🎧 Episode 16: Chinese Medicine for Fertility: Egg Quality & Hormone Health with Dr. Susan Fox
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Introduction
In this episode of the WOVA Circle Fertility Podcast, we explore a root-cause, whole-body approach to fertility — from why a diagnosis isn't your destiny, to how Traditional Chinese Medicine and conventional fertility care can work together rather than in opposition.
Dr. Susan Fox, a doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine with over 24 years of clinical experience treating infertility, shares why "Jing" — your reproductive reserve — needs to be protected, how environmental toxins are quietly shaping fertility outcomes, and the foundational role of nutrition, sleep, and nervous system regulation across the menstrual cycle.
Whether you're trying to conceive naturally, preparing for IVF, or simply want a deeper understanding of how whole-body health shapes reproductive outcomes, this episode offers grounded, evidence-based guidance to help you take an active role in your fertility journey.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
Why Dr. Fox calls Chinese medicine "traditional" rather than "alternative" — and how it works alongside IVF, not against it
The Five Elements framework and how it maps to your hormones, digestion, and reproductive health
What "Jing" is, and why protecting your egg reserve means not "burning the candle at both ends"
How to vet the quality of Chinese herbs, and why pre-made pellets are a red flag
TEAS, an at-home acupoint stimulation protocol shown to boost live birth rates by 42% in women over 35
A new blood test that can detect silent endometriosis without surgery
How environmental toxins, microplastics, and EMFs are quietly affecting egg and sperm quality
The Five Emotions in Chinese medicine and how unresolved stress shows up in the body
Why preconception health matters as much for your future child as it does for getting pregnant
⏱ Listen time: 66 minutes
🎧 Format: Video & Audio
📍 Best for: Individuals and couples trying to conceive naturally or through IVF, those wanting a more holistic understanding of fertility, and anyone looking for practical, root-cause-focused guidance on reproductive health
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👉 Learn More About Gabie’s Story
Podcast Transcript
Introduction
Gabie Peytchev: Today I have an amazing opportunity to talk with Dr. Susan Fox, who has 24 years of experience as a doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. She's a fellow of the Acupuncture and TCM Board Reproductive Medicine, and is trained in functional medicine. She has been helping people struggling with infertility for many years, and I look forward to asking her all kinds of questions that should be helpful for you. So welcome, Dr. Susan. Tell me about yourself — share your story.
Dr. Susan Fox: Happy to be here, really delighted to have the conversation. Yes, I am a doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and I've been working in the field as a fertility specialist for twenty-four years now. I've seen a lot come through, both in the world of IVF and natural fertility.
There's been so much progress, and I'm delighted that we're able to do better by our families — women and families who want to realize their dream of having a family. My work is always to make sure that it's not just the positive pregnancy test, but a healthy pregnancy, a healthy baby, a healthy postpartum, a healthy family — because I believe we are creating the leaders of the future by restoring whole health and fertile health.
Gabie: I love that you talk about the health of our children. We are so fixated on the idea of getting pregnant that we forget how much our health is impacting the health of our future children.
Dr. Susan Fox: Exactly. Well, a fraction of it is my wisdom — it's the wisdom of Chinese medicine that informs me, and I give my bow to all the people who came before me working in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, from whom I learned and continue to learn.
How Chinese Medicine Differs from Conventional Medicine
Gabie: Let's open with that — can you talk about how Chinese medicine differs from conventional medicine?
Dr. Susan Fox: In vernacular, I tend to call Chinese medicine traditional medicine, and I call conventional medicine just that — the current medicine is conventional, it is not traditional. I think it's important to hold in mind that this tradition has been in play for thousands of years, born long before we had labs and assessments and white coats. It is born of observing nature and recognizing that we are one with nature, not separate from it.
So if we can really look at the nature of ourselves when we're going a little sideways — what is showing up as imbalanced or out of harmony — and make corrections, we can often restore balance, which can sometimes reverse diagnoses. Because the other message I want to give is: you are not your diagnosis. A diagnosis simply describes patterns that have been created over time. If we can pull on those threads, we can find out what went a little bit off and restore harmony to that area.
Oftentimes symptoms or diagnoses like PCOS can go away, and then we can get pregnant more easily and naturally — and more importantly, have a long and healthy life. Because something like PCOS is not just a fertility problem, it's a metabolic health and longevity problem.
Gabie: I love that — we are not static, and we're not defined by them.
Dr. Susan Fox: Right. A diagnosis is simply a tool that helps insurance process claims, and a tool for some organization around how we help this person. But how we help in traditional medicine is a little different than the protocols a reproductive endocrinologist might use. I actually think we work well when we work together. Not everybody has time to do a full sequence — restoring balanced nutrition, proper circulation, better sleep-wake cycle — but if you have time, please take it. If you don't, these things can be done concurrently and really improve your outcome.
Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements
Gabie: What is Chinese medicine approaching versus what we see in conventional medicine?
Dr. Susan Fox: We look at yin and yang — is it hot, is it cold, is the energy moving or is it stuck, and where is it stuck? Is it stuck in the liver system, creating stagnation and difficulty with hormonal harmony? Is it stuck in the digestive system, where we've got a backlog of congestion? Is it stuck in the kidney system, which has to do with the resource of our hormonal health?
We come into this world with a fixed number of eggs we will utilize over time. In Chinese medicine, we refer to that as Jing — like a precious trust fund we come in with. Our goal is to not draw from that trust fund by burning the candle at both ends, but to use our nutrition, hydration, circulation, and social settings well so we're only drawing what we need.
We also look at the Five Elements:
Wood — growth, expansion, and creation
Fire — keeping our joy and spirits in balance, not manic, not depleted
Earth — how well we take in nutrition and eliminate waste
Metal — governs the lung and large intestine; how well we take in, assimilate, and eliminate, including the air we breathe
Water — the deep reservoir of energy and reserves, including our reproductive capacities
Gabie: This is based on thousands of years of wisdom.
Dr. Susan Fox: It can sound poetic, it can sound a little "woo," but if you open your mind to it, it resonates deeply. You get a visceral, felt sense that it makes sense — if you can get out of your head and into your body. And if you can't, that's okay too. We're all made of the same stuff. We are either in harmony with these elements, or something is not in harmony, and our job is to fix it.
Chinese Herbs: Quality and Safety
Gabie: How do you find implementing Chinese medicine in today's world?
Dr. Susan Fox: Thankfully I live in Northern California, so it's a little easier. That said, in the world of fertility — especially with IVF — I need to be judicious about how I implement Chinese medicine, because Chinese herbs can be concerning to an IVF doctor, and I understand that. They need to understand their protocols, and they don't always know what effect an herb might have on what they're administering.
So for the IVF patient, and sometimes for people going through natural conception who are uncomfortable with the idea of Chinese herbs, I'll use supplements instead, because we can all agree on what those will do. Whereas with an herbal formula, sometimes we don't know if one of the herbs is interfering with the cycle.
Gabie: When I was struggling to conceive, I saw an acupuncturist, and one of my concerns was the quality of the herbs.
Dr. Susan Fox: Thank you for saying that — it's true. What you don't want to do, listeners, is go online and purchase those little black pellets, because you really don't know what's in them. A formula might have fifteen herbs, but with pellets, you don't know if any one of them contains all — or just one — of those herbs.
How I dispense herbs: I custom-make a formula, and an herbal pharmacy dispenses it as a concentrate — a tincture, distilled down to about twelve times the concentration of the teas that used to make our kitchens smell so strongly. The pharmacist uses a company that checks every batch that comes in to confirm the herb is what it says it is, that it's not contaminated, and that it's not tarnished with chemicals.
Gabie: So they use a third party to verify the quality?
Dr. Susan Fox: Yes. Most herbs come from China, though sometimes we adapt a formula with a Western herb, and there are some domestic farms cultivating Chinese herbs. But I choose this route to make sure the person taking these herbs has clean herbs, with every herb in the formula present in every dose, so it's having the effect we want.
The Online Program: Nutrition, Circulation, and TEAS
Gabie: Do you have one-on-one coaching? I know you also have a program people can follow.
Dr. Susan Fox: Thank you for asking — this is my heartbeat these days. Yes, I have my private practice in Northern California where I see patients in person. But there's a whole population of people who need access to these protocols otherwise.
So I designed an online program structured through the lens of Chinese medicine and the five phases of the menstrual cycle: what nutrition to consider at each phase, what circulation and exercise to do, and a focus on targeted circulation called TEAS — transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation.
This is done in the comfort of your own home, every other day from the end of your menstrual bleed until ovulation (for natural conception) or egg retrieval (for IVF). If you miss a cycle, you just start again on day one of the next cycle.
These protocols have been shown, in studies of more than two thousand women, to increase live birth rate — not just positive pregnancy test — by 42% for women over 35, a cohort that often struggles with diminished ovarian reserve. That's significant, because IVF success rates for that group are typically in the teens to twenties. I wish I could shout this from the rooftops, because I want everyone who wants a baby to know this is accessible, important, and proven.
The program also includes mind-body exercises — guided imagery and meditations using binaural beats to shift the stress response, helping the body down-regulate into "rest and digest" parasympathetic mode, building resilience. All of this gives women agency — the sense that "I can do this, I am not broken," rather than relying solely on someone else to fix them. Coaching is included too, but my deepest desire is to flip the pattern of "I must go to someone to fix me" and instead say: "I can be the driver of this bus, and get help as I need it."
Nutrition Through the Menstrual Cycle
Gabie: You probably also talk about nutrition and lifestyle. Can you touch on that?
Dr. Susan Fox: Absolutely. Nutrition is a big part of it, viewed through the lens of Chinese medicine — different foods support different phases of the cycle:
Menstrual phase: foods that "build blood," since we're shedding blood
Ovulatory phase: foods that move the qi
Luteal phase (implantation): foods with an uplifting quality, to help the embryo implant into the uterine lining
Pre-menstrual (PMS) phase: warming, circulating foods to support implantation
And lifestyle, of course — waking with sunlight, dimming lights at dusk, turning off blue light so we're not signaling "high noon" to the brain at 10pm, and getting a good night's sleep to restore tissues used throughout the day.
Gabie: What do you think about the Mediterranean-style pro-fertility diet that's been so well-researched?
Dr. Susan Fox: Overall, within the different phases, all of it should be Mediterranean style. As a visual: half the plate should be a wide variety of non-starchy vegetables, a quarter a clean protein, an eighth a healthy fat, and an eighth a whole-foods-based starchy carb. This isn't about grabbing a protein bar and a coffee on the way out the door — your body recognizes real food differently than processed food, even if the macros look similar.
Making Lifestyle Changes Stick
Gabie: What do you find is hardest for people to implement — mind-body practices, nutrition shifts, lifestyle?
Dr. Susan Fox: It depends on the person, but for most of the people I work with, it's turning off the devices — that habituated, dopamine-addicted busy mind. People feel like winding down with TV or scrolling Instagram is their only "me time," especially with secondary fertility struggles after the kids are in bed. My suggestion: finish screens about an hour, or at least thirty minutes, before bedtime, ideally between 10:00 and 10:30pm. I know shift workers face real constraints here, and we make adjustments — I don't want anyone to feel like all hope is lost.
Gabie: What's your best tip for actually making that shift, since knowing what to do and doing it are different things?
Dr. Susan Fox: One shift at a time, and give yourself credit for each one. I'd start with nutrition — remove processed foods, replace with whole foods, and go organic where possible (it's now much more accessible in price). When you eat real food, you need less of it to feel satisfied.
Water counts as nutrition too — ideally filtered with reverse osmosis, since tap water often carries toxins, chemicals, phthalates, and sometimes medication residue. Use glass instead of plastic — we now know microplastics are found in follicular fluid, amniotic fluid, and placental tissue.
Then: turn off devices, read a book, listen to music. And look at your personal care products — shampoos, conditioners, deodorant, toothpaste, floss. Many ingredients you can't pronounce go straight into your bloodstream. Switching to natural alternatives helps you feel better and sets you up for a healthier pregnancy.
What People Misunderstand About Fertility
Gabie: What do you think most people misunderstand about what fertility reflects in the body?
Dr. Susan Fox: We're accustomed as a culture to quick fixes — "I'll just freeze my eggs" or "I'll just do IVF since insurance covers it." But IVF doctors stimulate follicles, retrieve eggs, and create embryos exactly in the health they're already in, and transfer into a uterus exactly as healthy as it already is. They can't change the underlying quality.
There's no formal research on this specific point, but using common sense: if better nutrition improves the texture of your hair and skin, why would that effect stop short of your eggs and ovaries?
Gabie: You're really setting your child up for success by optimizing your health before the next step — whether natural conception or IVF.
Dr. Susan Fox: Absolutely. People often say, "When I'm pregnant, I'll start eating better." But by the time of a positive pregnancy test, the embryo has already received a lot of information from the nutrients it has or hasn't gotten. Why wait to stop smoking or drinking soda?
Preconception Health and Working with Your OB
Gabie: This is so underdiscussed. The months before conception are a key window for both men and women — but when people ask their doctor how to optimize their chances, they're often just told to take a prenatal vitamin.
Dr. Susan Fox: I couldn't agree more. Tragically, by the time someone raises this with their OBGYN, they've already tried for three, six, twelve months. The OBGYN, to their credit, moves to Clomid or Letrozole. If that doesn't work after another few months, it's on to a reproductive endocrinologist.
In my practice and in the online course, I give people access to labs they can take in advance: Is there an ovarian issue? A vitamin D deficiency? An autoimmune thyroid issue? Anemia? Other inflammatory markers? A blood sugar metabolism issue? Getting that data together is proof-positive that there's something concrete to work with — not just "try again for another couple of months."
Gabie: Preconception health doesn't just affect conception — it influences the pregnancy itself, postpartum symptoms, and the health of the future baby.
Dr. Susan Fox: That's right. We see inflammatory markers in follicular fluid — that egg is growing in an inflammatory environment. Taking down inflammation through lifestyle changes can meaningfully improve that environment. It's your life — why wouldn't you do the best you can, for yourself and your child?
Gabie: We plan a wedding in the U.S. a year in advance, or a vacation months ahead, but resist planning for our body's health the same way.
Dr. Susan Fox: Exactly. It's life's fundamentals. And the point of this conversation isn't to shame or blame — it's to say, "You can change this." What five changes will you make this week? Give yourself credit, and make five more next week.
When You've "Done Everything Right" and It's Still Not Working
Gabie: What about people who've worked with you and feel they've done everything right, but it's still not happening — meanwhile a friend got pregnant without even trying?
Dr. Susan Fox: If that person is in my office, we do diagnostic testing — make sure sperm is meeting egg, make sure the uterine environment is hospitable. If there's something structural or physiological in the way, it would be a tragedy to just say "keep trying." So we do some spelunking to find what's still missing.
There's no guarantee — even with a perfect embryo and a perfect uterine environment, sometimes it doesn't work. But we implement everything we can. I like to say: we engage 100%, and then we surrender. That's life — if we hold our breath for fear of not getting another one, we expire. We do the best we can with our body of knowledge, engage fully, then have compassion for ourselves and reach out for help.
Male Fertility
Gabie: Do you also see couples? Male fertility is so important too.
Dr. Susan Fox: Yes. About ninety percent of the time I'm seeing females, but if there's a male factor involved, I invite the partner in for treatment. I'll often send him for a semen analysis first, to see if anything explains months of trying. Once we find the data, we can identify where changes are needed.
Gabie: What about when a woman shares that her partner isn't making necessary lifestyle changes, and she's not sure how to get him on board?
Dr. Susan Fox: That's the person I'll say: send him in. Somehow, he needs to hear — in a way he can hear — that he has a role to play. If his semen analysis looks "perfect" but he still wants five beers a night and weed on weekends, the data becomes an excuse, even though we know the underlying damage. If a partner can come in, I'd rather coach him directly than have her try to be both his partner and his health coach.
Gabie: Agreed completely. And test quality matters too — a standard semen analysis looks mostly at appearance, not DNA integrity. There's also a difference between "normal range" and "optimal range," and timing matters — was the test done six months ago, under different conditions?
Dr. Susan Fox: Exactly. Something can be in range but just a hair's breadth from being out of range — and I'd rather address it now than wait. I've never seen it backfire for a partner to become the messenger instead of the spouse becoming the "health police."
Gabie: It also depends on culture — in my own background, the burden often falls heavily on women, with less male participation in optimization efforts.
Dr. Susan Fox: It helps for men to understand this isn't just about today's fertility — it's about their longevity and cardiovascular health, and continuing to enjoy a healthy reproductive and sexual relationship with their partner long after the kids are grown.
Chronic Conditions and Whole-Body Health
Gabie: There are so many conditions — diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure, even sleep disorders — that aren't usually connected to fertility in people's minds, but matter a lot. Can you speak to that?
Dr. Susan Fox: Our reproductive organs are not separate from the rest of the body, and neither are our brain chemicals. Elevated inflammatory markers, elevated hemoglobin A1c, high cholesterol pushing toward cardiac risk — these affect your whole body's ability to metabolize, assimilate nutrients, and produce healthy sperm or support a healthy cycle. We're not as healthy in our forties as we were in our twenties if all else is equal — time has its mark. If it's physiological rather than structural, there are changes you can make.
What Dr. Fox Assesses First
Gabie: What are the first systems you assess when someone struggling to conceive comes to you?
Dr. Susan Fox: I start with a thorough menstrual health history — quality of the bleed (dark, bright, clots, pain), cycle duration and consistency, and whether ovulation is occurring about 14 days before menstruation. If there's pain at ovulation or menstruation, especially affecting intercourse or bowel habits, I want to rule out endometriosis.
There's now a new blood test that can help identify endometriosis — it requires a blood draw through a provider's office (not a standard lab like LabCorp or Quest), through a company called Her Anova, with a test called Her Resolve. It's especially helpful for catching silent endometriosis early, before it requires invasive diagnosis via laparoscopy.
Gabie: Endometriosis is so hard to assess and diagnose — sometimes it takes years. It's great that there's more innovation here.
Dr. Susan Fox: Absolutely — catching it early means more options. Low-grade cases can sometimes be treated with supplementation, or with a conventional three-month Lupron suppression protocol that essentially induces temporary menopause to stop feeding the endometrial tissue. I also like to use proteolytic enzymes — like lumbrokinase, nattokinase, or serrapeptidase — taken between meals, which target and help digest endometrial protein.
I also assess nutrition (protein, vegetables, refined carbs, hydration), movement (sitting too much interrupts pelvic circulation), sleep timing and hygiene (phone out of the room, EMF protection, avoiding earbuds at bedtime since they sit right against an EMF source), and emotional wellbeing through the lens of Chinese medicine's five emotions.
The Five Emotions in Chinese Medicine
Gabie: Can you talk about the five emotions?
Dr. Susan Fox: They map to the five elements and organ systems:
Wood (liver) — anger/irritability: a generative energy wanting to grow and express; when suppressed, it needs an outlet (like a dance party in the living room instead of doom-scrolling)
Fire (heart) — mania: forced, frantic "everything's fine, let's go" energy rather than calm joy
Earth (spleen/digestive) — obsessive thinking: the 2am Googling, "phlegm misting the mind"
Metal (lung) — grief: addressed with breathing meditations to restore the ability to take in and release
Water (kidney) — fear/dread: that anxious "what if" anticipation
We all experience all five at different times — when one shows up strongly, we use the tools associated with that element to bring it back into balance.
Environmental Toxins: The Hidden Driver
Gabie: What are the most common drivers you're seeing in clients today?
Dr. Susan Fox: If I zoom out: environmental toxins, in our food and our surroundings — including "forever chemicals." This isn't fatalistic, though — our bodies are designed to detoxify. If we remove the insults and improve nutrients, the body responds: the liver functions better, metabolizing hormones and clearing waste more efficiently.
Gabie: This connects everything we've discussed — organic food, glass over plastic, EMFs. Nutrition is often called number one, but environment is just as important. Even one generation ago, there were far fewer processed foods, and people sourced food locally.
Dr. Susan Fox: Right. If you're eating an organic meal but brushing your teeth with chemical-laden toothpaste and floss coated in petrochemicals, or washing your face with unpronounceable ingredients, or using dryer sheets and fragranced sprays (fragrance is chemical) — it undermines the rest. A house cleaned with vinegar and water, with an open window for fresh air, is healthier even if it smells different than a scented candle.
Gabie: It can get overwhelming — when I mention plastics to friends, they sometimes just shut down because "it's everywhere." How do you keep it from feeling paralyzing?
Dr. Susan Fox: Pick five things this week. Clean out pantry items you know aren't healthy. Don't wait for the shampoo bottle to be empty — switch sooner if you can. (I have a resource page on my website with healthy product recommendations.)
Top 5 Action Steps
Gabie: Let's land on the top five things people can actually do.
Dr. Susan Fox:
Filter your water — reverse osmosis if possible, or at minimum activated carbon — and store it in glass, not plastic.
Eat whole, organic foods — grass-fed, grass-finished, wild-caught where applicable. Organic frozen vegetables from a big-box store are often cheaper than "fresh" non-organic produce.
Protect your sleep hygiene — note when dusk happens, dim the lights, set an alarm (e.g., 9:30pm) to put devices away, and aim for bedtime between 10:00–10:30pm.
Get movement and sunlight — get your face to the sun in the morning, and walk daily; avoid over-tightening the pelvic core with intense ab work.
Get support — for emotional wellbeing, from an expert (therapist, coach, or fertility specialist) rather than navigating it alone. One in six people struggle with fertility, but it can feel deeply isolating.
Closing Thoughts
Gabie: Is there anything you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Dr. Susan Fox: We're having this conversation in April, which is National Infertility Awareness Month and National Infertility Awareness Week. Know that you're not alone, and know that help is there — through advocacy groups, through your IVF doctor, through practitioners like myself. This isn't an "us versus them" conversation — we're all arms-linked in wanting you to hold your healthy baby in arms as soon as possible. Feel free to reach out — I provide follow-up support, and you can follow me on socials and my podcast.
Gabie: Thank you so much, Dr. Susan.
Dr. Susan Fox: Absolute delight on my part as well, Gabie. Thank you so much for having me.
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