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Is It Too Late To Have A Baby?

The Super Fertility Summit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VBK66oadCRa30x4o7ve_5FoGe2osu573/view?usp=drive_link

If you think about the average population, there's a normal curve that describes everything, including reproduction. Let me walk you through the normal curve. When it comes to female fertility, a woman becomes fertile when she goes through puberty, which happens earlier on average and starts around 11 years of age. Then she stops being fertile when she goes through menopause, which happens on average around 50 years old. Now, a woman's fertility peaks usually around 24 years old and then starts to decline immediately following that peak, and by 35, she has declined significantly; by 37, she has declined even more significantly; by 40, she has declined even more significantly; and by 41 or 42, she has declined even more significantly, so much so that by the age of 44, most people are considered outside or beyond the age of 44. Most people are considered outside of reproductive age; even in epidemiological studies, reproductive-aged women get cut off at 44 years old, even though most people wouldn't be able to have a baby at 44 years old. 

That's what the average picture of reproductive span looks like. That's the normal curve. Now, in every case of the normal curve, you have outliers in the tails; you have a negative outlier. You have, not just one. You have negative outliers, and you have positive outliers. Our goal is to be positive outliers when it comes to reproductive span. This is intuitive when it comes to lifespan. Let me draw this parallel for you. On average, a woman in the United States of America, where I'm from, lives to be 80 years old. It was 81 years post-COVID or pre-COVID, but post-COVID it's 80 years old, and we know that some people are negative outliers and positive outliers; positive outliers live longer than 80, and negative outliers live fewer than 80 years.

You understand that when it comes to lifespan and nobody's walking around saying, Now that she's having her 80th birthday, she's going to die. But for whatever reason, we are walking around saying that now that she's had her 35th birthday, she's going to be infertile. Now that she's had her 40th birthday, she's going to be infertile. It doesn't have to be that way. What we want to do is extend our reproductive span as much as possible and be those positive outliers. The way to do it is through that emphasis on reducing biological, reproductive, and epigenetic age, which is the entire focus of everything that we do in the Primemester Protocol, including the systemic deep scrub, which uses very specific and strategically reproduction-informed fasting to encourage DNA repair, autophagy, mitophagy, improved mitochondria function, and improved myocardial metabolic profile by being within the fertile zone of BMI and waist-hip ratio, reducing inflammation, creating positive epigenetic change that can be passed on to our super babies and super grandbabies, and so on. Those are just some examples of what we do in the pathways that they impact to improve fertility and equality in sperm quality through reduced biological age. 

How do you know, if you are running out of time to have a baby? Well, you might have an instinct. You might be having a birthday that tells you that you are based on these common party lines. You might have a lab value that tells you that you're running out of time. Maybe your AMH level is low or your anti-mullerian hormone is low. It's below one, or maybe it's at one, but it's low for your age. Maybe you've been told you have premature ovarian failure. Maybe you have diminished ovarian reserve. Maybe your eggs seem to be of poor quality because you keep miscarrying, or you've had many IVF cycles and none of the embryos fertilize, or none of the embryos are normal, chromosomal, or normal. After testing. Or maybe you're just worried that you're running out of time and you haven't met your partner yet. 

Here's what I want you to know. The earlier we have our babies, the better. That's true. We were designed biologically to reproduce at a time when our lifespan wasn't that long. Number one. Number two, the stresses of the world were not what they are today. Our grandmother's generation was more fertile at 35 than a woman in her 20s is today. Because of the immense stressors in our modern world that our reproductive biology didn't evolve to understand, how do we respond to and function despite them? We're in this incredible mismatch between the modern world that we live in and the stresses that it brings and the world that our reproductive biology evolved to survive in, function in, and thrive in. That's a big problem. 

That's what is largely accounting for these massive declines in female fertility over the last six decades and sperm count over the last four decades. There's been a more than 50% reduction in sperm count overall, on average, and in the Western world and wealthy nations. We have this problem, and it's making us age faster biologically and reproductively. Also, as I said already, our evolutionary history is one that encouraged us to reproduce earlier in life. We're still those same beings at an evolutionary level. It's still the case that the earlier we reproduce, the better. We'll not be too early. You can reproduce too early; by the way, the scientific data show that fertility and pregnancy outcomes are adverse earlier and later. It's still ideal to reproduce around 24-25 from a biological perspective. 

But many of us aren't able to or ready to do that, given the realities of the time that we live in. Staying in school longer, having to focus on careers for longer, taking longer to get financially stable, taking longer to find the right partner—all of these things—and feeling ready to mother in the way that we want a mother, or a parent in the way we want to parent—and that's another thing. Those of us who waited longer have one wonderful advantage, which is that we have a different level of consciousness in our parenting and an appreciation for the role of parenting and for having our super babies. 

For those of you who have had to work hard to have your super babies, that will be the most beautiful silver lining that you've done so much amazing work to lay the foundation for them as you Primemester, and you've done so much work to be ready for your role as Mama and Dada parents. Early is better. But for many of us, that's not possible, not an option, not a viable option. The next best thing is to make ourselves as biologically early in life as we can, despite our chronological age. That's going to be the answer that we need to focus on and the place where we have all the leverage so that we can improve our outcomes, whether we're pursuing natural conception or assisted reproduction. 

Now, in our next MiniTalk, let's tackle how to improve the quality of our eggs for getting pregnant, either naturally or using IVF or IUI. I'll see you in the next one.

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<h6>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</h6>
How do you, if you're running out of time to have a baby? This is a question that I get asked every week, and there's a lot of hysteria out there. All of these fertility party lines say that if you're 35, you're over the hill. It's a geriatric pregnancy. It's advanced maternal age. If you're 40, you're screwed. If you're 42, Plus, especially if you want to do IVF, Well, good luck. Your odds are so low for success. We hear all of these things constantly. It's not that there's no truth in these statements, because these statements describe what happens on average.

https://drtalks-media.b-cdn.net/Summit%20Audio%20Files/2024%20Summits/2024%20-%20The%20Super%20Fertility%20Summit/Transcript%20Files/2024_Fertility_Mini%20Talk%20Day%205%20Transcript%20File.pdf

Dr. Cleopatra is The Fertility Strategist and Executive Director of The Fertility &amp; Pregnancy Institute. She is a scientist and university professor who pioneered the field of fertility biohacking and creating superbabies. To date, Dr. Cleopatra has scientifically studied tens of thousands of women and families and has helped women in 18 countries on 6 continents have their superbabies. She has received nearly $3 million in grant funding from multiple arms of the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute on Standards Technology, and private foundations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Is It Too Late To Have A Baby?

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

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Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD