The vast majority of assumptions that people make about their body and how fertility works are often wrong.

How early would you want women who want to eventually get pregnant to start thinking about fertility?

I think people should start thinking about fertility in their 20s.

Dr. Lucky Sikon, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at RMA of New York,

works with patients navigating fertility every day. And in this episode, she breaks down how

fertility actually works. Human reproduction is extremely inefficient. The amount of effort

you put in doesn't always equate to a better outcome. We're only expecting like a 20 to 25%

max chance per month. A lot of times people

just kind of chalk their periods up to this is the burden of being a woman. They're being

gaslit. Hi guys, Kate here. Thank you so much for tuning into our conversation today with

Dr. Lucky. If you are enjoying post-run

high, please be sure to follow wherever you're listening, and we'll be right back after this

short break. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

Dr. Lucky C. Khan, I feel like fertility is one of those things that we don't think about until suddenly it's all we're thinking about. And in that moment, it can feel like there's a gap

between what we thought we knew and what's actually true. And you guide people through this every day. So what are we

most commonly getting wrong about fertility before we even start trying? I don't mean to sound

negative because I'm actually a very optimistic positive person, but I'd say the vast majority

of assumptions that people make about their body and how it works and how

fertility works are often wrong. And it comes down to just people lacking fundamental knowledge.

I think it's because it's viewed as not relevant, right, for a large part of your adult life,

when you're nowhere near being ready to start trying to get pregnant. It's like, well,

why would I focus on that? I'll worry about that. That's a later problem, right? And we think we got some knowledge in school, but the focus was very different in health class. It was about avoiding pregnancy. And there wasn't a lot of focus on what is ovulation and how do you track it and what are the different red flags that can appear over the course of your life when it comes to your menstrual cycles and what could it mean? I mean, it was really about contraception and avoiding an unplanned pregnancy. That was really the focus. And there's no formalized education. And so people come to me at all different stages. Some people are like, I'm just here for a fertility checkup. I'm just here because I have no idea how I should feel about my body, my fertility, how I should be planning things out for the future, should I be thinking about egg freezing. And then I have people who come to me and they're like, I've been trying for two, three, four years and I haven't seen anyone because I'm kind of nervous and I'm afraid about what you're going to tell me and everything in between, you know,

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