Welcome back to the As a Woman podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Natalie Krovert, and today is one of your favorite episodes. This is Fertility Q&A. And joining me today is Emily Whitlock to answer your fertility questions. Hi, M. Thanks for being here. Hi, happy to be here. All right. Let's do it. Okay, we're starting off hot with a hot topic. She says, I am curious on the effect of alcohol and male fertility, as well as female fertility. I know that alcohol is one of the most common toxins slash drugs. In some social settings, it is almost not accepted to say no. What kind of impact does not drinking alcohol have or just a few

drinks on the IVF process or trying naturally? I think we have to acknowledge that people can get

pregnant doing a lot of toxic things, right? So you're always going to have an end of one story here

where people say, I don't make my patients do that or so-and-so got pregnant doing this. But alcohol has no positive benefits to your health. It is an inflammatory substance, period the end, in addition is a carcinogen. So if you're trying to be your healthiest, most metabolically healthy self, if you want to get pregnant in the healthiest way, if you want to have the best egg and sperm quality, drinking alcohol should not be a piece of that puzzle. Does that mean you can never, ever drink?

Ultimately, it's a personal decision, but we love to see that you're not drinking every day,

that it's going to be extremely limited in your consumption. And my preference would be no alcohol.

If you want the safest answer, that's what it's going to be. In addition to

causing inflammation directly, making your liver have to metabolize it. We all know if you've ever

drank how you feel after drinking. It is directly going to impact your brain's ability to

interpret stress. It impacts how you sleep. It impacts your insulin resistance. It impacts how you

make hormones as well. So it can

impact ovulation as well as sperm production. So for both parties, yes, people can see while drinking, but if you want the easiest chance and you want to have the best egg and sperm quality, it does not include alcohol. I think this is a good reminder of controlling the things that you can control. Yeah, you know, I have a drink for a long time. And my biggest tip is I always get a sparkling water, like a Topo Chico. I'll get it on ice with lemon. And very often people can't tell. And if it's a setting where you don't feel comfortable sharing, although I encourage you to, and more often than not, you're going to see more people are not drinking as well. But maybe you don't, or what I see most commonly is in this environment, people don't want to, oh, are you pregnant? And you're not pregnant. You don't want to induce those questions. You know, get up and go to the bathroom and tell the waiter on the side that that's what you want and don't have to order it in front of everybody. And you can just say, oh, I place my order with the waiter directly.

A lot of hotels, a lot of restaurants and places now have really fun mocktails, too. I feel like not drinking has been a good thing. Just say you're working on your health. Yeah. You know, proactively kind of say, oh, I'm not drinking right now. I'm working on my health. You don't have to then answer some of the are you pregnant questions. Say it's one of your New Year's resolutions.

Try January.

Perfect.

Okay.

The next one says,

Hi, my wife is Wonder. or some of the are you pregnant questions. Say it's one of your New Year's resolutions.

Friday, anyway. Perfect. Okay, the next one says, hi. My wife is wondering if you can speak about low estrogen. She is struggling to find good and trustworthy information in regards to TTC.

She has an upcoming appointment with a doctor and wants to be self-educated and to ask good

questions that they can understand. Thank you.

So this is a hard one without knowing more to the puzzle. So the one thing I want to say is that

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