not having their partner in on the assessment or doing that testing or having those conversations and then having them down the line and being like, damn, we just like wasted so much time by not doing this earlier. So

Michelle (14:26.884)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (14:43.342)

Right from the get -go, like I said, no matter how long you've been trying, no matter if you've had kids previously or not, we wanna see those numbers. And at the very least, we wanna get partners involved in prenatal care, even while we wait for a semen analysis, because sperm's 50 % of the equation. And all the things we talk about from female perspective and egg quality and blood sugar and balancing hormones, we could literally...

Michelle (14:56.964)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (15:02.052)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (15:12.462)

flip that script to men and it's equally equally as important. So that's another big piece that's missing in the conversation right now.

Michelle (15:21.06)

Yeah, it's true. And what do you find is a core reason for men having sperm quality issues or even motility and count? Like what are some of the factors that you've seen impacting that?

Dr. Kelsey (15:40.27)

Yeah, I think they need to do more research in the overall why, but we've seen in the data that in the last 40, 50 years, sperm numbers have decreased a significant amount, and they're decreasing at a rate of something like 2 .5 % a year right now. So there's a huge issue happening. And the reality is, is I don't think we'll ever fully know why, but I think we can make some assumptions.

Michelle (15:58.66)

That's crazy.

Dr. Kelsey (16:09.582)

One of those assumptions being our environment is very different than it was 50 years ago. We're exposed to more chemicals, toxins, pesticides, radiation, and they need to do more data into that. There's a recent study that's kind of circulating right now about glyphosate being found in semen specifically. And so now we're starting to see direct correlations, but there's already lots of research in men who have

high levels of parabens or phthalates in their urine having lower sperm quality and count numbers. So we know that environmental toxins are likely a culprit of the global decrease. And I do think that stress is probably a contributing factor. Life is different now. We live in a very go, go, go society. If you're not hustling, you're not winning. And I think we don't take...

Michelle (16:46.244)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (17:08.686)

enough, you know, as we could have this whole conversation for women as well. But, you know, cortisol is in men and cortisol impacts many things. And there's a really fascinating study that looked at men who lived in like war zones and men who like college men, for example, who had to write exams.

Michelle (17:15.012)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (17:31.758)

And they did see a decrease in those time periods in their sperm numbers. So we know that stress plays a factor. So that's my assumption right now. Like I said, I don't know if we'll ever fully, it's so multifaceted that I'm not sure we'll ever have like a clear answer, but I think environment is playing a role. And I do think that stress is likely playing a role and we can couple in, you know, with our environment, food quality.

Michelle (17:31.812)

Mm.

Michelle (17:40.676)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (17:47.524)

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Kelsey (18:01.71)

Overall has gone down, processed food and the access to processed food and our consumption of sugar has gone up over the years. All of these things, they're all playing a really big factor in not just how a male's body makes sperm, but testosterone levels, which are also important for sperm production.

Michelle (18:09.828)

huh.

Michelle (18:23.364)

Yeah, a couple of things came to mind. I actually remember reading something about sperm production and count relating very much to nervous system imbalances, which really kind of speaks to the stress aspect of it. But also, I mean, you see, I see guys carrying their phones in their front pocket.

Dr. Kelsey (18:34.254)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yeah, totally.

Dr. Kelsey (18:44.142)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Michelle (18:44.9)

It's got to play a role. I mean, we're, you know, we know that that's what's happening recently is that like technology is increasing and there's so many more waves that we're exposed to that we have not been exposed to before.

Dr. Kelsey (18:57.838)

Yeah, we need more research for sure. I'm always scouring for EMF data because I get asked all the time, right? And I'm like, we don't, we know a little, but we don't know a lot. Like, we don't know enough to be like, everyone put it all away. Like, this is the culprit, right? But but that is one really easy recommendation, like just in case that we can give and we know that phones are giving off, you know,

Michelle (19:05.284)

Yeah.

Michelle (19:12.292)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (19:24.334)

lots of things and we also know that they get warm, right? And testicular heat is a big factor. And so I'm in Southern Ontario and yeah, yeah, no kidding. Yeah, just put it in your back pocket. That's what I tell my clients. I say, if you're moving around, put in your back pocket. When you get there, when you get to wherever you're going, if you can take it out of your pocket and put on the table, just do that.

Michelle (19:29.892)

Yeah.

Michelle (19:33.956)

I would say be careful anyway, even if you don't have the data. I mean, don't wait for the data to be careful. Yeah, I see the same thing.

Dr. Kelsey (19:52.558)

Like just get in the habit of not always having to have it in your pocket. And that was something I really had to train my husband with too, because he would just leave his phone in his front pocket all the time. And I was like, we just, just, it's super simple. You just have to change your habit. And it feels weird at first, sure. But overall, like, and not just in the fertility journey, but it is likely causing testicular damage. And so when we're thinking whole health long -term,

Michelle (19:53.092)

Yeah.

Michelle (20:04.132)

Yeah.

Michelle (20:09.54)

Yes.

Dr. Kelsey (20:22.094)

We don't want that either, right? Because now we're gonna have testosterone issues and now we've got all the fun side effects of that as well.

Michelle (20:24.932)

Nope.

Michelle (20:30.564)

I just remember a couple of years, and this is before it was as strong as it is now. I remember seeing this maybe even like 2008, 2009. There was a girl and her mom that went on the Dr. Oz show. And the girl at the time, I don't know if you remember, sometimes girls would put their cell phones in their bra. She would always put it on her right.

Dr. Kelsey (20:45.55)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (20:52.942)

Yep.

Michelle (20:55.012)

side of her brow or like one side over the other. And she ended up getting an aggressive tumor, cancer at 18 years old. And she said, there's no way that this naturally happens for an 18 year old in the same exact spot that she kept her cell phone. So I want to get this message out. And this is years ago, like years and years ago. And that never left my mind. And I was like, you know, that

Dr. Kelsey (21:02.408)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:11.886)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:17.198)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yep.

Michelle (21:24.068)

is not, it cannot be random. It cannot be just left to chance. And this is way back when, when the technology and the radiation was less than it is today. So I'm thinking people need to pay attention to that.

Dr. Kelsey (21:33.038)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (21:38.446)

Yeah, yeah, there's this whole like when we look at the sperm decrease data, it's starting looking at like 1940, like we didn't have cell phones back then, right? Like that is a big change in our society that has to be playing a role with both men and women in some way. And whether or not we'll see like the good confirmation, like you said, it doesn't matter. Like it's an easy change that we can.

Michelle (21:48.644)

Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle (21:57.796)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (22:06.382)

you know, feel comfortable with the assumption that it's likely not nothing. Even if it's just a small piece, every little bit helps. And so it's not a pill. It's not something you have to buy. You literally just have to move it off of your body.

Michelle (22:10.788)

Yeah.

Michelle (22:16.644)

No.

Right, right. We're such creatures of habit though, so I get it. Like it is hard. It's hard to break a habit. If you're used to something and actually there's science behind it because like you have a certain pattern, certain triggers and certain behavior that it feels very like unnatural to change. So, you know, it's a known thing, but it's not forever. You're going to eventually shift it. Same thing with diet, you know,

Dr. Kelsey (22:23.694)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (22:40.174)

Mm.

Michelle (22:48.932)

Diet is very behavioral and that's one thing that I noticed too. It's not something that is just physical. It's not just something that like impacts your nutrition. I mean, yes, it does, but like the behavioral aspect is a big component to it. What have you seen as like pretty common, I guess, lifestyle choices that happen that you feel need to get attention?

when it comes to fertility health from both men and women or both.

Dr. Kelsey (23:23.214)

Yeah, I think like we can talk a lot about the nutrition angle for sure, but a really big one that doesn't get as much attention that actually has fascinating research behind it is sleep. And, and again, kind of in our like higher stress society and our go, go, go lifestyle, we've sacrificed sleep to like fit it all in, right? And,

Michelle (23:37.22)

Hmm.

Michelle (23:46.948)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (23:48.238)

From a male side of things, we have research showing men who sleep less than seven and a half hours a night have lower sperm numbers and poor quality. And we also see by increasing sleep, those numbers actually improve. So it's not just the detriment, but by actually improving the habit, we see improvement, which is what we want at the end of the day. And we see similar patterns with women.

Michelle (23:58.436)

Mm -hmm.

Michelle (24:03.588)

wow.

Dr. Kelsey (24:14.766)

as well in terms of hormone disruption and cortisol and cortisol is an umbrella hormone, right? So it's going to impact everything. So I think that that's a big piece for a lot of couples where they're like, I feel like I'm doing everything. But if we're still, you know, lying in bed, scrolling on our phones or watching shows till midnight or later, and then getting up to start our day at like six, six, 37, you're and you, you know, you've always done that. So it just, it's a habit. It just,

feels normal in your body to live off five, six hours of sleep, but you're likely not getting enough deep or REM sleep in that timeframe. And that long -term is going to contribute to hormonal dysregulation, but it also can be impacting your fertility journey from a root cause perspective if it's impacting cortisol in that way. So sleep is always like a sneaky one, I feel, where people kind of, when they come in and work with us and we start talking about it, they're like,

Michelle (24:52.74)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (25:13.838)

I never thought of that. And it often, women definitely have sleep issues and things to work on, but it almost always is like, yeah, I sleep well, but my husband stays up till like one, two in the morning and he's a night owl, right? Like that's just his normal and that's his habit. And it's not a quick switch to go to bed earlier because your body's not used to it.

Michelle (25:15.108)

Yeah.

Michelle (25:36.452)

Right, yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (25:39.694)

I notice that all the time. I don't know if you notice this, Michelle, but like if I have a couple late nights and then I'm like, okay, I gotta go to bed like at a normal time. I'll just, my body's like, well, you're not ready for sleep. Like I thought we were staying up late now, right? It becomes a bit of a struggle. This was me last night. I'm like, we were away for the weekend. I was like, okay, I really need to get some sleep. And my body's like, do, do, do. So it takes time. So if you're working on sleep, we don't want you going from.

Michelle (25:52.196)

Yeah. Yes. Yep. It's true. Yeah.

Michelle (26:02.34)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (26:08.046)

Midnight to be like, okay now you go to bed at 930 because you're probably gonna lie there very Frustrated and then the frustration is just gonna keep you awake so I usually tell people like go back in 15 minute increments every few days or even every week and just work yourself back into that more like appropriate Crocadian rhythm time frame because we all can go to bed at 9 930

Michelle (26:11.748)

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (26:36.59)

What's happening for our night owls is they're pushing past their natural sleep signals and getting a surge of cortisol around 10, 10 .30. And once you get that and your body's like, we're not sleeping. Okay. Like, let me help you know. Right. And then you're like, well, why to wake? So now you're just paying up later. And so we need to find everyone's sweet spot is a little bit different, but in general, like most humans,

Michelle (26:51.908)

Yeah, and then you wake up.

Michelle (26:56.42)

Right.

Dr. Kelsey (27:05.134)

do better being asleep before 1030. And for some people, that's really early. So it takes time to sort of shift that back. But we do see in the data that longer and better quality sleep improves fertility parameters, which is really like simple thing to change.

Michelle (27:26.756)

my God, I feel like that by itself is a game changer because it's going to also impact what you eat the next day. If you're tired, you tend to go for sugar and it impacts how like, you know, your cravings. So it's such a cascade of events when you're not getting the rest that you need. And then it also goes back to the nervous system because your body's able to regulate or rejuvenate and really heal itself too.

Dr. Kelsey (27:31.758)

Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (27:35.662)

Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (27:50.702)

Yep. Totally.

Michelle (27:56.644)

when you're going through that and clean out hormones. And I mean, there's so many things that sleep does and I love sleep. I really do. But I've always been a night owl. And you know what, my hormones and my menstrual cycle was very regular when I was younger and I had a very irregular circadian rhythm. So it really was thrown off and looking back on like it makes a lot of sense. But I think the devices too, like having it at night.

Dr. Kelsey (28:02.83)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (28:19.278)

Hmm.

Michelle (28:22.82)

those things are giving your brain a signal that it's daytime when it's really not. And that's why one of the, you know, sleep hygiene, like lowering the light so that you're not getting bright light and it's not confusing your brain. But also like what you said, I loved what you said about 15 minutes, because I think that the big part about it is really wrapping your mind around the, the,

Dr. Kelsey (28:38.862)

Yeah.

Michelle (28:49.38)

idea, you know, we sort of like judge the idea of like, my God, before 10 o 'clock, no way or 1030. Like that's crazy. So it's kind of like the judgment that we have on that seems like that's not me. And so I think being aware of that, that block that you could have very easily and then just easing into it, but not ruling it out because it could really impact. I mean, cause we'll do anything else. Like why not?

Dr. Kelsey (28:55.982)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:06.222)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:16.846)

Yeah. Yeah. It's free. I'm trying to tell people it's free. Like we don't have to do anything crazy. We just, it's going to take time and we have to be okay with that. And we have, we're okay with flexibility because you don't have to be perfect to get pregnant. You're, you're going to have some late nights and then you're probably going to have some retraining of your brain to do. Like I was easily falling asleep by nine 30, 10 o 'clock before I went away this weekend. And then now,

Michelle (29:17.54)

Look into that as well, because it's huge. It's free. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle (29:28.964)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (29:46.862)

like, okay, now we gotta start over and that's okay. Like, nothing wrong with that and there's gonna be times where that's worth it to you to go back to your night owl tendencies but the consistency of the majority of the time we are getting to bed at an appropriate hour for your cricketing rhythm and for your hormones and giving your body the time that it needs like for the nervous system like you said to rejuvenate and recoup and.

Michelle (29:49.316)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Michelle (29:57.604)

Yeah.

Dr. Kelsey (30:14.67)

and deal with all the stuff from the day before. And that really does bleed into your decision -making the next day, your nutrition, your cravings, but also your ability to handle stress in general. So that I think is a huge win for a lot of women and men, especially if we're identifying on our intake forms that...

Michelle (30:18.532)

Yeah.

Michelle (30:23.555)

It does. Yeah.

Michelle (30:31.236)

100%.

Dr. Kelsey (30:42.126)

they're really, really stressed and then they're only sleeping five to six hours a night. It's like, well, we're never gonna be able to manage the stress that you are having unless we give your body the tools to do so. And sleep is a really big one.

Michelle (30:58.5)

Yeah. It's like you need energy to cope with stress. Right. Well, to conceive, I mean, think about all the mitochondria we have in the egg cells and the, you know, like it's there for a reason. I mean, we need it. And, and actually on this topic, let's talk about melatonin because I know that melatonin is actually really important for egg quality, possibly sperm quality. I know more for egg quality. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Kelsey (31:01.358)

Yeah, you need energy to live, so just go to sleep. Yes.

Dr. Kelsey (31:18.35)

Hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (31:27.822)

Yeah, I love melatonin. The IVF research is good in terms of seeing higher numbers of embryos form. So we make that assumption from an antioxidant perspective that it's improving egg quality, which we want. But we also see melatonin improving implantation rates in IVF pregnancy. So we're actually not just seeing.

a clinical pregnancy or we're not just seeing an embryo development improvement, we're actually seeing clinical pregnancy rate improvement. So we like melatonin and how I approach it is like, this is not for sleep. So it's not just for people who don't sleep well because the majority of time people who don't sleep well, it's actually not a melatonin problem. There's usually more of a sleep hygiene issue that has to be dealt with or stress, right?

Michelle (32:12.004)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yes. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Kelsey (32:18.094)

So I get asked that a lot, I was asked that just last week actually, like you put melatonin in my plan, but like I sleep well, do I still need to take this? And it's like, yeah, we're actually not using it for sleep. Maybe it might help you get deeper sleep, awesome. If it makes you feel groggy and gross in the morning, some people just can't hack melatonin, I can't. It does not, it makes my sleep opposite. So some people react poorly to it.

And if that's the case, it's just not the product for you on your fertility journey. And that's okay. No, there's lots of other things we can do. But the research is compelling enough. I'd love to see more male research because we haven't or I haven't seen a ton or anything really like pushing melatonin from a sperm perspective yet. But given the power of the antioxidant potential that it has, it wouldn't surprise me if it was also a really good option for men as well.

Michelle (32:49.636)

Right, right.

Michelle (33:15.012)

Yeah, cause we know that both men and women can benefit from antioxidants in general and really antioxidants work as an anti -ager. I mean, it's funny cause if you think about fertility health, just think anti -aging, like that's the protocol. And we can luckily, I mean, there are definitely things that we can do to actually change the biological clock, which is fascinating.

Dr. Kelsey (33:19.534)

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Dr. Kelsey (33:27.79)

Right. Yeah. We're literally wanting to turn the clock back a little bit.

Dr. Kelsey (33:41.198)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Michelle (33:43.204)

Awesome. I mean, this is great conversation. We can keep talking. And I love, I really love the things that you brought up because they're important, you know, especially like the sperm, which gets ignored often. Sleep was another thing really that gets ignored often. And then the question about melatonin, I love melatonin and I love about what I love about it is that it's non habit forming. So you can get off of it and it's not going to impact your sleep.

Dr. Kelsey (34:08.398)

Hmm.

Yeah, and people are always afraid about that. So I think that's a really important piece.

Michelle (34:13.188)

Yeah, yeah. For sure, no doubt. So for people who are listening and want to hear more about you, you have a great Instagram also, by the way, with lots of amazing content. So how can people find you?

Dr. Kelsey (34:23.566)

Thank you.

Dr. Kelsey (34:27.694)

Yeah, come find me on Instagram at Fertility Confidence Method. And then I also host the Fertility Confidence Podcast. So there's tons of resources and information inside there. I do have a on -demand webinar that you can download. It's an hour long. We talk all about the fundamentals and five strategies to build your fertility confidence. So you can grab that at downloads .kelseyduncan .com slash on -demand.

Michelle (34:54.212)

Awesome. Well, Kelsey, this is such a great conversation and we definitely hit it off from the beginning. I agree on a lot of what you talk about.

Dr. Kelsey (35:01.654)

Thank you.

Dr. Kelsey (35:13.486)

Mm.

Michelle (35:21.668)

But thank you so much for coming on today.

Dr. Kelsey (35:26.734)

thanks for having me, Michelle.

THE WHOLESOME FERTILITY PODCAST

EP 292 Sleep, Melatonin, & Sperm health | Dr. Kelsey Duncan