if you want to know how to improve your egg quality either to get pregnant faster or decrease your risk of miscarriage you're going to want to watch this video we're going to review exactly what egg quality is and five ways to improve it I'm Dr Laura Shaheen I'm a double board certified OBGYN and reproductive endocrinologist helping people build families for almost 20 years I love educating be sure and subscribe to this channel chel so you get my weekly videos all about reproductive Health in this video we're going to be talking all about egg quality it's
certainly a buzzword these days I know there's a lot of content out there about it but I'm going to share with you exactly what egg quality is and five ways that you can improve your egg quality starting today be sure and stick around to the end of this video where I give my number one warning to my patients before they start these five important steps first part of this video what is egg quality exactly well I mean at its core a good quality egg is able to ovulate fertilize with a sperm turn into a beautiful
blasy or mature embryo implant into the uterine cavity and become a beautiful baby I mean at the end of the day that is a high quality egg when we're trying to understand egg quality and teach patients it's hard to narrow it down there's so many different ways to measure it and think about it but I think about three important ways to talk about egg quality with my patients number one somebody who is infertile who's having multiple miscarriages we think about egg quality as being one of the factors that could be leading to this struggle for
building your family number two if my patients are doing IVF we get a little bit of a window into egg quality because the embryologists are actually seeing the eggs under the microscope and I work with my embryologist to talk about egg quality and talk about my patients outcomes and they'll sometimes describe eggs to me so remember egg is a single cell it's mainly water under the microscope it just looks black and white but my embryologist can really say you know these eggs do not look like good quality they're dark they're grainy they're full of vacul
there's certain ways that embryologists can communicate with the doctors to say there might be an egg quality issue here other things with IVF is if you're getting poor outcomes if you're getting fewer eggs than you expect low fertilization low blasticus formation rate or low number of normal embryos or just not getting pregnant or having miscarriages if this whole process there's poor outcomes that are happening with IVF we think about egg quality as being one of the factors there's so many things to think about and so I'm not saying that if you're having these things it's
absolutely egg quality in your particular case but it's something to think about it's something to talk to your doctor about and finally number three we think about ovarian reserve testing as a window into egg quality now this too is absolutely not perfect but we can do ultrasounds looking at anal follicle count we can do blood tests looking at cycle day three follicle stimulating hormone levels and then the antim malarian hormone levels or amh levels and listen if you have a below average antal folicle count for your age if you have a below average amh level
for your age or elev FSH level these things can signal poor egg quality it's not perfect and there are people with horrible test results that get pregnant without assistance and have a beautiful baby they are not the end all Beall but when you're talking about egg quality these are three different ways that you can kind of think about it becoming a part of your discussion with your fertility doctor would you struggling with infertility or having repeated miscarriages poor outcomes with IVF or embryologist seeing things under the microscope and finally if you have poor ovarian reserve
testing if you have questions about ovarian reserve testing be sure to watch my video All About fertility testing Basics it's in my playlist under fertility testing here on YouTube and I hope that information can be helpful it's a big topic it is absolutely not perfect but it's too much to go into this particular video this is not black and white it's not perfect but it can all lead into a discussion and help you ask questions about is egg quality a factor for me and what can I do to improve my egg quality now that's the
second part of this video so before I get to these five tips why does egg quality matter and what is it exactly well I think about it as the functioning of the genes and specifically the functioning of chromosomes a poor quality egg is not going to be able to do all the genetic changes that it needs to in order to fertilize turn into a mature embryo implant and be a baby now remember our genes are on stacks of Legos I often describe it called chromosomes they look like X's if I take you back to biology
and in every cell in our body we have 23 pairs of chromosomes one copy comes from the egg that we came from and one copy comes from the sperm that we came from and eggs are unique in that when we are born we have all the eggs we're going to have and they're frozen in a genetic State called meiosis 1 I'm not going to go deep into biology class I promise but meiosis one is basically where there are two copies of each chromosome and the eggs are sitting like this and it's when we ovulate whether
we're 20 or 40 that our eggs have to get rid of half of the copies of the chromosomes in order to fertilize with sperm that give the other copy and so older eggs make more mistakes now I have a whole video here on age and fertility where I really do a deep dive into this and I talk about how eggs and sperm are different and how age is such a huge impact on fertility time to pregnancy miscarriage risk and more so I want you to understand age I mean there's so much talk about age and
fertility and it really is the age of the eggs of course there is an age factor for sperm but it's just not as dramatic and I really get into it in that age and fertility video so we keep hearing about age and it's so frustrating because that's something that you can't change so this video is to teach you ways that you can improve your egg quality and you can't turn back the clock as my friend Dr Amy aaz you probably know her as Dr Amy says we can't Botox our eggs I have a great review
with Dr Amy on my podcast the baby or bust fertility podcast I will link it in the description below but she says that in that interview you can't Botox your eggs I wish that you could and sort of freeze time like you can freeze muscles in your face to decrease wrinkles but you can't do that with your eggs that's why people do egg freezing as a option for fertility preservation someone's not ready to get pregnant but they know that the older their eggs get the fewer of them are able to do all that genetic work
that it takes to become a baby so people will do stimulation get the eggs out of the body and freeze them so that they can use them later in life when they're actually ready to get pregnant it's not perfect there's a lot to think about and goes into thinking about egg freezing but that's all of this information kind of coming together now I have a playlist here all about egg freezing and at least five videos going into who should do egg freezing how to think about how to find a clinic and all of this information
but I'm just trying to tie in the importance of age so we can't change age as far as egg quality is concerned but there's a lot of research coming out that with the processing of going through meiosis 1 reading DNA reading genes that what we do now as far as impacting the proteins that are around the DNA the epigenetics the things that are surrounding the genes and what gets turned on and turned off things that we do today can actually help our DNA work better so that's what we're going to talk about in the next
part of this video five ways you can improve your egg quality even if you can't turn back the clock and turn back age there are things that you can do to improve your egg quality let's go over them tip number one limit these toxins tobacco alcohol marijuana listen the message is out about tobacco smoking this includes vaping will increase poor egg quality risk increase risk of miscarriage smoking is out a lot of patients give push back when I talk about marijuana and alcohol I have full videos here really doing a deep dive into the research
I understand it's a part of relaxing for people I understand that some people really enjoy it but alcohol and marijuana should not be a part of our everyday life and it can absolutely impact our reproductive Health whether it's eggs or sperm so really thinking about tobacco alcohol marijuana these are things you could limit at a minimum in order to improve your egg quality tip number two limit endocrine disruptors so these are different types of toxins and they're in our home I am talking about BPA or bisphenol a parabens phalates and lots of chemicals that have
been made in the last couple decades and are in our everyday products scents laundry detergent beauty products Plastics in our kitchen a lot of these everyday products maybe they could be safe with limited exposure but when you add up all of the things that we're exposed to on an everyday basis they really can start to impact our overall health and specifically our reproductive Health limiting processed foods because they're often created using a lot of plastics along the process not using a plastic water bottle you know every once in a while it's okay I don't want
to increase fear around this I just want to say if you can limit exposure and choose safer products overall you're going to decrease your exposure and that has been shown to improve your reproductive Health including egg quality I have lots of information here I have a whole playlist called lifestyle optimization for fertility and I have videos on phalates and parabens and ways to eliminate toxins I'm going to put a link in the description below for my ebook on the five ways to get PL plastic out of your kitchen I really want to help educate you
on ways to limit and decrease exposure you can't eliminate it completely but every little thing that you do can truly help tremendously tip number three manage stress this is acute stress this is chronic stress I know it's tough to hear this because then you stress about stressing listen we are all exposed to stress but if we work on managing stress and coping techniques whatever is right for you taking a walk acupuncture therapy meditation yoga time for yourself reading whatever it is ways you can manage stress to decrease that constant exposure to cortisol levels are so
much of what we're built on and what we're running on right now is this fight ORF flight kind of increased nervous system this this constant stress mode actually helps us function well we can meet deadlines and meet goals in life but that constant elevated cortisol level really increases inflammation throughout our body and it can impact our overall health and well-being so we can't eliminate stress but we can manage it so that we can recover faster and so find ways a little bit every single day journaling is another option talking to a friend relaxing in the
evening you know whatever you need to do to kind of manage stress find Joy have something to look forward to that can only improve our reproductive health and our egg quality tip number four think about your overall health and well-being the things that you're doing like getting sleep focusing on nutrition and thinking about exercise and moving your body those three things are absolutely amazing for your overall health and well-being and that will only improve your reproductive Health as well make sleep a priority I have a whole video here on the importance of sleep impacting our
fertility and I've got tips in that video that help you think about a quiet room planning for bedtime decompressing before you get into bed and tips and tricks to making sleep a priority nutrition it's so important we've already talked about the importance of decreasing processed foods as a way to decrease exposure to Plastics and the endocrine disruptors that are in that process of processing Foods more fruits and vegetables and a balanced diet just you know find joy that doesn't mean that you can't ever have ice cream because it's absolutely amazing but if we make more
choices towards higher nutrition you know lowering fast food lowering processed food thinking about a Mediterranean diet I've got lots of videos here on nutrition and fertility and specifically foods that can improve your fertility and foods that can actually harm your fertility and and I hope that that can be really helpful exercise is also extremely important for your overall health and well-being and your egg quality too many people eliminate exercise because they're afraid of disrupting implantation or making the embryo fall out and that is not good exercise is important for your mental health for your physical
health you want to modify you don't want to increase your cortisol levels because you're stressing your body out too much but moving your body in a restorative way is magical and I've got plenty of videos here on exercise just through fertility as well as during the IVF process as well I hope they're helpful and number five finally supplements supplements with antioxidants um something like vitamin A vitamin E co-enzyme Q10 vitamin D can help reproductive Health every time your cell is working and you're reading DNA if there's a lot of oxidative stress and free radicals around
the DNA as it's being used that can decrease replication and function of the DNA and all of your cellular processes so in general increasing antioxidants whether it's through the food that you're eating or through some well chosen supplements it can really improve your overall reproductive health and your egg quality you've got to talk to your doctor about the supplements that you're taking you know I talk about this a lot that the supplement industry is A200 billion dollar industry and most of the money it's spent on marketing not on high quality ingredients and you don't need
to buy the most expensive vitamin or supplement that's out there you don't need to buy tons of different supplements I talk to my patients about a really good multivitamin so if someone's getting pregnant it's a prenatal vitamin and if it's the male partner multivitamin and then vitamin D I think is essential for especially for my patients living in the Pacific Northwest I practice in Seattle and so many people are vitamin D deficient and then the only extra antioxidant which is not in most multivitamins or prenal vitamins is co-enzyme Q10 and that can be really helpful
and DNA replication and use of cellular functions and that's exactly what the egg is doing to be careful when you are trying to find supplements and I've got some videos here on how to find a good prenatal vitamin and how to find a safer supplement but absolutely Ely talk to your doctor first before you take anything and always review with your doctor when they ask you about medications that you're taking don't just include prescription medications include the supplements as well because it's really important to communicate about this I've got a lot of resources here with
a deep dive into almost every topic that I just went over look at my playlist on lifestyle optimization for fertility and you will find information on finding safer supplements on sleep on exercise marijuana and egg quality alcohol impact on fertility in women so much information I really hope that those resources will help you and in each video I have references to the resources that are mentioned and I talk about the studies so I hope that that could be helpful now the number one warning that I have for you just like I have for all of
my patients before they start to implement these five ways to improve egg quality is don't lose joy in the process so much of fertility and taking back control of fertility because you feel like you've lost it is elimination like I'll be better I'll be more fertile if I cut out this and this and this and it starts to become a spiral I am on the 80% plan so if 80% of the time you can focus on nutrition and getting sleep and exercise and taking your supplements and all the things that we talked about that is
perfection 80% is perfection you have got to enjoy that ice cream every once in a while oh my gosh if you are going out to celebrate your birthday or a friend's anniversary you know you're enjoying a dinner out have a glass of wine have a glass of champagne enjoy your life these things are not meant to restrict and eliminate and take things out of your life that you enjoy it's just everything in moderation and making more positive and healthy choices than things that we sometimes enjoy but we know really aren't very good for us I
truly hope that this video is helpful it's one of the number one questions that I get how to improve egg quality I hope you're taking information away look for links in the description for more information and certainly run through the rest of the videos here on my YouTube channel because I talk about this all the time like this video if you learn something comment with questions that you have be sure and subscribe to this channel so you get my weekly video all about reproductive health and until then wishing you love luck and pineapples
