By Aimee Raupp, MS LAc

This article was reviewed AimeeRaupp.com's editorial team & is in compliance with our editorial policy.

Join me today to learn why AMH and FSH are NOT the most important factors in your fertility journey and I'll give you some tips to improve them naturally.

Here Is The Full Transcription Of The Video

Hey, Facebook, what's up? I am Aimee Raupp of aimeeraupp.com, and I am here to inspire you on your health journey. I am here to help you reawaken your health on every level, mentally, emotionally, physically, and nutritionally. Hello. Hello. Hello. I am so happy to be with you guys and to share some really important information for all you girls out there who are thinking about your fertility, who are trying to conceive naturally, who are in the throes of fertility treatments. For all of you out there who are worried about your hormone levels, I have got some tips for you on how to naturally improve your FSH and your AMH so you can get pregnant faster. Yeah, really important stuff. Hi, Laura, thanks for coming on. Hello, Ariella. Oh, hi, guys. Everybody's joining, rolling on, It's an important topic. It really is. I did a video series on this a while back, and it's got thousands and thousands of views.

So first off, what is FSH? What is AMH? Some of you know, some of you don't know. FSH is follicle-stimulating hormone. It is secreted by your brain. And it tells your body to produce follicles, and as that number goes up, doctors see it as a bad sign, a sign of diminished ovarian reserve. AMH is anti-mullerian hormone. It's a hormone secreted by your ovaries. As that number goes down, doctors see that as a bad sign that your ovarian reserve is diminishing. So, girls, women will come to me all the time, stressed about high FSH, low AMH, very, very, very, very, very stressed about these things. And I'm going to give you some awesome tips today, but also stick around because I have an incredible free gift for you. A one-day online retreat that's going to help you improve your fertility even more.

So stick around, so I can give you that information, okay? Because it's free, and it's awesome, and it will really help you shift your health and your fertility, so stick around for that. Instagram, the link will be in my bio and Facebook we will post the link. So let's get to it. Okay, first off, your doctors use this as a measurement tool of ovarian reserve. Ovarian reserve has not been shown scientifically at all to have anything to do with ovarian egg quality. So if you have a poor reserve, it does not automatically you have poor quality eggs. Okay, so that's first thing. I want to just dispel that myth for you. If you have poor reserve, you do not have port quality eggs. And my main focus when I work with women is quality, not quantity. I don't give a crap about how many eggs you have left and you shouldn't either.

The only time it really, really matters is when you're doing fertility treatments because doctors use these numbers as a gauge to see how well you're going to respond to their fertility meds. If your FSH is high, or your AMH is low, you're not going to respond that well. You're a harder case for them. Interestingly enough, research from 2017 in the Journal of American Medical Association, JAMA, found that a study of 1,000 women, they looked at women with high FSH, low AMH and women with healthy levels of FSH and AMH and found that their reproductive potential, meaning their ability to get and stay pregnant and carry to term was exactly the same. Let me say that again. A research piece from JAMA, Journal of American Medical Association released in 2017 studied 1,000 women and looked at their FSH and AMH and found that it had nothing to do with their reproductive potential.

So basically, women with high FSH or low AMH got pregnant at the same rate as women with healthy levels of FSH and AMH. Take that in. Alyssa Johnson, “I wish I found you years ago. My old fertility doctor always stressed me on so much.” Aw, I know. Well, that's it. It is stressful, guys. Listen, what I'm asking of you is to not be attached to those numbers. What you're western docs put on you are these numbers all the time, so it's really hard. It's challenging. My heart goes out to you because it's not easy. It's not easy to gauge where to stand here, right? It's not easy to gauge this situation, but I will tell you this. I mean, I've seen it clinically. I see it all the time. I see women with these poor high FSH, low AMH, and they get pregnant. They're not always good responders when it comes to IVF, but they get pregnant usually on their own.

And then I've seen women that are great. They have great numbers, they're great responders, they're still having trouble. So I don't see these numbers meaning that much. Mika, so funny, you came up yesterday in conversation. I was totally going to reach out to you today. So look at you. You must be on our same wavelength. Anyway. Hi, Mika, I love you. So keep that in mind that women have the same reproductive potential. Well, this was a 1,000 women regardless of their numbers. So what I'm going to ask of you, the number one way that I'm going to tell you to naturally improve your FSH and AMH is to stop caring about it. Yup. I want you to become less attached to your numbers. Your numbers do not define you. Your numbers do not define your fertility.

We don't know what the general population is. We don't know what their FSH or AMH is when they just get pregnant so easily. We have no idea. When I turned 40 and my husband and I decided to start trying for a child, I went to my gynecologist, and I said, “Should I get my FSH tested?” She said, “No. No. Why do that to yourself, Aimee? You do what you do for other women. Your job is to help get them as healthy as they can be and then conceive from that place. You've been following your own advice for how many years, and your book is in our waiting room. Follow that advice. I'll test your thyroid, I'll test your vitamin D.” That's what she agreed to test because she was just like, “I don't want to do this test. Just go get pregnant,” like, “Go get knocked up.”

I said, “Well, I want to know what my thyroid, and my D are, let's just check those.” “OK. Okay, fine,” she said. She said, she goes, “I see all the time. These women, we test their numbers because they ask us to and then they get in their head about them and if they're not good it's going to become your identity. I have low AMH, I have I FSH. I am screwed,” is basically what you're saying to yourself. “My body is failing me, and I will never get pregnant,” and then you live your life from that space. It becomes a belief. A belief is just a thought you keep thinking, and I have talked about this ad-nauseum. I wrote a whole book on it. Your beliefs dictate your behavior. Your behavior dictates your health.

When you walk around thinking, “I am my numbers, and my numbers are crap,” guess what? Your body's going to respond that way. When you walk around thinking, “Yeah, my numbers are what they are, and guess what? FSH changes all the time. AMH changes all the time. FSH and AMH change all the time. I see them improve. I see them not improve. I see them say exactly the same for three years.” I see a 45-year-old in my group. Her AMH went up by a whole point. Her doctor said, “This is impossible. What have you been doing? This is impossible. What have you been doing?” He thinks it's impossible because AMH is supposed to decline with age and especially not to get better when you go from 43 to 44 but hers did. What was she doing? I think it was diet. I think it was lifestyle. Acupuncture, Mayan Abdominal massage, castor oil packs.

The way I look at AMH is it's secreted by the ovaries. If you improve blood flow and circulation to the ovaries and the uterus by doing castor oil packs or acupuncture, taking Chinese herbs, you're going to improve your AMH. If you balance your hormones, if you get rid of estrogen dominance in your body, you're going to improve your FSH because FSH and estrogen feed off of each other. You improve ovarian function, you're going to improve your FSH.

These numbers are not set in stone, and no matter what, when these numbers are poor or bad or not normal for your age, we're not talking about having four eggs left. You still have a couple hundred if not a couple thousand eggs left. We're talking about we just need to improve the quality. So my tip number one, when it comes to naturally improving FSH and AMH, is look at the research. An article published 2017, in a really highly esteemed medical journal found that women have the same reproductive potential across the board, the same rate of getting pregnant and having a child regardless of these numbers. Okay? Okay, so let's not let these numbers define us.

Tip number two, you got to go organic. You have to go pesticide-free. I'm going to read you something from this baby. My bestselling book on fertility. It's reached tens of thousands of women over the … It's five years. We're doing an awesome giveaway. If you guys follow me on Instagram, check out the giveaway. We're doing an incredible giveaway. You're going to get free access to my $1,200 E-course and a signed copy of this baby, but this book is five years old this month, and it has reached tens of thousands of women, and we're almost at 100,000 women. I am so honored, but I want to read from this book.

Let's see right here on page 80, “According to Jeffrey Smith.” Let's see. Let me just see. I want to just see if that's what I wanted to read. Yeah, “According to Jeffery Smith, a leading national expert on the dangers of genetically modified organisms and the author of the book, Seeds of Deception, in a recent interview how most genetically modified organisms are herbicide-tolerant so and therefore have high amounts of herbicides in the food they produce. Smith stated Roundup an herbicide used in genetically-modified foods all over the United States.” So basically, anything organic is not genetically modified. And we'll not have Roundup. Okay? So just so you know that. Organic means non-GMO, that's what the definition of it is. 

And non-GMO means no pesticides and non-genetically-modified foods. Okay, “So Roundup, an herbicide used in genetically modified foods, is directly toxic, linked with cancer, birth defects, endocrine disruption,” which means it disrupts your hormones. It will disrupt your FSH, it will disrupt your AMH, it will disrupt your estrogen, your progesterone, your luteinizing hormone, your TSH, any hormone in your body, it will disrupt it.

“Parkinson's and other diseases. A study released showed that rats fed Roundup in their drinking water at levels considered safe by our FDA,” by the regulatory agency that oversees these pesticides, “suffered massive tumors, premature death and organ damage. Other lab animals showed severe reproductive failures,” severe reproductive failures, “such as sterility, smaller and fewer offspring infertile offspring, infant mortality and hair growing in the mouth of hamsters.” Thanks, GMOs for killing our health. I know, Alyssa, right? Loved the book. Almost finished with it. Oh, thank you so much, Ariella. That's so sweet to hear. Okay, I know.

That's the next step you got to do. So number one, we're not going to stay so attached to these numbers. We're going to know that our fertility is not dictated by these numbers. Our fertility is rather dictated by our overall health and health is mental, emotional, physical, nutritional. Next, we're going to go organic. We've got to go organic and while I'm at it, let me just read to you from chapter six Steering Clear of Environmental Toxins. So it's not just the pesticides in our food, it's the toxins in our bath and beauty products that you guys have heard me talk about too. There's a whole reason why I created Aimee Raupp Beauty. It's non-toxic skincare, pure enough to eat that will help balance your hormones because it's free of all the freaking toxins that imbalance are our hormones.

Two thousand ten, the journal Frontiers in Neuro Endocrinology, which basically means hormone secreted by the brain, published a paper on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and their effect on female reproduction. Here's an astonishing quote from the paper. “The overall fertility rate of women aged 15 to 44 in the United States has dropped 44% between 1960 and 2002.” so that means 44% of less women are getting pregnant over these last 42 years. “Lifestyle choices may have been a major contributor of this decline,” so things like really stressful jobs, working too much, not sleeping enough, not eating well enough. Sure, those things could have been an issue. “However, according to the data from the National Survey for Family Growth, the impaired fertility rate increased from 11% to 15% between 1982 to 2002,” so the last 20 well, now it's 40 years. “Furthermore, the incidents of female reproductive disorders such as early puberty, irregular menstrual cycles, endometriosis, premature ovarian failure, polycystic ovarian disorder is increasingly in parallel with the increasing numbers of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment.”

A recent study has shown the average woman is exposed to 500 chemicals before she leaves the house in the morning, 500 chemicals. These 500 chemicals are disrupting your hormones, and they are compromising your FSH and your AMH and your ability to get and stay pregnant. They're also the leading cause of autoimmune conditions like endometriosis, just like polycystic ovarian syndrome, like premature ovarian failure, like Hashimoto's thyroiditis. These chemicals are doing major harm to our bodies and to our fertility. So take that in. It's a lot, especially if food and diet changes are brand new to you. It's a lot, especially if you love your products. I have lists, Aimee approved lists that I can share with you guys on bath and beauty products on dietary things you can do. And like I said too if you want to join the Nourish Your Fertility Retreat.

So basically, before I get to tip number three, I'll tell you about this upcoming freebie I have for you guys. It's a one-day online fertility retreat. It goes from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, so that's five hours of incredible content plus some bonuses that I added this year. And we used to charge for this in the past, and we decided this year, my team and I decided this year that we just want to help as many people as we possibly can, nourish their fertility, which by that I mean improve your fertility, so you can get pregnant faster.

So I'm giving you this for free. It's happening on Saturday, July 27th, and if you can't make it that day, don't worry, we'll keep it up till Sunday, through Sunday. And then after Sunday, you will not have access to it unless you want to purchase the upgrade. So basically, it's free Saturday and Sunday, July 27th and July 28th, and then there're some incredible bonuses, including a Q&A from me and some bonuses from other fertility and hormone experts like Molly Nicole's, Nicole Jarden and Nat Kringoudis who if you don't know who these ladies are, they're phenomenal, and you should check them out. Go over to aimeeraupp.com/NYF. Instagram, it's in my LinkedIn profile, Facebook, I'm going to post it right now. And again, free, free, free, free. If you want the bonuses if you want the Q&A $49 and then you have lifetime access to this retreat. So I think it's kind of a no-brainer. You'll see you just going to get on the waiting list.

So the second everything opens we have a pre-pre-retreat fertility package for you. That's a PDF of all the things and how the run of the day is going to go. You're going to get things like meditation, cooking, demonstrations. We do a lot of mind-body work here. So intention settings, writing a new fertility story, beginning to shift your mindset around your fertility. Nat Kringoudis I have a very in-depth chat about autoimmunity and toxins in our environment. You're going to get lifestyle recommendations from me. You get this really new conversation I recorded actually, last night on surrender and acceptance. So it's just a beautiful day you get yoga and recipes and it's just this beautiful day to take for yourself to nourish your fertility.

So if you are looking to get pregnant, or you're thinking about it at some point, or you're already in the throes of it, it's free. You got nothing to lose. So go and sign up aimeeraupp.com/nyf. Yeah. And so here we go. I posted it here. “Thanks. You help.” Aw, you're so welcome, Amina. Thank you so much. And let's see, Instagram we got, “Can you provide a list of the non-toxic products? That would be awesome.” So, Ariella, will you instant message me for that because Beth is not on this call right now? She's on vacation, and I don't know what the link is to that opt-in, but I have it. I think it's, I think it's, let's see, I don't want to waste too much time here, but I think it's aimeeraupp.com/aaproducts.

Let's see. No, that's not going to be it. No. Okay. DM me. Absolutely. You said, “Okay,” good. And I will get it to you because I can't remember. And then if anybody else wants it, just DM me and we'll get it to you guys. I posted it quite a few times, but I'm forgetting right now. And if Beth circles through or Courtney circles through, and you guys know, then just put it in the comments.

Okay, so tip number one, we're not going to let those numbers lead our lives, right? FSH and AMH change all the time. They tend not to dictate our behavior, which then dictates our health. Okay. Tip number two, we got to go organic, non-GMO and non-toxic with the food we eat and the bath and beauty products. And then tip number three, which is so easy for me to sit here and say, “You got to manage your stress.” Your stress impacts your cortisol, your cortisol impacts your brain and all the hormones and it will impact your FSH and your AMH. When you are under constant stress, you are in constant fight or flight mode, and your body will not prioritize fertility. It will not prioritize ovulation, and it will not prioritize your hormones or getting pregnant.

“Should you be avoiding citrus foods high in vitamin C following ovulation during the of implantation?” I'm not what I know of, I've never heard that before. I don't read so much into all those things. I think you should just eat a really healthy balanced diet like the fertility plate that I created, scroll through my Instagram feed. You'll see it in there or read my book, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant. I think you should eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. I don't think too much vitamin C is going to impact implantation by any means. That's just my clinical experience.

I got 16 years clinical experience. I have a western biology degree, a chemistry degree and I got, 16 years of clinical experience as a Chinese medicine doctor, and I myself got pregnant naturally my 40s. I've helped thousands of women get pregnant and Vitamin C has never come up in conversation that it could impact implantation. So I don't know, wherever that came out I would just check the source. “I asked because I read somewhere that you shouldn't create an acidic environment in your uterus.” Well, Vitamin C and most of the citrus fruits, just as is a total aside, once you ingest them, they actually become alkaline. Acidic usually means an inflammatory environment, so there're so many other things that you could be doing that are creating inflammation, including your emotions and stress.

Stress is one of the biggest inflammatory substances that exists and then our diet. Our processed, packaged foods, super-inflammatory, so that's the stuff you want to cut back on. I wouldn't be concerned too much about the Vitamin C stuff. Okay, so I hope that makes sense. But a lot of the citrus foods, once you ingest them, they actually become alkaline and very balancing in your body. Hence, the hot water with lemon every morning. It's actually very alkalinizing to the body and reduces inflammation. But the best way to reduce inflammation is to get off all processed, packaged foods, follow all the dietary restrictions I have laid out in here or even in my more recent book, which is somewhere on this table, Body Belief, and go non-GMO with your foods, go organic with your foods, go non-toxic with your bath and beauty products, you will significantly reduce inflammation in your body.

Aw, thank you so much, but thank you for the question. It's a good question, and I know there's so much information out there, it is overwhelming for you guys. And I feel bad because how many sources can you trust? And how do you know you can even know you can trust me? I mean I get it. I believe you can trust me, but you have to make that decision for yourself. And I only know what I know from my experience and seeing what really works for women. And so I know beliefs really impact things. So I don't want you believing that your AMH, and your FSH have to dictate your health. I know that going organic and non-toxic with your food and your bath and beauty products really make a significant difference. There's hardcore medical science that shows it. And then I also know that you've got to reduce your stress levels.

So much easier said than done. But think about meditation. Think about journaling. Get seven to eight hours of sleep every night. Really, really important for your health, your fertility, your cortisol levels and your hormones. Kelly Rafferty, “I trust you,” Aw, thank you, Kelly. Sweet. But you got to manage your stress. Okay. “Been following the program that you wrote for three-plus months and now I feel amazing. I just know I'm going to get pregnant soon,” Carli, yeah, so this is the program she's talking about. Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, woo-hoo. And again, take advantage of the Nourish Your Fertility Retreat. It's awesome. It's again, five hours of really amazing content plus, some incredible bonuses from other women's health and fertility experts that I love that are my peers, that are my friends, that we inspire each other. We are collaborators. That's how we work. That's how we reach the masses.

That's how we help you guys, so go over to aimeeraupp.com/nyf and check out what I have for you. Again, it's free. It's going to be available to you all day Saturday, all day Sunday for free. If you want the bonuses and the Q&A and have lifetime access to the retreat, it's $49, your call. You're worth it. “Do you have any other tips on how you can regain trust in your body?” I have a lot of tips on that conversation, and I would do the Nourish Your Fertility Retreat for sure because I spend a lot of time on the mental-emotional piece, and the Nourish Your fertility Retreat, and I give you a lot of tools and strategies on that. I give you a whole worksheet on shifting your beliefs. I give you a whole worksheet on writing a new fertility story, which really is going to help you trust your body again, so I would definitely go check out aimeeraupp.com/NYF and just put your email in there, and you're going to get all the information.

Again, it's free. What do you have to lose? I would check out my books because I talk about that a lot. I have a program called Yes, and it's on my website, aimeeraupp.com, under workshops and guides, which is a four-week program on how to release your fertility fears. I love, I love, love, love that program. I would check that out and just general tips is every day meditate and every day in your meditation ask your body, “How can I better support you?” Celebrate the wins. Celebrate all the ways your body does work. It poops every day, maybe, right? You feel refreshed every day. Maybe you get hungry, your heart pumps and focus on all the wins, focus on how your body does work and that's how you start to build trust with your body again.

I'm going to answer this last question and then I've got to go because my nanny called out sick, and I got to pick up my little guy from school. “I still have periods of very irregular high FSH and low AMH. My mom and grandmother experienced menopause in their early 40s. I've been told my chances are less than 1%.” Again, you're focused on your numbers, and you're focused on the story of your genetics. Epigenetics plays a much bigger role in your physiological presentation than your genetics do. So basically, what that means is how you live your life directly impacts what manifests and what doesn't.

So how you manage your stress, how you eat, how you sleep, how you believe and talk to your body all have a major impact. So if you haven't yet followed this protocol step-by-step, for three solid months, that's what I would highly recommend for you. That's your first step. That's your first line of defense. Food is your primary medicine, supplements, mindset, lifestyle, hugely important, and you can shift things. And I would rework this story, “Even though my mom and my grandmother have such and such, and even though my periods are irregular, there have been women in my shoes that have shifted their hormones and I can too.” Go on my website, read my stories of hope, get some inspiration.

I share a story of hope every single month of women who were told things like you've been told, and they shifted their fertility. Sign up for the Nourish Your Fertility Retreat. Again, five hours of free content from me that can radically shift your fertility, aimeeraupp.com/nyf. Go and sign up now and let me help you. “Aimee, do you have any tips following IVF embryo transfer?” Just things to really support and nourish your fertility. Go check out the retreat, it's the boost your progesterone, eating, yams, staying warm. Check out all the tips in here. I have 10 tips on keeping your child's palace warm. That's what you want to focus on post-transfer.

“I'll spot a day or two before my period. Does that mean I have low progesterone?” Maybe you should get it checked. You can get it checked six to seven days post-ovulation. It needs to be above a 15 get it checked and see. It could be your thyroid, it could be a cold uterus. Have you followed everything in here? I one last question, “Thank you. Will do.” Okay. You guys are awesome. Sign up for that Nourish Your Fertility Retreat. Again, it's free. It's awesome. It's coming up soon. I think it's next Saturday and I'd love to see you guys there. Okay. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you so much again. You want more information from me, aimeeraupp.com. Bye, guys.

***End of Transcription***

Aimee Raupp is a licensed herbalist, natural fertility expert and acupuncturist in NYC, offering natural fertility treatment, care & coaching solutions to women who want to get pregnant!  Get pregnant fast with natural fertility care, Aimee’s online fertility shop & coaching solutions.  Aimee Raupp has helped hundreds of women to get pregnant naturally! Aimee and her team are experts in Chinese Medicine, Massage & Eastern Nutrition!  Get pregnant naturally, achieve optimal health & vitality, take control of your health!  Aimee is excited to work with you at one of the Aimee Raupp Wellness Centers NYC. Aimee's Fertility Coaching Program is a personal guidance along your fertility journey. If you are trying to get pregnant naturally, this program is for you!  Aimee Raupp offers holistic, wellness and natural fertility books. Learn how to enhance your fertility and get pregnant naturally with Aimee’s cookbooks and diet guides!  Shop Aimee Raupp's natural fertility shop with online workshops, videos, consultation and coaching on fertility, meditation and healthy nutrition!

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