Theology in the Raw - Understanding Fertility, Menstrual Cycles, Hormones, Birth Control, and the Female Reproductive System: Bekah Yawn

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Bekah Yawn has worked with dozens of women and couples nationwide to empower them in their fertility health in a God-centered way. As a Psychology major, FEMM Educator, FIAT Hormone Coach, and Certified Doula- she is well respected in the fertility community. She loves helping women understand their body in God's design and how to support it naturally for conception health. Find out more about Bekah at https://bekahyawn.com and https://femmhealth.org/teacher/bekah-yawn/ -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends. Welcome back to yet another episode of theology in Iraq. If you want help navigating our volatile political climate that I want to recommend to you, if you haven't read it yet, my book, exile's a church in the shadow of empire. I don't tell you who vote, who to vote for, which political party to support or not support. What I do do in the book is lay down a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. And yeah. So if you want help trying to frame maybe your political position or how you should even think, begin to think biblically about how to have political conversations, check it out. Exiles, the church and the shadow of empire. My guest today is Becca Yon, who has worked with dozens of women and couples

nationwide to empower them in their fertility health in a God centered way. She's a psychology major and F E M M educator, F I a T hormone coach. That's a phrase I've never heard before. And she impacts what that means. And she's also certified doula and is well respected in the fertility community. She loves helping women understand their body in God's design and how to support it naturally for conception health. Oh my word. I learned so much as a conversation, more than I even dreamed of wanting to know about menstruation and hormone health and how your diet can affect your ability to get pregnant and the, what goes on during your pre menstrual cycle and your menstruation period. I'm not sure if these are the right phrases I'm using. I learned a lot because I knew hardly anything

about the stuff Becca was talking about. So I think you will enjoy this episode. Please welcome to the show, the Wonderlady, Becca Yahn. ["Wonderlady"] All right, welcome to Theology Raw, Becca. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thankful to be here. Yeah, Well, I, I, you know, I came across your work. I don't even know how, um, I don't know if somebody sent it to me or if, uh, I just found it online

or whatever, but I'm both excited about this conversation, but also nervous. Cause I'm like, I don't need, I'm not even sure I know what questions that ask, but it sounds like a fascinating topic. So tell us who you are, what you do. And then I'm sure that'll give us a, a launching point to keep going. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So my name is Becca Yon. I am from Austin, Texas. Currently live in Erie, Colorado. I have three kiddos here on Earth. They are five, three, and one. It's very busy. We homeschool.

And I have three babies in heaven. And that's kind of what launched me into serving woman in a way that I wish I could have been served and in ways that I was served through my difficult journey. Basically, the Cliff Notes version, and we can dive into whatever you want, I could have been served in ways that I was served through my difficult journey. Basically, the Cliff Notes version, and we can dive into whatever you want, but I'm now a fertility awareness educator. So what that means is I teach women how to track their body signs to either avoid pregnancy

or to get pregnant. And I'm a hormone coach. So I'm a Christian hormone coach who understands that anything we do, the Lord has to be first and understands a lot about holistic and natural changes and adjustments in our life that we can make that support our hormones and fertility. And I'm a doula. So I just like to say, I help people

who are trying to get pregnant and I help them in their pregnancy and I help the babies come out. So I just like to say, I help people who are trying to get pregnant and I help them in their pregnancy and I help the babies come out. So it's really fun. You're a Christian hormone coach. I've never heard that job title before. Yeah. What is the intersection between hormones and fertility?

I mean, I know it's there, but I don't know if I would be able to explain this to anybody. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know it's there, but I don't know if I would be able to explain this to anybody. Yeah, yeah. So hormones are part of the whole endocrine system. And so our body is made up of the endocrine system. So we're thinking about your thyroid, we're thinking about your gut, your liver, inflammation,

and your sex hormones are connected to that, your ovulatory processes. And I'm talking about women in particular, because we're just designed differently than men, although there are a few similarities, but we are definitely given a very unique, some unique gifts from the Lord. Yeah, hormones are all a part of that. So if one of those root issues that I just mentioned is off,

then it's impacting, it's kind of like a domino effect. It's impacting all of it. So as a hormone coach, our job is to try to figure out and kind of point the arrow to where is this root issue? Because that's why this woman may be having some irregular cycles or that's why she might be having difficulty getting pregnant or keeping a pregnancy. She might be having repetitive miscarriages and her hormones tell us a lot about that. So if hormone levels aren't where they should be, it's a lot more difficult, possibly impossible to get pregnant. I guess maybe impossible to be too strong.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the big things. What would cause hormones to be off? Oh, there's a whole host of things. What are some of the major ones that come up, I guess? Well, I'll touch on one of the harder ones that most people don't want to hear. There can be spiritual strongholds. So I do believe in the mind, body, spirit, as you know, our Bible talks about, it's all interconnected. And so I have unfortunately seen that if there's a spiritual stronghold in place, like if there could be infidelity

in the marriage, there could be a huge lack of trust in God, there could be an addiction involved, and that spiritual stronghold is the root that is impacting that person's mental health and then their physical health. So that's not always the case. It's not like, oh my gosh, we've been trying to get pregnant. I'm being punished by God. Or that's not, that's not the case in general. But number one, if our hearts are not right and open and trusting to the Lord, that's something we want to talk about. We want to work on. Secondly, like then we kind of go

from there into like actually, actually all the physical things in our world. There's, um, I don't know if you've heard of like endocrine disruptors or toxic overload or anything like that, but what? Yeah. Is that, I mean, I've heard like there's lots of plastics in our food and water and stuff. And then just pesticides and our food isn't pro yeah. I've heard kind of from a distance, I wouldn't be able to re-articulate it, but I've heard that all this stuff's going on. Can you unpack that a little more? Yeah. Yeah. It's really unfortunate in the world we live in. It's basically since the industrial revolution, we've had an overload of synthetic materials, right? Like we have

all of these things that are processed and made in buildings and developed by scientists, and it's all chemicals. What happens, how our body interacts with that, it's just not exactly within the Lord's design for our body to take in this incredible amount of chemicals and synthetic stuff. Basically, you can even look at food labels. You get at the grocery store, and honestly, if you don't know what it is, you can't pronounce it, you don't even know how to read it. That's probably a chemical.

It's probably a manmade chemical. We have to be very aware that anytime we're in taking or around or breathing in or putting on our skin, some type of something that isn't really natural and from the earth, like beeswax or an avocado oil or something like that. It's these weirdo chemicals. Our body interprets it as something called, I'll make it really simple, it's like a fake hormone.

It's like a fake estrogen. It's called a xenoestrogen. And so our body produces natural levels of estrogen, uniquely for women and even men also have, produce levels of estrogen uniquely for women and even men also have produce levels of estrogen as well and those are great things and they have great purposes but when we have a huge in like inflex of those chemicals and xenoestrogens it starts clogging up our hormones to not be able to flow the way that they're designed to flow and so then we have this disruption within our endocrine system and within our body,

where things can't go where they need to go. Our liver gets clogged up, causes inflammation, it could impact our gut health, and all of that can be impacting the ovulatory health for a woman to healthfully ovulate, be able to conceive if that's her goal. That's really clear. Um, how it does seem like so much of our food has this stuff in it, toxins stuff. You can't pronounce. How do you, is it almost, almost impossible unless you're living on your own farm and growing your own food organically to be completely freed from this? I mean, are you talking more about higher levels, but we're always gonna have some kind of

stuff that are synthetic things that are both- Oh yeah, I mean, we're gonna have something. Oh yeah, I mean, it's even in the air we breathe. It can be in the water we drink. You know, like it really is kind of everywhere. So what I love to just gently and confidently encourage women is just do the best you can. Get the education education number one.

So it's like now that you're educated, you're now kind of responsible to upkeep with the temples that the Lord has given us in which he resides in. So I really like to think about the temple in the Old Testament and I like to have this visualization of what they literally did to keep house, to clean up the temple, what kind of regulations did they have, what kind of things did they do to make sure it was going well, and it was neat, and it was beautiful.

And I really like to think about that for our bodies today because now we are the temple of our Lord, and we really wanna be responsible. We don't wanna be irresponsible, and we are just in a world that's filled full with temptations and Our once we have that education and we have that knowledge. I wasn't always like this I did not always I did not always know this it took us those incredible losses

For me to finally wake up and be like, oh it matters what I eat So I'm so sorry my first two sons. You're basically Chick-fil-A and McDonald's. I'm really sorry. And I can see that impact even in their health now. Their immune systems are not very strong and like we're having to do all these things to kind of support them and love on them because of, you know, I can't completely blame my pregnancies, you know, and all the spicy chicken sandwiches on it, but it may have had an impact. So as far as what we do with it, we just do the best we can.

And it depends on our budget and where you live, you know, because organic is expensive, but it truly is the best that we can do. Locally sourced meats are wonderful. And just swapping, swapping stuff. I'm a huge fan of swapping stuff. So if you love your protein bar, okay, let's find a different protein bar that maybe has three to five ingredients versus 15 to 20, you know, and just kind of trying to simplify our lifestyles. What are some of the top foods or drinks that people consume that are toxic to our bodies? Is

Diet Coke, I would imagine, or something like that? Yeah. Oh, man, you're asking me all the hard questions. I have to so gently respond to this with truth. Yeah, so sodas, whether it's legit soda or diet soda, both of them are pretty rough. They've got a lot of chemicals in them. They're jacked with sugar.

Sugar is slowly poisoning our society. Then the diet stuff has artificial sweeteners, and artificial sweeteners are truly just as bad as regular sugar. They have a really inflammatory impact on our endocrine system, really rough side effects long term. It's something I would just avoid like the plague. Like for sweeteners, a little bit of honey or like a little bit of maple syrup, like natural things that you could just go get from the earth that have very minimal processing. If you are going to do something artificial, I'm okay with like a little bit of

stevia or a little bit of monk fruit extract. I was going to ask about artificial, I'm okay with like a little bit of stevia or a little bit of monk fruit extract. I was going to ask about stevia. Is that considered artificial? That's not natural? It's like kind of natural, but you've got to think like it's really processed. They have to process it a lot to get it to the form it's in. But stevia has been shown to show a good amount of impact for good gut health.

And so that's something that I'm okay with. But yeah, so those are a lot of things that we just all want to kind of take into consideration with grace and truth and be very considerate of. How about like anything in a can is typically canned foods, canned whatever is typically not going to be fresh green beans or something from the. Absolutely. Yeah. You kind of think about it in line of like, okay, I pick it from my own garden. That's great. I pick it from, I get it from an organic grocery store better. I get it plain and it's not organic. That's way better than having, you know, a processed junk food. So like even having a non-organic vegetable or fruit, you plain and it's not organic. That's way better than having a processed

junk food. So even having a non-organic vegetable or fruit is better than eating processed stuff. And then canned, I mean, yeah, that's better than, again, the processed stuff, but it's on the lower tier of what's better because it has the metals in it. Those have chemicals. Eventually, they are going to kind of seep in. And I don't, I mean, we don't personally of what's better because it has the metals in it. Those have chemicals. Eventually they are gonna kind of seep in. And I don't, I mean, we don't personally completely avoid canned foods, but it is something that I'm mindful of

to not use it for like every single meal multiple times a day. It's something where like, okay, every now and then we'll cook with some canned green beans or canned beans, you know, but not like it's just a part of our life that we do constantly. Yeah, canned black beans. I mean, that's hard to avoid if you're cooking like enchiladas or something or tacos. Right, yeah. So don't be legalistic, but you know, and then there's some brands that have like BPA-free,

which is one of a more known carcinogen chemical in a lot of cans. So if you see the can that says BPA-free, whole in a lot of cans. So if you see the can that says BPA free, um, anything can go for organic because it's going to be a lot less chemically sprayed and induced. I know, I know we're lingering here for a while, but I'm really into like health and learning. Oh yeah. I know. I, and I'm, I'm, it sounds sometimes can sound condescending, not condescending, but like I love non-healthy food. I love pizza, fries. I could eat pizza every single meal. So it's not, cause some health nuts, it's like, I think you actually like broccoli and you don't like pizza. And that annoys me. You know, I'm like, no, no, no. And I'm definitely not legalistic when I travel, I, I, I eat out and stuff.

But when I'm in my home routine, I do try to eat, usually I eat a massive salad every day for lunch, maybe a smaller salad for dinner alongside, you know, usually freshly cooked food. My wife's pretty health conscious, but, but I, I do cut corner. I mean, I, I, yeah, I'm trying to be better. So anyway, I have lots of questions just about food in general. How, how would somebody cle, how do you cleanse your body from toxins? Like what are some things people can do rather than just, okay, let's just eat healthier, avoid some of these, you know, synthetic foods. Is there a way people can cleanse their body? Yeah, that's a great question.

So the number one thing first is to kind of do like a big lifestyle overview to remove current toxins. So that way we're having less of a load. So, you know, I teach my clients like, okay, let's look at what's in your house. What kind of shampoos are we using? Conditioners, soap, like anything that's going on in your skin. What kind of dish soap are we using?

Laundry detergent, like everything, you know what I mean? Fragrance, I'm just gonna throw it out there. Fragrance is, I mean, it's a known carcinogen. And so that's something that can be a huge- Colognes and perfumes? Yes, yeah, perfumes like, yeah, I love, I'm not one of those weirdo essential oil people, but I do appreciate essential oils because they're natural.

It's like a concentrated form of flowers and that's from the earth. That's in a very pure form. It doesn't have anything added to it and it smells great. For me, I use magnolia instead of perfume. I have magnolia flower on. There's definitely great swaps you can do that have a lot less of a load. So that's what we're looking at. We are looking at swapping out perfumes, even cookware. Non-stick cookware is just kind of loaded with really intense chemicals.

There's a reason it's really easy to clean and your food really slides off of it. That's not really a natural thing, you know? So we kind of want to consider that. Cast iron's great. Stainless steel is great. We just have to kind of adapt and learn how to cook with those.

So that's kind of the first thing, in addition to our food, is kind of clearing house. A lot of women come to me, and everyone's different. Some women are like, tell me everything I need to do, and I will do it like this weekend. So I'm like, okay, you're going to have a big weekend. And it's a ditch and switch kind of weekend where you're going through and you're just kind of getting rid of everything that's filled with the gnarly stuff and then you're replacing it with good stuff.

There's a great resource for you, for your listeners. It's called the EWG app. It stands for environmental working group. And this, I mean, there's a couple of great resources out there, but this is one that they do a phenomenal job with testing all of the ingredients that are in products and in food and in showing, giving it like an actual rating. So they have EWG verified as the best and then A, B, and then F. So you may find some Fs in your house and just throw that in the trash and you can replace it later.

Now, a lot of people who don't have a really intense goal of trying to get pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy, they might be like, you know what? I just want to get healthy. It's not in our budget to do this giant thing. And so I'll just replace things one at a time as they run out. And so that's what most people do. So that's kind of the giant thing. And so I'll just replace things one at a time as they run out. And so that's what it, that's what most people do. Um, so that's kind of the first thing. And then there, there are detoxes, there are cleanses with supplements and with food protocols and all of that, that you can do to also just kind of help detox what's inside of you.

Well, what about like a juice cleanse? I did a three day juice cleanse once and I felt great after. Yeah. Yeah. Is that, does that- Yeah, there's reasons for that. I have particular ones that I like and anyone can kind of search for ones that they want and it just depends on your history. For women who were on birth control, that could be a whole nother topic we could talk about, but for women who are

on birth control, they have a pretty specific protocol that I have them go through because they're going to need a lot more of a detoxification than someone who is never on any type of birth control. And so a lot of times it is specific to the person too. How about intermittent fasting? Is that at all related to, does that detox or... Because I heard that it's good for your cell rejuvenation or something, but I don't know if that would be related to detoxing or- Yeah, intermittent fasting can be great. I can't claim to be an expert on it.

I'm not a licensed nutritionist, although as a hormone coach, we know a lot of nutrition about how it impacts hormones. Just one of the contraindications with intermittent fasting is if you have blood sugar issues or if you have hypoglycemia, that doesn't work very well. So it is person to person too. So it is always important for anyone listening. Make sure you talk with, I always say talk with your doctor and talk with someone who really understands those

types of things when making those changes for you personally. I just realized I'm drinking creatine right now while I'm talking to you. Is this okay or is this... You know, I really don't know. I'd have to look at that one. Well, recently, I used to take it when I was back in the day an athlete and you're trying to build muscle and everything, but I've heard recently that it's actually extremely good for brain health and preventing dementia, but it's good for your brain, not just for the thought like,

oh, it's a bulk up, whatever, which I'm 48 years old. I'm not trying to do that, but it's just good for your overall health. Andrew Huberman is really big on it and other people I respect, but anyway, yeah. So I'm okay. You're not going to go look at the ingredients and see what I'm throwing in my body right now. And then I have a Celsius right here waiting on deck. Yeah. That one I can tell you probably has sucralose, which I would not approve. Sucralose. Let me check real quick. Let's see. Yeah. Oh gosh. It does sucralose. Wait, what is sucralose? So sucralose is an artisanal, it's a natural, it's a natural, it's a natural, it's a natural artisanal. It's a natural artisanal. It's a natural art real quick. Let's see. Oh gosh, it does. Sucralose. Wait,

what is sucralose? So sucralose is an artificial sweetener. Okay. Yeah. So see if you don't know what it is, that's a flag, right? If you have to ask someone, what is this? Right. Well, a few things on here I can't pronounce. Exactly. Dang it. Well, green tea extract, that's good, right? Ginger root. Then there's all kinds of- Yeah, it's got some good things in it. That's not one I approve of for my husband. My husband likes energy drinks.

I get him the... It's from Costco, the Urbe. Urbe? It's like Urbe. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. That one's super chill. Yeah.

Okay. I might need to switch. I think they sweeten with... It's with Stevia or monk fruit or something. So I'm okay. I don't love the caffeine content. That's something for men's health that men have to be aware of when trying to conceive caffeine, alcohol, and sugar. Those are the biggest things that impact sperm health. So really things to consider. Yeah. Like in moderation, those things are okay. Or would you try to eliminate all together? It depends on the couple's goals and what they're dealing with. So if they're having

issues like there's the man's part and his is real simple and he probably should be on some good supplementation. The women typically have a lot more they got to deal with, but the men, I mean, they're, they're contributing half of that sweet baby. And so half of the genes, half of the DNA and the quality of it is really impacted by what's inside them. Caffeine, that'd be extremely hard. Right. I'm not saying to cut it out completely, but be aware of it. If you're having two, three, four things a day and you're trying to conceive, I would definitely encourage to slow that down a little bit.

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forward slash theology. Use the code theology for your discount. Choose iherb because wellness matters. All right, let's talk about birth control. What are your thoughts on the pill? Okay, I'm so excited to talk about this. I love talking about this. I'm very passionate about it. So I come from a very non-judgmental place about this. I was on birth control on

and off for 14 years, starting at age 11 for gynecological reasons from my doctor. And looking back, I'm like, dang, that probably wasn't necessary. I wish I'd known about turmeric, and I wish I'd known about flaxseed, and maybe that would have helped the issues I was dealing with rather than having been put on birth control so early. Before launching into this topic, I'd love to take the opportunity, if you're cool with it, to talk about what is the woman's natural design, because birth control really silences this design So I do think there is a lot of spiritual warfare and interplay going on here So let's talk about the woman's physical natural design

When we think about her ovulatory process this starts and becomes to it Awakens around the time of menarchy and it awakens around the time of menarchy. Menarchy is another fun word for puberty. So once a girl starts getting a period here and there and having cycles, she's officially in this beautiful time called menarchy. And I think it's awesome because she's kind of being awakened into this new and added reflection

of showing the image of God to other people. Because this ovulatory process that starts happening, that's how girls get, that's why we get periods, is because of ovulation and all the focus in our culture is on the period and nobody knows about ovulation or nobody thinks about it, but it is one of the unique superpowers that the Lord has given a woman. Ovulation, gestation, that's the ability to carry a pregnancy, and then lactation, the ability to nurse a baby. Those are three unique gifts that God has given to women.

So ovulation being the first one. Again, I didn't know about any of this until I went through all of my suffering. So I hope anyone listening to this will be awakened for your own daughter, for people within your church, your friends. Every woman needs to understand this information. Every man needs to understand this information to support the sisters in Christ.

How it works when a woman ovulates, or let's just start from the period, because that's what everybody thinks of as cycle day one, or the start of a girl's cycle. That's really all people think of as a cycle is just the period. But she starts her period and at that time, her hormones are very quiet. And as everything is very quiet, the uterine lining is shutting off.

There's a hormone called FSH, it stands for follicle stimulating hormone, that is elevated and it starts to recruit a follicle from her ovaries to start developing and maturing. And this is getting it ready for the process of ovulation. As that follicle and the egg inside of the ovary are starting to grow and develop, the ovary starts to produce estrogen. And estrogen is a hormone, I don't know if this is like too detailed but I think it's really cool. It's a hormone that starts to produce cervical mucus for the woman and cervical mucus is really important. In

order to get pregnant you have to have a good egg, good sperm, and cervical mucus. Okay so that's all those are the three things it takes for a woman to get pregnant, for a couple to get pregnant. So anyways, the estrogen is rising and rising and rising. And once estrogen is at its highest, it triggers the brain to send another hormone called the luteinizing hormone. So the luteinizing hormone comes down

and this is the hormone stick or the ovulation test stick that a lot of women will take to see if they ovulated. This does not guarantee if they see that they have a positive LH test that they're going to ovulate, but it's a sign that they may ovulate soon. So LH fires and what it does is it goes around that follicle and it ruptures the follicle.

And so the follicle ruptures and the egg comes out and it goes from the ovary to something called the fallopian tube. On the very edges of the fallopian tube are something called fembraya. The ovary and fallopian tube are actually not connected. This is where I just see immediately. This is where the fingers of God, that's just how I see it. It's like literally sweeping that egg into the fallopian tube.

That's kind of what the fembraya do. They sweep. They have like little muscular talons, fingers. I don't know. They sweep it into the fallopian tube. And if sperm are present, that is where conception will occur. If sperm are not present, then that egg will dissolve within 12 to 24 hours. So you can immediately hear and see, ah, the woman is actually not fertile all the time. So that's a huge piece of education to just give to all humans. Women are not fertile all the time.

Their fertility does not need to be suppressed all the time. And yet that's what we are given with birth control and IUDs. So going back to this process, we've had FSH, we've had estrogen, we have had LH, and then remember that little follicle that kind of ruptured? It actually transforms into something called the corpus luteum.

The corpus luteum is what then produces progesterone after ovulation. Progesterone is the hormone that sustains the uterine lining to be thick, and it literally makes it more nutrient dense every single cycle, even when there's not a little baby. It's just God's design for the woman to be ready to receive a baby every single cycle that she ovulates. If progesterone is low, for example, that uterine lining might be really thin and it might be kind of an inflamed environment and it might not be a nutrient dense environment.

And the baby, the woman might conceive, but the baby might have a hard time implanting. That's what we call a chemical pregnancy or an early miscarriage. So much it is a baby. It is a baby, but the baby had a hard time implanting into the uterine lining. In a healthy cycle where progesterone levels are great, then that progesterone is just going to keep going and going and going, because once the baby implants into the uterine lining, a signal,

another hormone is given off called HCG, and that's the pregnancy hormone. And that's what women will, they'll pee on the pregnancy test stick, and that's the hormone that it's looking for is HCG. HCG gives feedback to the corpus luteum to keep producing progesterone and that is what keeps that uterine lining staying where it is and not having a period. So that way

the woman can continue to carry the pregnancy. Okay. I know that was like a lot of information. I love it. This is amazing. Yeah. I mean, just the human body and God's creativity is a miracle. So that's kind of the setup. okay? So that's what happens in a regular cycle. And when a woman does not conceive and she's not pregnant, what happens is progesterone drops because there's no HCG to tell progesterone to keep going. And so when progesterone drops, that's what triggers the woman to have a period

and her uterine lining sheds and the whole process starts again. So when we're on birth control, what it does is it inhibits FSH from elevating. And so we're taking this synthetic hormone, usually it's synthetic hormones. I'd also love to just put a plug in there about the copper IUD. Please, if you have that, get it out. It's really, really toxic. We recently had someone who committed suicide because of having a copper IUD implanted three times, taken in and out three times in the course of six months, and she got copper toxicity

poisoning. So, just because it's not a hormonal form of birth control, you need to be really, really aware. Anytime we try to shut down this ovulatory process that God has given us as a gift, we are gonna have side effects. When we're on hormonal birth control, which is most of the birth controls available,

it's shutting down everything that I just talked about. Okay, so if there's no FSH, there's no estrogen that's rising, hence no cervical mucus being produced. There's no ovulation, that rupturing of the follicle from the luteinizing hormone. And then there's no what we call luteal phase where that corpus luteum is producing progesterone.

And I can tell you from personal experience, a woman needs these hormones to be healthy, to be who God has created her to be. And I say hormones are like makeup, they just enhance who we are. They don't make us who we are or not make us who we are, they enhance who we are. And without them, on a regular basis, we really suffer. So I think there's a statistic that 60% of women change their birth control five times. And that just shows how awful women feel on their

birth control. They don't feel like themselves. They're moody. They're grumpy. They gain weight. They're depressed. They can be suicidal. And it just makes them feel horrible. So I'm just a huge advocate for, you know, I really, I'm the person who loves to help people with getting pregnant or recovering from miscarriage. But y'all, there's something called natural family planning. And you can use that same information to know when the woman's fertile and when she's not fertile to plan for intimacy together and without being on that birth control. So that's, that's the first spiel. If someone is on birth control for two, five plus years. Does that, uh, lessen their chance of getting pregnant when they go off birth control and want

to have kids? So, um, a little bit. Yeah, it's, it's really unfortunate infertility can be one of the side side effects of birth control. I'm so thankful that I was on it for all those years and I've still is able to have children, even though I'm dealing with other stuff that kind of wrecked some other things in my body from being on it for that long.

There's other information that shows that being on birth control ages one's cervix twice as fast as someone who is not on birth control. And a very interesting thing that women need to be aware of, men need to be aware of, that cervical mucus that is produced, it is from the cervix. Inside of the cervix, there's something called cervical crips. And they're like, really cool. That's where the cervical mucus is produced from. And so when that is aged twice as fast as someone

who was not on birth control, we wonder why women in this day and age are waiting till they're 30, 35 to try to start getting pregnant. They've been on birth control for 10 to 15 years and now they're having issues. Like we can kind of see why, why that's happening or one of the contributors. And that's not the case for everybody. A lot of people do get pregnant with having been on birth control, but there's a lot of women suffering who,

you know, that can be a contributor to it. Are there other forms of birth control that you would say are just as bad or almost as bad as being on the pill? The copper IUD, I'd be very careful about that. But I mean, there's the pill, there's Nexoplan, there's like an arm implant, there's a patch, there's a hormonal IUD, there's a copper IUD. All of them I do not recommend. They're very toxic.

They have really bad side effects. And we just have, we have an option of fertility awareness based methods that just require the woman a couple minutes a day to track and to chart. And she's aware of when she's fertile and not fertile. And it has no side effects. And it's aware of when she's fertile and not fertile. Um, and it has no side effects and it's, yeah. So family, so the, the natural planning where you, um, plan intimacy around when, when, when the woman is fertile, um, is that if you do it right, is that very, very accurate or,

Oh yeah. Cause it back in my day rules. Okay. Cause there was a joke of her back and would, my wife, when I were young, we, we had couples that would do family planning and you know, they didn't do any kind of birth control. And we said, yeah, you know, you know, what did you call a woman that does family planning? We call her pregnant. You know, like, but if you do it right, what, I mean, is the percentage really, really high? They

won't get pregnant. Yeah, absolutely. My husband and I were so skeptical about all of this because this was kind of our first answer and our healing journey, because after the third miscarriage, we were like, we have to figure something out because we need to stop getting pregnant so we could figure out what's going on. But I just felt so convicted to not get on birth control because I clearly understood there is something wrong with my body. I don't know a lot about birth control,

but I do know I haven't liked it when I've been on it enough, and I don't want that in my body right now, but I don't know what other option I had. And I mean, we had asked over the course of our years in the different states we've lived in, my husband and I, four different OBGYNs, hey, is there anything other than the pill or what you're offering us? You know, any of those contraceptives? Is there anything other than that? And they said, well, you could just use a condom all the time. And

we didn't, we didn't really want to do that. And, but that was the only education that was given to us. And everything I've just shared with you on this episode here is so much more information and education than most people get, even in sex ed classes. It's only about avoiding getting pregnant by a condom. And it's like, we need to understand how God designed us and respect women for how the Lord designed them. And when they're fertile and not fertile and stop destroying them, I can't even remember what your original question was now. Darn

it. The accuracy of family accuracy. Thank you. So say somebody's married. They don't have right. Don't want to have kids yet. You're saying if they do family planning, right. They absolutely. And I 100% understand the skepticism. I think I was building up too. We were so skeptical because we had those friends in the background, those Catholic friends in the background where we knew they were doing the weird family planning thing. And they actually were doing it because she had had C-sections and they really wanted to space out their kids to give her time in between pregnancies.

And we could clearly observe they were doing that. And we're like, how are they doing it? So it was after our third miscarriage, asking our doctor for options, not getting answers we liked. And so we went to our Catholic friends and we were like, okay, guys, can you share with us what you do? Like, we're so humble here. We're like tucking our tails and be like, tell us what you do.

And you know, they were so so sweet and they shared with us a lot of the similar information that I just shared with you about how we're designed and the cervical mucus, understanding when she's fertile, not fertile. The first time I heard that, I was like, this is hogwash. Like they're making this stuff up. This doesn't make sense. This is baloney.

But it triggered me to start doing a lot of my own research. And as I read books and as I educated myself and learned and learned, I was like, wow, like this is a real thing. And there are different options for fertility awareness methods. I think the resources called fertilitycare.org, where you can learn there's five to six different options. They use the same science, the same information. And I do not discount whatsoever the quote of those who do family planning are pregnant because the old perception of family planning was one of the methods called the rhythm method.

Now the rhythm method was the very first quote unquote original family planning method, and y'all it didn't work. It did not work. What was it? Yeah, it was't work. It did not work. Because- What was it? Yeah. Yeah, it was based off of the fact that a woman had a 28 day cycle.

Every single woman has a 28 day cycle and every single woman ovulates on cycle day 14. So for the very few women who actually did ovulate on cycle day 14 and did have a 28 day cycle, yeah, it worked. That was great. But the reality is not every woman ovulates on cycle day 14.

And even from women within her cycles, her ovulation day will change and it'll fluctuate and that's totally normal. And so that's how all these people are getting pregnant because if she ovulates on cycle day 21 and they thought they were fine, because they passed the cycle day 14, you're gonna have a baby.

So that's the rhythm method. And that started in the 1920s. And unfortunately, when doctors go through medical school for obstetrics and gynecology, when they address fertility awareness methods in most places, all they say is, oh yeah, that's the rhythm method here. Here's what it is. And this is why it doesn't work. And that's it. They don't have education about all the other methods.

Let me tell you about the other methods. There is the Creighton method. That is a cervical mucus only method. It's very difficult to be able to tell if you're fertile or not fertile with just cervical mucus. It's very, very in-depth. It's very intense. It's beautiful. But it is tricky. It's very, very in depth. It's very intense. It's beautiful.

But it is tricky. There's something called the Marquette method. That's what my husband and I dove into after we talked with our couple friend. And that gives a tiny bit of education about cervical mucus, like just a little bit. And then it relies purely on a device called the Clear Blue Fertility Monitor.

And it just kind of tells a woman if she's in her fertile range or not. It worked for us and I appreciated it for giving us a break, but I just don't feel like it gives the woman an empowered knowledge of what her body is really doing because you're just relying on a device and not your brain. God gave us a brain and we know our life the best. We know our fertility the best when we're educated with it. And so I'm a bigger proponent on being more educated.

But that is a great method. So we have the Creighton method. We have the Marquette method. There's something called the Billings-Ovulation method. That one's very, very simple and basic. So that's a great method, especially for people who are lower income. At pregnancy resource centers,

oftentimes they can just get a handout for the Billings Avulation Method just to give women a start to kind of start understanding when they're fertile, when they're not fertile. For people who want to know and understand more and have bigger goals, I'm certified through the FEM method. It stands for Fertility Education and Medical Management.

We do deep education. Like we have three one and a half hour sessions for couples, like, and it's a lot. Like we have PowerPoints and explanations. We have charting exercises, we have practices, and it's like really intense and in depth because that's what you deserve to understand how God designed you.

It's not a Christian method, but I teach it in a very Christian way because it's obviously Christian. So there's the a Christian method, but I teach it in a very Christian way because it's obviously Christian. So there's the FEM method. There's another method called symptom thermal. That's where you're doing internal cervical checks, which is more invasive. And we don't recommend that per FEM because that can just introduce infection. And they do basal body temperature and cervical mucus.

There's a couple others too, but I'll kind of stop there. So there's those methods, and as far as accuracy goes, when you follow the rules, they're 97 to 99% accurate at avoiding pregnancy, which is the same percentage as taking your pill or whatever hormonal type of birth control you have without the side effects. Wow. I was going to ask about the percentage. How long of a window does a typical woman, is she fertile or ovulating or could get pregnant?

Are we talking like three days, five days? Yeah. So the average in a healthy woman, and I preface this with 80% of women have hormone imbalance, but the average for a healthy woman is four to six days. So four to six days for her ovulatory phase. And then in FEM, we do teach add three days after her peak for the process to kind of finish up, to make sure if pregnancy isn't desired at that time,

the Lord's not convicting the couple on that for the egg to dissolve, so that way conception would not occur. Is it always right before her period? Obulation? Yeah. Okay. So let's go through like a kind of a more average cycle and what we could expect in terms of her phases and when she's fertile.

So cycle day one, that's the first day of her period. She technically is fertile at that time. The woman is technically fertile on her period because her cervix is open. There is no barrier to sperm. So even though she's not working towards ovulation quite yet and all of that, so couples can kind of make their informed choices of will we have intercourse during this time or not, but she is technically fertile because there's no barrier to sperm during the period. She has her period.

Maybe it's a five to seven day period. Some women will start producing cervical mucus right after the period or with their period. Those women, those couples have fewer free days for intimacy who start producing cervical mucus on the earlier side of things. Most couples, I would say they do have a gap from their period, maybe a day or two after their period or the light days, and then having two to three, four days before cervical mucus starts going. So you kind of get that little gap in there. And then she kind of goes into our ovulatory phase where she is fertile. She's producing cervical mucus. She ovulates.

And then basically post-ovulation, you're going to wait a few days after that and then you're free. You're good to have intimacy and not be worried about getting pregnant if that's not what the Lord's called you all to do. Okay. Wow. Have you seen, so you deal, you work with a lot of women that have infertility issues or that are having trouble getting pregnant, maybe they have a lot of miscarriages. Have you seen a lot of success in your coaching?

Yeah. Yeah. It's really beautiful. It's like, it kind of makes me a little mad because I feel like the type of work and services that I provide should be couples first steps when they're trying to get pregnant. Every couple should be tracking their cycle, I believe, because not only is it great to avoid or achieve pregnancy, but it also, her chart, her cycle chart, all those things she's tracking with her cervical mucus and all that kind of stuff, that gives us a picture

of what her hormones are doing. And her cycle literally tells us, and all that kind of stuff, that gives us a picture of what her hormones are doing. Her cycle literally tells us, is she having a healthy ovulation or not? That's huge. It's huge for couples as far as preventative care to know, am I in a good space to get pregnant or not? If couples had that education, I believe we would have a much lower rate of miscarriage because if they could immediately see like, oh, like I'm not having an ovulatory, a good healthy ovulatory phase or I'm not having healthy progesterone, I'm having low progesterone, then they could work on those things before they would start to get pregnant. So, you know, that education is huge.

And then getting the education on those pillars for a healthy lifestyle to support your hormones. And this is even more into the weeds, and we won't go too far into it. But there's different things that women can do in their different cycle phases when they're having different amounts of hormones being produced and different things going on that can help

their body with that process. So there's different kinds of foods they can eat in those cycle phases, different ways to exercise. I'm really passionate about that. I was an athlete growing up and I'm like, gosh darn it, if my coaches had known about cycle phase education, I would have been such a better athlete rather than feeling guilty about having low days and then really awesome days. And now looking back, I'm like,

oh, so my best days were when I was ovulating and when I had really a lot of estrogen because you're gonna have more energy and more physical capacity. And my low days were a couple days before my period would start, when I was on my period and even a couple days after. And like, if I had known that, been aware of it,

if my coaches had been, I would have been such a better athlete. So, you know, cycle syncing your exercise is a huge thing too. What if the track beat is on Saturday and some women, it hits women differently, right? I mean, is that just the way it goes or is there a way? I'm sorry, this is kind of off the topic a little bit, but yeah, no. With some feeble athletes. Yes, it's the way it goes. But if people are aware of it, if the athlete's aware of it,

the coach is aware of it, the parent's aware of it, everyone's not so hard on the athlete. And then the athlete's not so hard on themselves. So if they're aware, like, oh man, I am a day or two before my cycle's about to start, and this is my big meat day, I'm going to give it my best and understand. If I don't PR or whatever, it's okay. You know, like I'll, I'll get it the next time. So it just like would help so much with the emotions rather than feeling like, why couldn't I do that? You know? So, but it's still as lame if like you lose the race because one woman who might even on her good days be a

little bit a split second faster. She loses because it happened to fall on a day when her, I don't know, even though the wording, but when her body is in that optimal performance levels. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of sucks, but at least you don't feel bad about it. Wow. And not to get controversial, but this driving want to go here. Males who have transitioned to female, even if they have lowered the testosterone rate, they still will never have to deal with this. Right. Right. Cause they're not ovulating. You can't make anyone do that because it's not God's design.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to ask a question that sometimes guys are not allowed to ask or middle scared to ask or shouldn't ask. Or maybe we're asking the wrong way. What is okay. The impact on pre menstrual periods and, and menstrual periods on mood and emotions in an adult human female. Thank you for asking. You should be asking. You're married, right? I am. I have three daughters. That is a thing, right? I mean, it's not... Yeah, absolutely. Can you explain the chemistry? Give us the science behind what is going on and how does it impact

mood and emotions and what kind of mood and emotions are being impacted there? Okay. So I'm so glad you asked that question because every man should be aware of the answer. I'm just going to start with that. So I've already kind of gone through what are the physical things that are happening in a woman's cycle. So I want everyone to kind of go back to that visualization in their head of what I explained happens from FSH to estrogen, LH, progesterone. When the woman is starting her period and even a couple of days before her period and

she hasn't gotten pregnant, her hormones are low. When a woman has low hormones and they're in balance and they're healthy, it's actually really cool because she is really reflective. She is quiet. She is introspective. And this is a beautiful time for her to make decisions with her husband. It's a beautiful time for her to journal and to connect with the Lord.

Now, if her hormones are imbalanced, this can be a time where she is like, it just like, it takes that kind of beautiful, quiet, reflective, sweet woman to like a grumpy, I don't want to talk to anybody, irritated kind of woman, right? Yeah. And in either case, it's really important for men to be sensitive and to give women space in this time. Because she just isn't super social. She's not hyper social. She doesn't want to go do a bunch of things that involve a lot of physical activity. She doesn't want to talk a whole bunch. And just to allow the woman space to, and you know, like especially if she's a mom and she has kids. I like to call it the red tent.

That was like a literal thing in the Native American culture. Women who are menstruating got to go to a red tent on their period. I'm like, that sounds awesome. I want to be all by myself and not have any responsibilities and just get to read and write and take care of myself. Like, that sounds great. And I think that's a beautiful thing for husbands to do for their wives, to just give them rest.

I see it as this reflection of the image of God and how he rested on the seventh day, this cyclical rest that the Lord showed us we see in a woman who is cycling because she should have a time of rest. And if men were to understand that and be sensitive to it, our culture would change. So I think we understand it, whether we're sensitive is another question. We definitely see it. But again, if you, I think men have handled it wrongly in the past.

Yeah. Just to be Frank, you know, like, Hey honey, you seem, you know, extra irritable or whatever, like what are you on your period or something? You know, like I think we've been insensitive with how we've maybe gone about it. And then we've swung the other way to where it's like, Oh, don't say it. Just don't say anything. You know, just don't exist for a few days. And I know for, for different women, is it, is it, is there a spectrum of kind of how it affects them where I've talked to some women that would say, yeah, it's, it's like they have really hard periods. You just even emotionally. Like it's, it's a drastic change. Others. It's a lot more mild and as a father, you can speak that life into your family of observing in a gentle way, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce,

maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, maybe after the divorce, For you as a husband and as a father, you can speak that life into your family of observing in a gentle way maybe after the, you know, once her estrogen starting to come up, that's a good time to talk about it. I mean, like, hey, like I've noticed like things are really hard for you or like, I don't know, things have changed for you. Like what are just asking questions of what is it like for you? Do you feel like your, you know, personality changes or is it like a really hard time for you? I heard this random weirdo podcast

that said that could be a sign that maybe things are off and there could be some things that could help it. Because truly when a woman is on her period and she's healthy, it shouldn't be a bad experience. It should be a nice experience. It should be pleasant, you know? But if she's having like heavy cramping, she's not able to go about her day, you know, and then all the mood stuff, like she needs help.

There's something going on that she needs to get addressed. And what would be the first step to getting an address? Go in and get in a blood test or something or? No, I mean, I think always the first step is charting because? Go in and get in a blood test or something? No, I mean, I think always the first step is charting, because her chart is going to tell us a lot of information about what's going on. FEM is connected to, they have two types of providers.

They have the educators. So the people like me who educate you, here's how to chart your cycle. Here's how it works, here are signs of imbalance, here are the signs of it being healthy. And so then the woman knows like, okay, I'm charting my cycle, I know the signs of what's healthy

and what's not healthy. When I see that it's not healthy, then like, you know, I like to do a hormone coaching, like let's do all the natural stuff first we can do to help that. And going back to your question, like 20 minutes ago, I'd say half the time when she does the natural stuff, it works. She gets pregnant.

The other half of the time, because I have a lot of people who are coming to me, you know, the other half of the time they may have a more underlying, deeper medical issue that needs support beyond being recommended to do IUI or IVF, like IUI and IVF, they're literally just trying to force your body to ovulate and they're not looking at what's wrong with your body and what can we do to help your body restore so that it does what it's designed to do. So aside from trying to get pregnant, like if, if somebody is there ever a place to take like hormone supplements or anything? Or what would be a way to- There can be a place for that.

So charting is step number one, learning the holistic, natural things you can do with your diet, with your supplementation, with your diet, with your diet. And then the second thing is, is there a place to take hormone supplements? And then the third thing is, is there a place to take hormone supplements? And then the fourth thing is, is there a way to- There can be a place for that. So charting is step number one, learning the holistic natural things you can do with your diet, with your supplementation, with your exercise, with your stress management. I'm not kidding, that legit impacts your hormones.

That could be, I've seen it many times, that's enough. That's more than enough to resolve those issues. Now, she's still not seeing issues resolved. I was also getting to, there's something called FEM medical management. So the medical management, these are OB-GYNs who have taken much more extensive and additional training to understand a woman's cycle chart, to know how to read it, and to use that as a very important data piece in helping the woman. And they do extensive blood testing.

They'll do hormonal testing because we can observe that in your cycle. But just getting the numbers nailed down if the natural stuff wasn't enough to resolve those cycle issues to kind of seeing like, OK, what else is going on? There's other root issues that are here. So those providers are wonderful because they will help the woman restore naturally. Okay. That's fascinating. Can you explain, sorry, you did it earlier, but I'm still having a hard

time. When you say charting, can you explain again what that means? Yeah. So charting is a woman, like you know how most women have an app on their phone, like the Flow app or something like that, and they'll just track when their periods are. Yeah. Okay, so when I say the word charting, it is so much more than that. And that's what a lot of women interpret.

Oh, well, don't you track your period? No, it's so much more than that. So she is tracking her period, but she becomes educated in tracking her period in an objective way so that we can observe, are there imbalances here? Because even your period tells us information about your ovulation from the cycle before. So if you're having an irregular period or an abnormal period, that's a sign that we want to look out for. So she's tracking the information of her period, and then she's tracking those body signs I've talked about.

So she might be tracking her cervical mucus. That's pretty much a must. She might be tracking some hormones from home. FEM only recommends testing LH, but I'm kind of like the bougie charter. So I teach like, let's get as much data about your body as we can. And so there's some monitors out there that will test all of those sex hormones I talked

about, the FSH, estrogen, LH, and progesterone on one stick. It's crazy. So we can look at that data with your cervical mucus, and some women will test their basal body temperature. And I have like a fancy little paper where women will just kind of write down these signs that she had each day. And then we go back, you know, after we have a cycle and we look at that cycle because

that whole picture from the day one of her period through ovulation until the last day before her next period starts, that's her cycle and that's her chart and that's her book of health. Okay. That's super helpful. I do have kind of a related question, but also I know people, females who the vaccine, the COVID vaccine produced irregular periods. I've heard of like one woman, she was getting her period like every other week. It was like, oh, I'm going to be sick. And I'm like, oh,

I'm going to be sick. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to be sick. And I heard of one woman, she was getting her period every other week. It was like twice a month or something for several months after getting the vaccine. I've heard studies or reports of the same thing. I guess my two questions, one, have you heard that? Two, do you know the science behind that? Why that happened? And number three, I guess, is that dangerous? Is that concerning? Yeah.

I would definitely be very mindful of anything we put into our bodies like we talked about. And I would really include vaccines in that. I think something in general to take strong consideration about vaccines, not even just the COVID one, but in general, they have really, really high volumes of mercury or aluminum. And I mean, those are heavy metals. Those are endocrine disruptors. So that's important to really take into consideration with any vaccine. And yeah, I mean, I've heard as well reports with really you know, really high incidents of miscarriage with the COVID shot, losing babies afterwards, just really sad. And yeah, it's just something to be

very mindful of any time we're going to put something into our body, being very, very, very prayerful about it. So we don't, do we know the direct relation why specifically the COVID vaccine would cause period irregularities? I couldn't say a direct correlation. But if we think about that ovulatory process and endocrine disruptors in general, whatever was in that vaccine shot that was given, it disrupted that woman's endocrine system hugely. Which seems like a big deal. That's a really fundamental part of our bodies. shot that was given, it disrupted that woman's endocrine system hugely.

Which seems like a big deal. That's a really fundamental part of our bodies. It's not just a fringe, I don't know. Our bodies, our health, our ability to get pregnant, our ability... I mean, you know what I mean? If a woman's having a period every two weeks, she's not going to be able to get pregnant. And imagine how that impacted women who were pregnant and got the COVID shot in their babies. Wow. Well, we'll just open up a big controversial door, but, but I mean, I, I, I, I'm not even making a broader statement about vaccines as a whole. Although I have heard, yeah, that it's a lot of the extra stuff in them. And I, I, this is not my area of expertise at

all. So I don't want to get beyond my knowledge, but to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm just, I mean, you must, I'm sure this has produced like a whole new renewed sense of wonder with God and the intricacies and beauty of His creation when you dig deep into you looking at the human body, especially something as profound as childbirth.

It's one of the most amazing ways in which we replicate the creativity of God, you know? And this is where women, it's so sad that in our culture today, sometimes women having children is downplayed or seen as lesser than when it's one of the most powerful, amazing things the human body is capable of. And I obviously want to be sensitive to people who do struggle with lifelong infertility that don't experience that 100%. But the way God has designed the body and the female body in particular, I mean, it's amazing. It's absolutely incredible. Yeah, I totally agree. If people want to get a hold of you, do you have like online coaching or if someone says,

hey, I would love to talk with you further, is that an option? Yeah, absolutely. You can find me, I have a podcast, it's called For the Love of Hormones, and we talk about all the hormonal things in a spiritual way, in a spiritual mindset, keeping Christ at the Center. And you can find me at my website, beckayan.com. And I have a whole program where I love working with women, or you can always just book a consult and share with me your story. Because oftentimes if you're reaching out to me, you probably haven't felt heard before, haven't felt listened to. So that's really big. And

Preston, I do want to throw out for all the dads listening, pastors, whoever, some resources for young women that are really important. Oh man, I'm going to have to remember that, the book's name. Maybe I can send it to you. Send it to me. I'll put it in the show notes. Okay. I'm remembering. It's called A Happy Girl's Guide to Being Whole by Teresa Kenny. It's a book that just summarizes everything in a teen appropriate, young preteen way that you can all read together, dads with your daughters, mothers with your daughters. There's something called Teen FEM, F-E-M-M, and that's FEM education for teenage girls.

So that way they can start charting without having to, you know, have the intercourse instructions on it. That part's out, but the girl gets the education and information about her body and can begin charting. That's beautiful for early diagnosis of issues that are going on. Oftentimes girls have PCOS from the time they start having periods and it's not supported or helped until she's like 30 years old, 35 years old and wanting to have kids. So those signs can be tracked early on.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Becca, for being on the show. Really appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It was great. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Greetings and God bless. This is Tyler Burns. And this is Dr. Jamar Tisby.

And we want to invite you to check out our podcast, Pass the Mic, Dynamic Voices for a Diverse Church. Pass the Mic has been speaking directly to the core concerns of black Christians for over a decade. On our show, we've got interviews from theologians, historians, actors, activists, and so much more. Not to mention heartfelt, open dialogue on some of the heaviest issues facing the church in the United States.

Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. We'll see you there on the next Pass the Mic. Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus Podcast is here to help you live out your faith every single day, and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.