The Holistic Fertility Show

Send us Fan Mail Eating the right foods improves fertility outcomes by reducing inflammation, balancing hormones, and protecting eggs and sperm from oxidative stress. Nutrient-rich choices like fatty fish (omega-3s), colorful fruits and vegetables (antioxidants), nuts, seeds, and whole grains support mitochondrial energy in eggs, stabilize blood sugar (key for PCOS), aid estrogen metabolism (helpf...

Send us Fan Mail Egg quality is one of the most important components of fertility success because the egg provides much of the cellular machinery needed for fertilization, early embryo development, and implantation. Without a healthy, competent egg, conception cannot occur, even when sperm is present. Age is one of the strongest influences on egg quality, but lifestyle, underlying medical conditio...

Send us Fan Mail In reproductive medicine, platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, is an emerging treatment that uses a patient’s own blood to concentrate platelets and growth factors that may help support tissue repair and regeneration. In fertility care, PRP may be placed into the ovaries to stimulate ovarian activity, supporting follicular growth, but NOT improving pregnancy outcomes.  Beware of profit-g...

Send us Fan Mail Acupuncture offers promising support for women with PCOS who are trying to conceive. By helping to regulate hormonal imbalances, promote regular ovulation, and improve blood flow to the ovaries and uterus, acupuncture can address key challenges like irregular cycles, elevated androgens, and insulin resistance that often delay fertility in PCOS patients. Clinical experience and stu...

Send us Fan Mail A Truth No One Wants to Hear If you are a woman in your mid-to-late thirties or forties who is trying to conceive, you have likely been told that your age is working against you. Maybe a doctor checked your bloodwork, reviewed an ultrasound, and delivered the news in the clinical shorthand that can feel so cold: "Your ovarian reserve is low." Or: "Your egg quality i...

Send us Fan Mail Acupuncture may help improve IVF outcomes by supporting healthy blood flow to the uterus and ovaries, reducing stress, and helping create a more receptive environment for implantation.  Research and clinical fertility practices suggest that acupuncture may support egg quality, sperm quality, endometrial thickness, and overall IVF success when used as part of a comprehensive reprod...

Send us Fan Mail For women with PCOS trying to conceive, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) offers meaningful supportive benefits as part of an integrative fertility approach. This antioxidant supplement works by replenishing glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant, helping to reduce oxidative stress that can impair egg quality, mitochondrial function, and overall reproductive health. NAC also supports im...

Send us Fan Mail In the United States, acupuncture is one of the most commonly used complementary therapies among infertility patients undergoing IVF. Published estimates suggest that 8% to 47% of couples add acupuncture to their IVF cycles , showing that use varies widely depending on the clinic, patient population, and local access to fertility-focused acupuncture care. In broader infertility po...

Send us Fan Mail Research suggests that acupuncture may play a meaningful role in supporting egg and embryo quality, particularly for women undergoing fertility treatments. Studies have shown that acupuncture can improve blood flow to the ovaries, which enhances the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to developing follicles — a key factor in egg health. A 2020 review published in Frontiers in Endocr...

Send us Fan Mail Male factor infertility contributes to approximately 40-50% of all conception challenges and frequently involves issues such as low sperm count, reduced motility, abnormal morphology, or elevated DNA fragmentation that can impair fertilization and embryo development.  At The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness in New York City, we successfully address these concerns with a pe...

Send us Fan Mail Ectopic pregnancy occurs when an embryo implants outside the uterus, most commonly in the fallopian tube. In the general, non-IVF population, ectopic pregnancy is typically reported at about 1–2% of pregnancies. In IVF pregnancies, studies and fertility sources report ranges from about 1.4% to 5.4%. Learn how you can avoid this! Please support our show by subscribing, sharing this...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we're diving into a topic that might surprise you but could be a game-changer for many: oxygen deficiency as a hidden contributor to miscarriage . You might be wondering – what does oxygen have to do with holding onto a pregnancy? If you haven't already, hit that Support the Show button right now.   Your support keeps this show going – thank you! Support the show

Send us Fan Mail As women age, the tiny energy centers inside the eggs—called mitochondria—begin to function less efficiently. Because eggs require tremendous energy to mature properly, divide correctly, and support early embryo development, this decline can lead to poorer egg quality, fewer healthy embryos, and greater difficulty conceiving. Fertility naturally decreases with age, and markers suc...

Send us Fan Mail The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness is a New York City–based complementary medicine fertility clinic specializing in supportive care for individuals and couples facing reproductive challenges. Now offering phone consultations worldwide, the center makes its fertility-focused guidance accessible to patients beyond New York, helping them explore integrative support options...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Fertility Hope Podcast, where we explore real solutions for building the family of your dreams. I’m your host, Mike Berkley, L.Ac., FABORM, founder and director of The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness in New York City. For over 28 years, I’ve been helping individuals and couples overcome fertility challenges using the best of both Eastern and Western medicin...

Send us Fan Mail The quality of your eggs and sperm is not fixed — it can be significantly improved, but the biological timeline is strict. Sperm take approximately 74 days (about three months) to fully develop from precursor cells to mature sperm ready for ejaculation. Eggs, while present from birth, undergo a critical maturation process in the months leading up to ovulation. This means the lifes...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to The Holistic Fertility Show . Today we’re talking about inflammation—one of the hidden factors that may interfere with fertility, implantation, egg quality, sperm health, and healthy pregnancy outcomes. Inflammation can be associated with conditions such as endometriosis, PCOS, recurrent pregnancy loss, failed IVF cycles, and unexplained infertility. At The Berkley Cent...

Send us Fan Mail Male factor infertility is more common than many couples realize, and it can involve sperm count, motility, morphology, DNA fragmentation, hormones, inflammation, oxidative stress, varicocele, and lifestyle factors. In this episode, we’ll discuss why a semen analysis is only the beginning, what men should know before moving straight to IVF, and how a comprehensive, integrative app...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today’s episode, where we explore how customized herbal medicine may support IVF outcomes by helping improve hormonal balance, the uterine environment, egg quality, implantation, and early pregnancy support.  For many IVF patients, an integrative approach that includes herbal medicine may also support sperm count, motility, morphology, and overall reproductive function...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today’s episode, where we explore Low-Level Light Therapy, also known as LLLT, and its potential role in supporting egg and embryo quality. This gentle, non-invasive therapy uses specific wavelengths of light, including near-infrared light, to support cellular energy production, mitochondrial function, and healthier reproductive tissue activity. Some fertility-focused d...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today’s episode. We’re talking about how acupuncture and customized herbal medicine may support male fertility by helping improve sperm count, motility, morphology, liquefaction, and overall reproductive health.  At The Berkley Center, we don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach. Each plan is customized to the patient, because sperm health can be affected by stress, infla...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine your body’s trillions of cells running on tiny internal power plants. These power plants are called mitochondria — the engines that turn food into usable energy. Now picture one single cell that carries the entire future of a new human life: the egg. That egg needs an extraordinary amount of energy to mature, fertilize, and kickstart embryonic development. But here’s the p...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today’s episode, where we explore how acupuncture and customized herbal medicine may support patients going through IVF. For many individuals and couples, IVF can feel physically demanding and emotionally overwhelming, and integrative care is often used to support the body before, during, and after treatment. Acupuncture is commonly discussed for its potential role in r...

Send us Fan Mail Trying to conceive can feel like every door is a different specialist, a different supplement, a different opinion. In this week's episode, we open all four doors at once — acupuncture, low-level light therapy, targeted supplements, and custom Chinese herbal formulas — and walk through, in plain English, what each one actually does inside your body and why combining them work...

Send us Fan Mail NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) plays a key role in female fertility by supporting mitochondrial function and cellular energy production in oocytes. Research shows that age-related declines in NAD+ contribute to reduced egg quality and ovarian aging, leading to infertility, while restoring NAD+ levels can improve oocyte health, reduce chromosomal abnormalities, and enhanc...