Ep 309: The Oral Health–Fertility Link No One’s Talking About

Speaker 1 (00:00.298)

What does your mouth have to do with your fertility journey? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Katie Lee, a dentist, entrepreneur, and author who breaks down the powerful connection between oral health and reproductive outcomes. From specific bacteria that impact fertility to why your gums might be quietly sabotaging your pregnancy goals, we're exposing what really has not been talked about much at all.

If you've been trying to conceive or currently pregnant or just want to feel better in your body, this is one you can't afford to miss.

Speaker 1 (00:39.906)

Welcome to the Birth with Power podcast where knowledge is power and power transforms birth. I'm Dr. Nicole Callaway-Rankins, mom of two and practicing board certified OB-GYN with over 20 years of experience and nearly 2000 births attended. I've seen firsthand how the hospital system can leave women feeling unheard and uncertain, but that doesn't have to be your story. Here, you'll get the knowledge, support,

and strategies to take charge of your birth experience so you can walk into the hospital feeling calm, confident, and empowered. Note this podcast is for educational purposes only and it's not a substitute for medical advice. See the full disclaimer at drnaclomeragins.com forward slash disclaimer. Now let's get to it.

Hello there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 309. Whether this is your first time listening or you've been here before, I am so glad you're spending some time with me today. Today's episode is going to open your eyes to something you probably haven't heard before, how your oral health could be impacting your fertility and your overall wellness.

My guest is Dr. Katie Lee, a general dentist, entrepreneur, and founder of the Collective Health Society, an integrated dental medical clinic based in Colorado. She's also the author of Saved by the Mouth and a vocal advocate for bringing oral systemic health into mainstream healthcare conversations. Dr. Lee gets personal about her own fertility struggles and shares the science behind how the mouth

particularly the oral microbiome, can influence conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, and even stillbirth. We also talk about the exact test, treatments, and prevention strategies that could change your reproductive outcomes. This conversation is fascinating and incredibly important. So without further ado, let's get into the conversation with Dr. Lee.

Speaker 1 (02:47.96)

Thank you, Dr. Lee for agreeing to come onto the podcast. I am so excited to talk about this topic. It's so important and not enough people know about.

Very few people know about the link between oral health and a lot of other things, but specifically fertility.

Absolutely. So why don't you start off by telling us a bit about who you are and the work you do and your family.

So I'm a general dentist. I've been practicing since 2010 and had a previous career where I owned some practices all over the United States. And then I decided to sell out at the end of 2022 because I personally had had quite a bit of difficulty having my son. And we ended up having a baby in 2023. So I sold out of all my old businesses at the end of 2022.

focused on him and wrote a book all about oral systemic health. It was a huge hit. I didn't think anyone would read a book about oral health, but it actually did really well. And so I started having people from all over the country reach out saying, you know, where's your office? I'd love to come, you know, have you be my dentist. And so I just started thinking, you know, there's not enough biological functional dentists out there. especially people who specialize in the oral microbiome. let me build a new clinic.

Speaker 2 (04:02.894)

So I, over this past year, I have a brand new office that just opened six weeks ago in Centennial, Colorado. It's a fully integrated functional dental medical clinic. So really excited about that. And so I really focus on specializing on the oral microbiome. We do a lot of saliva testing and then we figure out how, if and how it relates to systemic ailments. And then we work with a team of integrated providers to help make our patients optimally well. So that's what I do.

And then I mentioned I have a little boy. So his name is Roman. He is two years old, love of my life and a husband who is also a dentist as well. And then we have two pugs that live with us.

All righty, all righty. So we'll get back to like how you, never heard of this type of clinic before and I wanna get back to that. But first I wanna talk about, because you talk a lot about the link between oral health and how it impacts women's health and fertility and how did you even get interested in that?

Yeah, so kind of back, back, back story was, you know, when I was 14, I was involved in a four wheeler accident. And so I ran into a telephone pole head first on a four wheeler going 35 miles an hour. And I ended up breaking every bone in my face from my eyebrows down, broke a bunch of teeth, lost a bunch of teeth, was in a coma for five days. And they wired my jaw shut in the hospital that night.

And over the next eight weeks of having my jaw wired shut with all broken and missing teeth, I only ate mashed potatoes, ice cream, pudding and jello. And so as you can imagine, became severely malnourished and emaciated. And that combined with my dental infections, my liver enzyme spiked and my kidneys started shutting down. And so I learned at a very young age, just how much your mouth affects the rest of your health. And then when they took my wires off, my jaw had actually few shut.

Speaker 2 (06:01.972)

So I still couldn't open my mouth enough to brush my teeth or fix them or replace the ones that were missing. And so it took four years and nine reconstructive surgeries before I could open my mouth enough to get a toothbrush in and dental work done. And it wasn't until my senior year right before prom when I got my front teeth, you know, replaced with implants and got all my dental infection removed from my body that I mean, instantaneously, mental health improved, emotional health improved, physical health improved.

And so I said, well, this is, I want to be a dentist. But at the time there really wasn't this knowledge about oral systemic health, even though I had lived it. And, but I started noticing in my practice that my sickest patients also had the worst teeth. And so I started just diving more and more into is there this connection? And I stumbled upon salivary testing and it made sense because we test the microbiome, we test our blood, we test all these things, but we don't test the bacteria that's in our mouth.

and the mouth is the largest entryway to the body. And so I started doing salivary testing and there was this couple that was referred to me, not to me, but to a dentist. They were trying to get pregnant and they were in their 20s. Nothing physically was wrong, but they couldn't get pregnant. And their OB had enough foresight to say, maybe it's coming from your mouth, go see a dentist. Now they had no idea who I was. I wasn't advertising that I was doing this. They just stumbled into my clinic.

I tested them and they had two bacteria in particular that affect both male and female infertility. We treated them and three months later they were pregnant. And I was like, whoa, this is crazy. And so I started doing more and more of that. And then I had my own fertility struggles over six long years working with the best reproductive endocrinologists in the country. And my experience with them was really challenging because they took a very myopic approach.

to my reproductive system. And unfortunately, it never did work out for me. And I ended up having to go down the surrogate route. But just being a patient of the traditional Western reproductive endocrinology kind of system and IVF and having multiple failures after failures after, and we don't know why and everything is testing normal. I really started looking into, know, what can we do better for women because we deserve better.

Speaker 2 (08:20.882)

and just trying to integrate oral health, because as a dentist, I was never asked about my oral health. And before I did my IVF treatment, I actually did some testing on myself and found out I had a root canal that had abscess that I had no symptoms of. I had some bacteria I had to get treated. And so I've just kind of gone down this mission now of trying to do the best that I can in my profession.

Okay, wow. That is a story and then some, my goodness. Well, I'm glad you're here and doing well and all of those things worked for you. That's a lot to come back from and it's such a young age.

such a young age. you know, I think about it and I'm like, thank goodness it happened then, you know, I'm 41 now. If it happened now, I'd probably be like, I'm done. I think with your kids, you're more resilient, you know?

Yeah, that is true. Kids are resilient. Kids are resilient. So then let's talk about how does oral health impact fertility in women? You mentioned a couple of bacteria, how does it work?

So two ways, one is the actual bacteria themselves affect female fertility and women's health. And then also the inflammation that those bacteria cause. So what happens is we have a microbiome in our mouth and less than 1 % of those pathogens are actually problematic. But when something shifts that microbiome and it becomes out of balance, so that could be stress, it could be our environment, our diet, or just not having regular dental checkups and appropriate treatment.

Speaker 2 (09:51.404)

those bad pathogens can start to grow. Now, if those pathogens make it into the bloodstream, which the bloodstream is connected to the mouth and the gum tissue, so that's why gum tissue often bleeds, the teeth are actually directly connected to the bloodstream as well. So if bacteria get into the bloodstream, either through the gums or if you have like a tooth abscess, you know, from a big cavity or root canal, those bacteria can circulate and take up residence where they're not supposed to be in the body.

So two bacteria in particular, FN and PG, Fusobacterium nucleatum and porphyromonus gingivalis specifically impact female fertility and women's health. So it will impact things from endometriosis. 64 % of women that have endometriosis have oral FN in their lesions. I had an instance of this in my actual practice, actually.

is related to PCOS. We see difficult conception, stillbirths, preterm labor, and low birth weight babies. And then the other way it impacts it is the inflammation that it causes. So when we have a dysbiosis in the mouth, the immune system is activated because it knows that something is going on that shouldn't be there. So when the body releases the immune cells, the immune cells are really large and can't really make it in between tight junctions in our tissues.

So those immune cells release an enzyme, which is called AMMP. It's a collagenase enzyme that breaks down our tissue to allow our white blood cells to get to the infection. But when it does that, it turns on our systemic inflammatory system. And then inflammation causes a whole host of issues with cytokines, endotoxins, poor blood flow, you name it. So both ways that the mouth affects it.

Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So then, can that also, and like you said, endometriosis, fertility, what about pelvic inflammatory disease?

Speaker 2 (11:46.094)

So pelvic inflammatory disease there it's going to be more of just the systemic inflammation, right? So if you have PID, you have inflammation going on there, but the body needs to be able to quell any type of infection or inflammation. And if you have inflammation in your mouth, it's just going to exacerbate those types of conditions. So that is more of like a correlation or it's going to make it worse versus direct bacteria causing pelvic inflammatory disease.

So what role should oral health play in the conversation about fertility?

Yeah. my gosh. So many, right? And I'm a dentist, so I'm going to say that. You know, the biggest thing is, is a lot of people avoid the dentist when they're trying to get pregnant or when they are pregnant. There's this misconception and this myth that's been out there forever of, if you go to a dentist in your first trimester and you get treatment done, you could miscarry or increases the chance of miscarrying. What we know is that's like so false.

Since the 90s, it's been proven that it's actually beneficial for people to see their dentist. The reason being is, let's say, let's start with your planning to get pregnant. Best time to go see the dentist because we can do a salivary test to see if you have any of that nasty bacteria that could be impacting you or your partner's infertility. We know that 50 % of infertility comes from the male side and the oral bacteria directly affect their sperm. So we need to test both partners to make sure that they're healthy and clean.

We also want to do x-rays to make sure that there are no cavities or that you have no abscesses on your teeth because things only get worse when you're pregnant. I have many moms that come to me that say, had no teeth problems until I had my babies and now my teeth and gums are a wreck, right? I'm sure you've heard that too. So we would like to get you before you're pregnant. Now let's say you find out you are pregnant.

Speaker 2 (13:37.038)

come in, let us do some saliva testing on you. We'll probably wait to do x-rays until second trimester when it's safer. We totally shield and we use the lowest dose radiation. You you're carrying your cell phone every day is worse than getting a dental x-ray. But we can safely treat someone if they have that bacteria present. And what we know is that the bacteria in the mouth and the inflammation that it causes

It's directly related to how well the fetus develops, to how long you can carry the baby. It also is related to gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. So if you are pregnant, great, let's help you keep it and let's help you stay healthy during pregnancy and afterwards. And we know that stillbirths are actually caused by FN bacteria in the mouth. So we really don't have a whole lot of stillbirths anymore.

thankfully in this country, but still births are related to toxic metabolites of oral effin bacteria. super critical. But 60 % of, or 40 % of women avoid the dentist when they're pregnant, but 60 % of women have gum problems when they're pregnant.

haven't heard of

Speaker 1 (14:44.598)

Yeah. So I would say sometimes I see it less and less, I will say, but often I see or not infrequently, I see dentists who don't want to treat pregnant women. they're like, you're pregnant, you know, like, what is that about?

It's all about fear of litigation, right? So you are totally right. There's a very few subset of dentists that actually know about the oral microbiome. So I'll start by saying that it's not common to be able to find a dentist to do salivary testing and that will treat the oral microbiome, which is a shame because in medicine you guys all test. You test for a million different things. in dentistry, we really haven't started testing.

I think the first oral microbiome test was around 2006. It really didn't start becoming even recognized or more mainstream until like 2014, 2015. So this is all new stuff. So we're trying to catch up to the medical profession here. But I think dentists are really afraid of the female reproductive system. And so they're like, you're pregnant. I don't want to touch you. I'll see you after you have the baby.

But that's the worst thing that you can do. We know that we can say pregnant moms on average 2,500 bucks if they get their gums and teeth fixed either before or during pregnancy on medical complications during and after birth. So it's very important that we treat those patients, but it's also important we do so safely. So if those dentists don't know how to safely treat a patient, they absolutely shouldn't be doing it. But yeah, most dentists do avoid treating women during pregnancy.

Yeah, which I never quite understand because we try to say like, it's worse for her to have this abscess in her mouth. So can you please fix this?

Speaker 2 (16:32.704)

Thank you because it's just going straight to the, you know, it's blood volume and we know that a woman's blood volume doubles when she's pregnant, which means more stuff is getting into her system. So if she has an abscess, if she has a gum problem, all that's going to the female reproductive system. So thank you for advocating for dentists to do their job because we should be.

Yes. So tell me about this saliva testing. I have not heard of this. Is this like FDA approved? Is it off label? Like how does how does this work? Who does this?

Yep. So saliva testing has been on the market since 2006. It is FDA approved. So it's just like if you do a gut test, right? So you can measure your gut microbiome through the stool or whatever. So now we do it through saliva for the oral microbiome. So the oral microbiome is the second largest microbiome in the body, second to the gut, but it definitely seeds the gut microbiome. You know, it's the largest entryway to the gut. It's the start of the digestive system.

there's about a 45 to 50 % overlap between oral microbiome and gut. So I always tell people if your gut microbiome isn't in good shape, you need to test your mouth because you can't have a healthy gut without a healthy mouth because you're just seeding it all day long. So yeah, it's been on the market for quite some time. are several companies and there's more and more coming out every day, but essentially some companies only test for bad pathogens.

Other companies will test for both good and bad pathogens, which I love because not only do we want to eradicate bad pathogens, but we want to help boost good microbes in the oral microbiome because that strengthens the immune system and helps prevent the patient from having relapse in the future.

Speaker 1 (18:12.94)

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Now I want us to get to prevention, but before I do that, I want to talk about how does, you talked about it briefly, but can you go a little bit more into how the microbiome affects male fertility? And I'm especially curious because men regenerate sperm, all the, you know, so how does that work?

Yeah. So there was a study that came out in 2025 actually about oral health and male infertility, which I was so excited about because there's been a little bit of research on it and I've been shouting it from the rooftop. So it's really nice that we have some mainstream studies now. But so essentially one of the bacteria in the mouth, porphyromonas gingivalis PG inhibits arginine production. Arginine is a precursor to nitric oxide.

you need nitric oxide to dilate the vessel in the penis to get an erection. So a lot of times when men have problems with erectile dysfunction, it's usually an inflammatory disease of the body of the vessel, but it's isolated to the penis. So they can't, for some reason, they can't dilate to achieve an erection. One place they absolutely need to test is the mouth to see if they have PG that could be causing that inflammation.

So anyone that ever marks ED on their medical history, I'm like, we need to do a saliva test to see. And nine times out of 10, they do have PG for sure. We also know that oral bacteria decrease sperm motility. They decrease sperm count and they actually change the shape of the head of the sperm, making it less able to penetrate the ovum. So really important there. And then of course we have the systemic inflammatory component also.

And what are these bacteria treated with? Just what type of antibiotics are?

Speaker 2 (19:56.76)

So I love that you brought that up because what we know is that half of the bad microbes in the mouth are actually resistant to mechanical cleaning. So in dentistry, whenever we think someone has a gum infection in the past, especially if we aren't testing for this bacteria, we just do a deep cleaning on them or a teeth cleaning. But half of the microbes that are concerning don't respond to that.

And so that's why these patients are never getting better and gum disease is actually on the rise by about 34 % globally. And so when we get those reports back and we know what bacteria present, we can tailor a treatment. we can use medicaments, iodine, ozone is really effective. I love ozone. We can do tissue lasers. We can do localized antibiotics like minocycline, systemic antibiotics.

or systemic inflammatory agents as well. So totally just depends on what's there.

Okay, very interesting. All right. So let's talk about prevention. What are the most overlooked habits or dinner routines? What are the things you want people to do that could help support fertility?

So I always say biggest thing, get tests. So you can get some tests over the market. You can also look for a dentist who does salivary testing or you can do telehealth testing through myself. Other big things that people can do is your teeth are your only non-shedding surfaces in the body. So your skin turns over, your hair turns over, your gut turns over, but your teeth don't turn over.

Speaker 2 (21:31.31)

So unless you're getting in there frequently to mechanically clean them with a, know, by a professional like a dentist or a hygienist or yourself, you're just allowing that biofilm to build up. And the longer you go in between mechanical disruption, the more bacteria come on that scene and the stronger that microbe community gets. So brush more frequently and more, you know, more often.

The biggest thing that everyone hates to hear, but it's so true, is that you have to floss. I know you're like, no, I know. It's kids' floss. It's even the meaning. But the toothbrush only gets three out of the five surfaces of your teeth. And the two most important surfaces are the ones that are directly adjacent to your bloodstream, which is your gum. So you have this pointy thing in between your teeth called the papilla.

Say that!

Speaker 2 (22:23.788)

That's where your blood supply is and that's the most important surface to clean. And the only way to clean that is to either A, floss or B, water pick. So I tell people you must floss or water pick twice a day. And when I say floss, I mean like string floss, not floss picks. Floss picks are great to remove something from in between your teeth after lunch. But all you're doing, if you just floss pick all your sites, you're moving bacteria from one site to the next.

So you want a really long piece of floss that every time you pull it out, you get to a clean section. So flossing is probably the most important thing that you can do. Okay. And then making sure that you're using gentle alcohol-free, chemical-free products, because if it says kills 99 % bacteria, it's killing everything, including the good guys. Okay. And then the bad ones are going to repopulate. you.

So do you not recommend like Listerine?

No. So they make Listerine Zero now, which is alcohol free, which is much better. So just try and use something that's alcohol free. You can definitely go even more, I call it crunchy. I'm from Colorado, so we say crunchy, nice. You can go something even more crunchy and go chemical free, which is obviously going to be the best for you. So there's lots of great products like Boca is really good. TheraBreath is good. Risewell, Feed Your Good.

Good Guys, Ravitan, there's lots of Super Tea. There's a lot of really nice organic, gentle products on the market these days.

Speaker 1 (23:57.622)

Okay, I'm just learning all kinds of things here. All right. So are there any treatments or procedures in dentistry that could actually worsen someone's health or really someone's fertility if we're not like paying attention to their overall health? Like, is there anything that like, wait a minute, before we do this, let's look at the picture.

That's a great, I don't think I've ever got that question before. That's a really good one. I would say a couple things. One is make sure you're getting the right type of cleaning. Oftentimes a lot of dentists brush bleeding gums and gum infection under the rug and just say, oh, know, brush and floss more. We're going to do a regular cleaning, regular cleanings or prophylaxis cleanings, which is what those are called, are cleanings above the gum line.

those microbes aren't the ones we're concerned about. We're concerned about the microbes that live beneath the gum line that are getting into the bloodstream. So if someone has bleeding gums, something needs to be done to that sub-gingival microbial community. So making sure that the cleaning that we're getting is the appropriate cleaning, because oftentimes it's not. Making sure we're using adjunctive therapies to clean properly. And then of course, we want to make sure that we are not

getting mercury silver fillings, that's gonna be a big one. Don't ever get a silver filling. That's terrible for your health. You know, they are. Yeah. Okay. Unfortunately. Yeah, not as common. yeah. And on the flip side, if you get those taken out, you want those taken out safely and you wanna make sure you're detoxing your system afterwards. Like I'll have some people come and they'll say, you know, I want all my...

Are those still done?

Speaker 2 (25:40.236)

or I went to this dentist and they took out all my amalgams and I said, well, did they use isolation? Did they use, you know, air evacuation? Did you do any kind of chelation therapy afterwards? And it's no, no, no. And it's like, you get more mercury into your system after you take the fillings out initially. So you need to get that out of your body. So that's critical. And then making sure that if you have root canals, that they are being monitored frequently.

Because like I said, in my own body, I had an abscess on an old root canal and had no pain, no symptoms. And if I wouldn't have taken a three dimensional x-ray on myself, nobody would have caught it. And that's even more damaging to your health than gum issues are.

Now I want to end with a couple of just random questions. So you said your practice is an integrated functional dental, I'm reading it, integrated functional dental and medical center. So how does that differ from a traditional dental office? I you said you have other practitioners. So what kind of other folks are you working with in this environment?

So we do, everyone that comes in through dentistry gets a sleep apnea or a sleep test. What? Airways. yeah. Every airway is so critical for dental health, brain health, heart health, and fertility. So we test and 80 % of the people who have airway issues don't know it. They're undiagnosed. So everyone gets an airway test. Everyone gets three dimensional CBR, three dimensional x-rays. We can check for airway and abscesses and sinus issues. Okay. So we're a big airway facility.

A big slide of a test, microbiome facility, obviously, we test that. But then I have a medical director that oversees the medical side. I have a naturopathic doctor that will see patients for medical issues. I have a nurse that does IV therapy to help patients heal after procedures and to detox after procedures. And I have a certified nutrition specialist who I love. She's a miracle worker. She does all the gut testing.

Speaker 2 (27:36.93)

tests for toxins, parasites, metals, hormone imbalances, and then she creates nutrition and supplement plans to help the patients get well. So her and I work in tandem and I always tell patients, can't brush and flush away to good oral health. You have to eat your way there. So if someone has an oral health issue or a gut issue, her and I are working together to get that patient healthy. And then I have a myofunctional therapist who is a dentist that, well, she is a dentist that specializes in myofunctional therapy.

which is essentially a physical therapist or a personal trainer for your mouth. So it helps with airway issues.

Okay, all right, sounds so interesting. And then the other thing I saw on your bio is that you work with dental technology companies. Is there anything that's like fun on the horizon or interesting that you'd like to share coming in relation to dental health?

Yeah, so much stuff. So I serve as the chief clinical advisor for a VC company called Dental Innovation Alliance. And so what we do is we go out and we source these dental technology companies to see if they'll be disruptive and help improve patient outcomes in the dental industry. So

gosh, what are some things that people are doing? So a lot of saliva testing is out there. A lot of robotics are coming into dentistry for tooth preparation and for surgery. That's really great. There's some sleep apnea devices coming out that, you know, we have the tongue implant that you can do. There's lasers for oral surgery. There's a device that you can put in your mouth to strengthen your tongue.

Speaker 2 (29:21.71)

Lots of software stuff, AI on x-rays is really, really big. So yeah, lots of stuff.

Okay, interesting, interesting. So then as we wrap up and I ask my guests all these questions, what is the most frustrating part of your work?

frustrating part, although it's not getting as frustrating anymore, but just trying to get patients to understand the importance of their oral health as it relates to their systemic health. Oftentimes dentistry is an elective healthcare procedure, just like your eyes, which doesn't make sense. need your eyes.

It makes no sense, whatsoever.

But you know people will spend money on things that they want so iPhones computers TVs cars And but a lot of times they'll say it doesn't hurt. I'm not gonna fix it or I'll wait till it breaks So that gets a little bit tough But I will say that is changing people oftentimes are coming into the dentist first now instead of medical providers. So that's

Speaker 1 (30:23.847)

Okay, okay. And then on the flip side, what's the most rewarding part of your work?

When someone comes in and they are sick and they have all these symptoms, but they can't get a medical diagnosis because they don't meet any certain criteria. And we figure out the root cause and we fix it they feel better. I mean, I had a patient leave my office yesterday who's had all these issues for a long time. And I did some red light therapy on her mouth. She had a gum infection, did some red light therapy and immediately she felt better.

And she's like, I've been looking for this for years. I've never felt better. So yeah.

good, good, good, good. So then what is your favorite piece of advice that you would give to either someone who's trying to get pregnant or pregnant about caring for their oral health?

Number one, make it a priority for sure. And I think in general, my advice for any woman trying to get pregnant that has been really tough is turn over all the rocks, right? So just because you see one type of provider doesn't mean that that's the end point. And I wish someone would have told me that when I was going through it. There's many things that can affect your overall fertility. And so make sure you're doing your research and turning over all the rocks because

Speaker 2 (31:42.402)

you you want the the miracle at the end of the day and it might take several different modalities working together to get you.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. So where can people find you?

So my practice website is collectivehealthsociety.com. But if people want to work with me personally with saliva testing, telehealth, that website is katyleadds.com, dentistdentistsurgeon.com, or Instagram is a good place, katyleadds on there.

Okay. And we'll put all that in the show notes for thank you, Dr. Lee for agreeing to come onto the podcast. It was a great conversation. Super informative.

Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (32:23.182)

Wasn't that a great and insightful conversation? I really enjoyed it. And you know, after every episode, when I have a guest on, I do something called Dr. Nicole's notes, which are my top takeaways from the conversation. Here are my Dr. Nicole's notes from my conversation with Dr. Lee. Number one, we ain't talking enough about how oral health impacts overall health, including fertility. And that really does need to change.

We know that at least two oral bacteria are strongly associated with infertility, endometriosis, PCOS, stillbirth and preterm birth, and that they can actually affect both partners. So if you're trying to conceive, your oral health should be part of the conversation. And even if you're not trying to get pregnant or you're already pregnant, it needs to be part of your overall health plan. Your mouth isn't separate from the rest of your body.

All right, number two, inflammation in your mouth equals systemic inflammation in your body. When you have chronic gum issues, that inflammation doesn't stay local. It ramps up your immune system responses throughout your body, and it can create an environment that can disrupt conception and potentially cause issues during pregnancy, like preterm labor or preterm birth. So this isn't just about cavities. Again, it's about systemic health.

Number three, let's all make sure we're covering the basics. Okay. Let's brush twice a day, floss with the long strings, not the pick. So you're not just transferring bacteria from one spot to another. Ditch the mouthwash that says it kills 99 % of bacteria because that actually includes the good bacteria too. Those harsh alcohol based rinses may throw off your whole oral ecosystem.

Think of your mouth more as a garden. You need balance, not bleach. And then the final part is that dentistry needs to step up, but so do us obese. Too many dentists are like afraid and really terrified to treat pregnant patients. They fail to remember that the most important piece to a healthy baby is a healthy mom.

Speaker 1 (34:37.794)

So if mom has a health issue in her mouth that needs to be taken care of, it needs to be taken care of for the benefit of her and the baby. But on the flip side, too many OBs, we aren't asking about oral health either, whether it's in the preconception period and making sure you're getting those regular cleanings or getting that regular cleaning while you're pregnant. We need to talk about it. We need collaborative, integrative care that is based on that holistic approach.

to health. All right, so that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening today. If this episode helped you, share it with a friend, hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing. And if we're not connected yet, come follow me on Instagram. I'm on Instagram at Dr. Nicole Rankins. My DMs are wide open and I truly love hearing from you. Now, do me one more favor and come on back next week and remember to trust your power and take charge of your birth.