January 21, 2026
Fertility After 35: Podcast Episode #326
In this episode of Ask the Doulas, host Kristin Revere sits down with Dr. Katie Wood, Doctor of Pharmacy and CEO of Happy Nourished Motherhood, to discuss advanced maternal age and egg quality. Dr. Wood shares what truly impacts egg health as we age, common myths around fertility after 35, and how nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset can support reproductive wellness. This conversation offers empowering guidance for those navigating fertility later in life, considering pregnancy in their mid-30s and beyond, or supporting clients through fertility challenges. A must-listen for parents, hopeful parents, and birth professionals alike.
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Use the code GOLDCOAST to receive a discount for up to 20 percent off.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Dr. Katie Wood today with Happy Nourished Motherhood. Our topic is advanced maternal age and egg quality.
Dr. Wood is a mother, doctor of pharmacy, and holistic fertility practitioner. Katie helps women and couples to nourish their mind, body, and spirit for optimal fertility health so they can consciously and confidently conceive with ease.
Katie comes with over a decade of experience as a pharmacist and in the alternative medicine space. This background in Western medicine is what first peaked her awareness that people need more intimate coaching towards health and vitality. After experiencing a lack of support and education during her fertility and pregnancy journey, she became determined to advocate for women’s preconception and maternal health. Katie is passionate about supporting and empowering couples on their fertility journey by taking a holistic, root cause approach, focusing on nutrition, lifestyle, and mind-body connection.
Welcome, Dr. Wood!
Hi! Thank you so much for having me.
I am really impressed by the balance in your credentials. I don’t often see doctors with both the alternative medicine background as well as traditional. I can see how your clients would love the approach that you take, which I find to be unique.
Yes, I hear that a lot. I’m usually asked, how is someone who is conventionally trained in Western medicine – how do you take holistic approaches and things like that?
I like to think that I bridge the gap between both worlds because I think each has their own place in certain scenarios and things like that. There are pros and cons to both, and I would definitely say that my own personal experience and journey is really what has led me to having my feet in both worlds, so to say.
That makes perfect sense. For our listeners who don’t know what a holistic fertility coach is or does, can you walk us through what it would look like to work with you, before we get into the advanced maternal age and egg quality conversation?
Sure. So when I think of holistic, I think of the whole picture: mind, body, and spirit. I think a lot of times with Western medicine, we focus a lot on the symptom and we try to basically band-aid that with some sort of solution, so to say. That’s happening without looking at the person as a whole. So in terms of being a holistic fertility practitioner, we’re looking at everything. We’re looking at your nutrition. Your lifestyle is really an umbrella for so many different things. What are your exercise routines? What do your sleep habits and hygiene look like? What do your stress levels look like? We’re looking at your supplements. Where do you work? What is your work environment like? What is your home life like? We’re looking at all of these little pieces of the puzzle that can ultimately play a role in your health. And if it can play a role in your health, it can definitely play a role and dip into your fertility. And I can speak from professional experience working in retail pharmacy for a very long time. We would be giving – some of our most common medications would be like statins for high cholesterol and diabetic medications like insulin and metformin. And what’s really happening is we’re giving people these medications but they’re not truly being educated on how they could actually support their health and even reverse some of their conditions through nutrition and lifestyle changes. So once I really started increasing my awareness about that, that’s when I realized I need to pivot and shift how I’m supporting people in my community. And having had my own fertility struggles and just becoming very passionate about women’s health, maternal health – that’s really how I decided to kind of seek out alternative certifications. I’ve done a lot of my own self-study, reading a lot of books, and just really diving into all of the ways that we can support our health.
That makes perfect sense. And one thing I love about coaches, whether it’s a business coach – I happen to be a certified transformational birth coach – that holding the client accountable. I love having notes with my business coaches to go back to my next steps and knowing what I need to prepare for the next meeting. So coaching versus consultants or related fields – I feel really involves the couple. And I’m sure you work with both the partner, as well as your client in coming up with a plan, because of course, the partner’s fertility is also something to factor in.
Absolutely. And starting out, I really did focus more on coaching with women because they are more willing to be coached, and essentially, easier to coach, as well. But then I got to a point where it is like, no, we need to be involving both partners in this situation, and it is very, very important because male factor infertility is actually responsible for upwards of 50% of cases, whether it’s the male factor alone or if it’s partially male factor and partially female factor, as well. So involving both partners is extremely important, especially when we are talking about advanced age in one or both partners.
Right. Absolutely. And so as you’re looking into nutrition and health and stress and lifestyle, even if you’re only coaching your client, understanding some of the factors that go into the partner’s fertility. And as you mentioned, advanced maternal age is not just for the woman or intended birthing person.
Absolutely.
So as far as getting into our topic, advanced maternal age and egg quality, I know you have tips for our listeners. As you and I chatted about earlier, at Gold Coast we support a lot of high risk clients, advanced maternal age, and guide them through their fertility journey. This is such an important topic. Before going into other fertility options, it’s really understanding some of the holistic ways that you can prepare to conceive.
Yeah. And I think I would love to start with, if you are in your 30s, maybe you’re inching closer to 35, maybe you’re in your 40s, lower to mid 40s – wherever you are, I always want to say take a break in and out. Whatever pressure any of your providers have put on you, I do like to offer some reassurance that there are things that you can do. In most cases, there are. I have spoken with women who are in their early 30s and they’re already freaking out because they’re just inching closer to 35 day by day. I’m 36, just for transparency, and I informed enough in terms of what I have control over, in terms of my overall health and fertility – it does not concern me that I am inching closer to 40, so to say. So I like to just let that out. Whatever pressure maybe you’re putting on yourself for needing to conceive by a certain time, because it isn’t as black and white as conventional medicine maybe likes to make it seem. Like, oh, you turned 35, your fertility just completely drops off a cliff, and it just continues to take a nosedive from there.
And then I will say yes, of course, as we’re aging, our egg reserve, our egg pool, is of course decreasing as time goes on. We’re only born with a finite amount of eggs, and you’re ovulating every month. You’re losing eggs every month. So it’s very clear and obvious that that number will go down. And a lot of the concerns that come with, oh, you’re getting older, it’s going to become harder to get pregnant – is this decreased pool of eggs that we have. But then also, it is always assumed, and I know this because I’m hearing it from women every single day that I speak with – it is always assumed and said that, oh, you’re 40, you’re 42, you’re 45 – your egg quality is bad, and that’s why you’re not getting pregnant. And that’s not necessarily the truth because we’re all very unique and individual, and the way one 45-year-old could be living her life could be drastically different from another 45-year-old woman.
So I’ll just give you two pictures here. Maybe one lives – I’m just going to say in sunny Florida, because the sun is so important for our well-being, and she goes outside. She takes walks every day. She’s in the ocean. She watches what she eats. She exercises. She has stress relieving tools that she uses. She has a really great community, a very supportive partner. So that’s one version of a 45-year-old. And then maybe we have someone who isn’t as active, isn’t going outside in the outdoors, has a sedentary job. I feel oftentimes women just aren’t eating enough versus eating garbage. That’s what I commonly see in my clients. So maybe she’s underfueling her body. She’s relying on caffeine. She has a very high stress job. These are two completely different scenarios.
So it’s easy to say, oh, you’re 45; your egg quality is garbage. It’s very dependent on how you’re living your life with intention. That’s really what I like to anchor in with my clients, no matter what your age is, because honestly, I’ve been hearing from a lot of women who are in their early 30s, maybe even in their 20s, who are being diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency. So basically, their labs are coming back as if they’re in menopause, like a 40-plus year old woman.
So it really doesn’t just have to do with age. I think a lot of it does have to do with our nutrition, our lifestyle, how we’re treating our bodies. And the world that we live in today is just so vastly different, even from our parents, let alone earlier generations from them. So that’s kind of my soapbox to start with, but I’d love to hear if you have any questions or thoughts.
That makes so much sense, because we are unique, and everyone’s experience is different. Looking at the entire picture, as you mentioned: stress and lifestyle and health. I was advanced maternal age with both of my pregnancies and was told by many people, from doctors of mine to friends, that it would be hard for me to get pregnant at 36. And our kids are 21 months apart, so I was 36 and then 38 with pregnancies, and I was extended breastfeeding my daughter. I was also told that with breastfeeding it would be challenging to get pregnant again. And I didn’t have any of those concerns, but certainly was put in the high risk status originally due to my age, and later due to preeclampsia with my first pregnancy.
It’s very easy for modern medicine to put us into certain boxes or categories based on certain things, really just by age, as well. Once you’re 35 or older, it’s automatically considered a geriatric pregnancy, which is wild to me. Like I said, I’m 36. I just had my second baby about four weeks ago, and it was a low risk pregnancy, very healthy, healthy birth, great postpartum experience so far. I think bottom line, it always comes down to the foundation of how you’re nourishing your body. And they’re not entirely wrong that, oh, you’re breastfeeding; that can be harder for you to conceive. Sure, if you’re not nourishing your body enough, then absolutely, that can be hard. Perhaps your ovulation isn’t coming back because you’re not fueling your body with enough nutrients, because breastfeeding in and of itself is very, very demanding on a woman’s body. So you really have to be intentional with how you’re supporting and nourishing yourself if you want to be able to feel well yourself, be able to make breastmilk, and then also have your body feel safe and resourced enough to be able to create life while doing all of these other things.
That makes sense. And certainly if our listeners decide to work with you, then they would be able to go into each of those factors that would effect egg quality and their overall health during pregnancy. I think that the best thing to focus on is understanding your options. You mentioned the role of being out in nature and vitamin D versus being at a desk all day in a cold environment, like I’m in here in Michigan. In the winter, the sun isn’t shining, so we do need to rely on supplementing with vitamin D. But how that all factors in… so getting into more than just the typical fertility questions that you would get asked at a clinic. But the diet, the resources, if you’re looking at nutrition, and how to minimize stress if you work in a stress-filled job. Or the other factors that may affect fertility.
Yes. When I am maybe consulting with a couple in terms of what their fertility journey has looked like, it is such a more comprehensive, deep dive, and even just the labs that we would look at. Unfortunately, these are things that really would not be discussed in a typical doctor’s office, whether it’s your PCP, your OB-GYN, fertility specialist. Their job is really, okay, you’re having this problem not getting pregnant? Okay, here’s what I can offer you. I can offer you medications. We can make your body ovulate. We can do IUI. We can do IVF. None of those things are going to address or target egg quality, which is very important. It’s important for anyone, obviously. If you want to have a healthy baby, we want healthy eggs and healthy sperm. But as we do age, it is something that we want to be more intentional about, as well. So some of the things that we look at are labs. And you just brought up vitamin D. What is vitamin D, right? If you’re in some of the northern states – like, I live in New York, so I have snow outside on the ground. The sun is actually out right now, but that does not happen all the time. You need to have your vitamin D levels drawn, and honestly, even if you are in a sunny state, that does not take you off the hook of potentially needing to supplement or really focus on whole foods for your vitamin D. A lot of women are low in vitamin D, and that’s a very, very important hormone in our body. And that’s just one example, really. So getting testing done so that you know.
A lot of times, doctors will just look at your TSH, your thyroid stimulating hormone. And that’s just one tiny part of the picture. I have had women clients of mine where we do a full thyroid panel. So it’s looking at all of the things that deal with your thyroid health. Their TSH may be within a healthy range, but then I’m actually finding antibodies. When you’re finding antibodies, that is sending me a red flag that there is some sort of autoimmune issue either starting or something that has been happening for a while. And unfortunately, that won’t be found if you’re only doing basic labs with your doctor. They would just say, oh, your TSH looks great. But in reality, underneath, an autoimmune condition could be really brewing. And sadly, that could get missed. So I do think comprehensive labs and testing is important.
The most foundational thing that I’m telling you has helped so many of my clients, no matter what their age, is nutrition. And I think the biggest theme that I have seen is women are underfueling. You’re not eating enough. So you’re not getting enough calories. You’re not getting enough protein. And especially fat, healthy fats. I feel like if you’re in your 30s or 40s right now, you lived through the era where fat was demonized, and it was all about a low fat diet. Well, don’t kil the messenger, but we need fat to then create hormones. Cholesterol is the backbone of our reproductive hormones. So a lot of times when women are just fixing this one thing, they’re getting pregnant in, like, three months after working together. It’s crazy. And the sad part is, I have had clients – there’s one client that I recently worked with who comes to mind. I think she’s 42. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for two years, and when we talked about her diet, she was basically not eating anything for breakfast, drinking coffee, had a 45-minute commute to work, was maybe eating breakfast around 10:00, 11:00. And then what she was eating was very carb-heavy. Not a lot or any protein or fat. And if you think about it, that’s such an easy shift that you can make. And then also when you think about it, of course your body is struggling to get pregnant. It’s kind of like, hey, I don’t have anything to be able to create life and support life right now. I’m feeling very under-resourced at this time. So nutrition is so important. And what you’re eating is so important. If you’re eating a lot of processed foods or sugary foods or foods that are being fried in seed oils or seed oils are part of the ingredients – that’s all going to be highly inflammatory, and that’s going to have a negative impact on your egg quality. And the sad part about the day and age that we live in is there are so many food items and products that are made that from the outside of the box or the package, it looks like you’re making a healthy choice. And then when you flip it and you read the ingredients or you look at how much sugar is in it and what is in it – I’m telling you, nine times out of ten, I’m putting that box or package back on the shelf. So even for me, I’m seeing the front, and I’m like, oh, this looks like it could be decent, and then I turn it around and I look at it, and I’m like, oh, nope. Never mind. Like, the first ingredient is a seed oil, or it has a lot of added sugars. You name it. Maybe it has food dyes and artificial flavoring in it. There’s just so many different things, and so many of us are just being fooled by what is on it. That’s marketing.
And we’re paying more for those products, and going to the health food store thinking all of it is healthy. As you mentioned, it’s not. It’s like eating whole foods and fruits and vegetables and understanding, as you mentioned, the importance of healthy fats. I feel like people rely too much on their prenatal vitamins preconception.
Absolutely. And then even just to talk about prenatal vitamins – that has also been a huge shift for a lot of my clients. I had one woman who was actually in her 40s, too. I think she was 43. Her doctor had prescribed her a prenatal. Now, remember, I used to work behind the counter filling these medications, and the prenatal vitamins that we carried were very, one, limited with the ingredients, so it was a very short active ingredient list. Two, a lot of them had folic acid versus the bioavailable folate. And usually that also would be true for the other B vitamins, too. They’re in less bioavailable forms because that’s cheaper for the supplement company. A lot of them would be lacking vitamin D or have a very, very low dose of vitamin D. A lot of times, more up and coming, newer supplements provide choline, which is another important B vitamin, but a lot of these prenatals that we would carry in the pharmacy, they didn’t have that. And she actually said to me, I got my prenatal through my doctor and through the pharmacy because I thought it would be higher quality. Very sadly, it was not. We got her on a much more comprehensive prenatal. Of course, we worked on all of the other things: nutrition, lifestyle. She got pregnant by the end of the program, which was three months. And they were struggling to get pregnant for a couple of years before we started working together.
That’s everything right there. And you think that you’re getting the best options through your doctor, but you learn upon research and listening to podcasts like this or your own podcast about the options. I feel like if you don’t know your options, then you just go along with what everyone else is doing. But similar to what you mentioned with your coaching – my nurse midwives told me about whole food based prenatals and ones that were more comprehensive, and so I switched over compared to what I was using preconception, which was those synthetics, the typical ones that your doctor is going to advise you to take.
Absolutely. And you know what the scary part is, too? So many doctors are still recommending folic acid to people, and upwards of 50 to 60% of the population has some degree of an MTHFR mutation, which actually prevents the conversion of folic acid to the more usable form of folate. And what can actually happen is that folic acid can then build up in the body, and then that can cause its own issues.
Another client that I was working with – she was also on a prenatal with folic acid, and one of the lab tests that we look at is called homocysteine. And that basically lets me know, like, the level of methylation that you have going on in your body, and her homocysteine level was high. We like to see that level below 7.2. I feel like hers was 11 or something. And what that can mean is you are deficient in B vitamins, folate being included, and that can have an impact on the methylation needs of your body because your body doesn’t have the raw materials that it needs to support proper methylation. And that’s part of the estrogen detox and elimination pathway. So we have so many women struggling with estrogen dominance or some degree of that. Who knows, maybe it’s your prenatal that you’re taking and just not getting enough nutrients in your diet, as well.
I could talk to you forever. We’ll have to have you back on! But any final tips for our listeners related to egg quality?
I think what I would really just kind of want to encourage you with is – I know that this is very common, sadly – whatever you’ve maybe heard in the doctor’s office might not be as limiting as you maybe feel in this moment. 9.9 times out of 10, I do feel like most people are still in a situation where there’s still something that can be done in terms of nutrition, lifestyle, even supplemental changes that can support your hormones, support your egg quality, support your partner’s sperm quality. There are other options available to you, and maybe it’s just about doing a little bit more of your own research. There are some amazing books out there. There are some amazing accounts out there. There are people like myself on Instagram who are sharing information. I have a podcast, as well, Finally Get Pregnant Naturally, and I’m constantly sharing tips for things you can do very easily in your day to day life. This can make such an impact for your fertility. So just don’t feel as limited as maybe you’ve been told. There are other things you can do to support your fertility.
Agreed. Excellent advice! So Dr. Wood, you mentioned your podcast and website, so fill us in on all the ways that our listeners can connect with you.
Sure. So you will find absolutely everything that I have to offer on my website, Happy Nourished Motherhood. It has all of my socials on there. It has some free offers, as well. Some of my recommended products, books, all those things. You can definitely find me on Instagram, where I’m very active. It’s @the_wellness_pharmacist. And then I definitely invite you to check out my podcast. I release two episodes a week. Like I said, these are all episodes that are breaking down how you can get to the root cause of your fertility issues, giving you lots of tips and tricks that you can implement immediately. You’re going to be a guest on my podcast, as well. Your episode will be releasing soon. And I would invite listeners to start with episode 135. This is talking about whether CoQ10 is the right supplement for you. I’m recommending this episode because I know a lot of times when women are over 40 or maybe pursuing IVF, CoQ10 is one of those hot supplements that are going to be recommended, and I will say it’s a very well studied fertility supplement. I think it has a lot of benefits. But is it right for everyone? So go check out that episode. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I will check that out myself! Thank you so much, Dr. Wood! I hope to talk to you again soon!
Thank you so much for having me!
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