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AUDIO: The Fertility Journey - With Dr. Daoshing Ni: Episode #2

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Dr. Daoshing Ni talks with CEO/Founder of EmpowHer, Michelle King Robson about fertility and modern pregnancy. "Pregnancy is a journey, not a destination," says Dr. Dao, who shares the best ways to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.


Dr. Daoshing Ni – D.O.M, L.Ac., Ph.D, Dipl.C.H.

Todd Hartley:
It's time for the fertility journey with Dr. Dao. He is a 38th generation doctor of Chinese medicine here to answer your questions on anything pertaining to fertility. From the Empowher.com studios, here is Dr. Daoshing Ni and Michelle King Robson, EmpowHer.com’s Founder & CEO.

Michelle King Robson:
Hi, Dr. Dao.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Hello.

Michelle King Robson:
How are you today?

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Very well, thank you.

Michelle King Robson:
Good, you know I have to share with you a little story. I am not sure if you know how I actually came upon your name, but I met your brother in Aspen.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
I heard about that.

Michelle King Robson:
Last summer actually, and we were doing, he was one of the guest speakers at one of the women’s health symposiums up there, and I found him to be so fascinating with what he knew about women’s health and how entrenched he has been in helping women reach their optimal, you know, feel well, look well, healthiness, wellness, and prevention.

One of the things that he was telling me was, he was boasting about you actually. He said that you have been, just you’re an incredible fertility specialist. He also told me something about you doing acupuncture, which I thought was so fascinating and what the percentages were based on women who you had been treating, who were having fertility issues and how you had used acupuncture to actually help them get pregnant and that the numbers were off the charts. You want to tell me a little bit about that?

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Well, first of all, I mean, you know in the Chinese culture having a child is probably one of those paramount situation, the most paramount thing that you can do as a woman in the family. And I think in many centuries with the social pressures if you were not able to bear a child, I think you are doomed as a woman, unfortunately.

Michelle King Robson:
Right.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
So fortunately because of that, also the pressing need for advanced fertility treatments with Chinese medicine was very well developed, very well researched from many thousands years ago to this day today.

The Chinese medicine has offered a tremendous amount of wonderful, natural approaches and therapies, and this includes acupuncture and herbal therapy. This includes a very specialized Tuina massages as well as meditation techniques that we use in our clinic, specifically to help a woman to get pregnant.

And with this integrated approach we are able to reduce a patient’s stress level, improve their hormone profile, improve their ovulatory functions, improve their circulation, improve their tubal activities as well as uterine lining build-up and reduces their immune reactions. All those things not only besides that that we also help them with their health status so as they get healthier, then not only they are able to get pregnant much easier, they also have less miscarriages.

Again, pregnancy is only a journey, it's not destination. So a lot of times I teach my patients to really understand that they want to have a healthy offspring, a healthy baby, a healthy body at the end of the day. So with that in mind, what I do here in the clinic are very, very helpful for a lot of people.

We are able to fortunately achieve a good success rate, and I think it’s all due to the actual teamwork that we have in our clinic. We have a very strong teamwork orientation in what we do here. We usually pair two doctors to one patient here and we do right off the bat. At the first visit we actually talk to them about nutrition right away.

Michelle King Robson:
That’s great.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
We talk to them about their lifestyle right away, we talk to them about the exercise right away, we talk about their sleep hygiene right away, we talk to them about their work and stress right away, we talk to them about their intimacy issues right away, we talk to them about just many different things that might affect because these are things that would be the easiest to do. And as you know in so many disease profile, the very first things are lifestyle modification, can make so much difference already, and it would be ridiculous if we don’t do that.

Michelle King Robson:
Right, so you have brought up so many great points, and we’re going to have to do many more shows with you because I could just do a whole show on just sleep.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Yeah.

Michelle King Robson:
Which is something that I don’t get much of these days.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
You can do many shows on sleep.

Michelle King Robson:
Yes, exactly, but more importantly tell me a little bit, tell our listeners what they can do in the way of meditation for example, and maybe what their daily exercise routine should be.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Well, meditation is something that I think is very important and crucial, but I think a lot of people have this misnomer or misunderstanding of meditation. I think people think of meditation, they have this image of this monk, sits there quietly and don’t move for hours and don’t eat and don’t breathe really.

The reality is that meditation doesn’t has to be sitting only. Meditation can be standing, meditation can be lying down. Meditation, it’s a form of focus of our mind to become mindful of what we are doing at a given time.

So that means there’s some kind of activity can also be meditation. For example, somebody who rollerblades down the beach and who strides and watches their glide, watch their breath consciously surrounding, that’s a form of meditation. It does not have to take in a form of sitting there like a piece of log.

So by meditation, the purpose of meditation is to really calm your mind, to become centered, to become anchored, and to actually help us to get rid of that mental fog frequently as we go through our life.

Our energies are always in our heads. We go through our life and we think a lot, we worry a lot, and pretty soon we have too many electrical and brain activities up high, and what happens is that we no longer know what is the best solution and best decision. We no longer, we lose ourself very quickly, and meditational purpose is to anchor and to clear that mental fog so that we have and be calm, have the tool and the courage to see things more clearly.

Michelle King Robson:
Do you think that, and I've heard this over time and time again with women, is that they can’t get pregnant, and so they will go for adoption or some other form of, you know, whether they hire…what do I want to call it, Todd?

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Surrogacy.

Michelle King Robson:
A surrogate, thank you. Do you think that, and a lot of cases they say that after they have had that, after they have adopted that first child, that their system calms down and they are not worried anymore about getting pregnant, and they become pregnant?

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Yes, because as you pursue, first of all, infertility is a serious disease. It really make a woman question their womanhood.

Michelle King Robson:
Yes.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
You can see it clearly. You’re supposed to be entitled to be able to get pregnant.

Michelle King Robson:
Right.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
For you not being able to get pregnant. "I am not a woman. That is supposed to be my right."

Michelle King Robson:
True.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
But it's amazing with so many various physiological functions, amazing that we actually get pregnant. There are so many obstacles along the way, but we do get pregnant and when we are young, relatively easily most of time. So that just becomes more kind of like right for most women, and it becomes very difficult and almost spirit-breaking type of situation when you’re not able to get pregnant.

Michelle King Robson:
That makes perfect sense.

Todd Hartley:
EmpowHer.com is an "ask and share" community so keep in mind if you’ve got a fertility question that you need answered. Go to EmpowHer.com, click on "Ask" and we'll just do that, you ask and we’ll do our best to have Dr. Daoshing Ni answer the question during his program, "The Fertility Journey."

So we’ve got other questions for Dr. Dao. Michelle is going to pick one and Dr. Dao we’re going to, we have no doubt that you’re not going to be able to handle one of these.

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Okay, try me.

Michelle King Robson:
Here we have a question from Frannie, and she is asking, "I have got friends who used acupuncture to get pregnant, but I am more a believer in Western fertility treatments. What should I know about acupuncture for fertility, and should I consider it over medication?"

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
That’s a very good question. First of all, I would like to say that use Chinese medicine or natural therapy as your first option. I think Western medicine offer tremendous amount of value and with ART, the Assisted Reproductive Technology, such as IVF and insemination, there’s a lot of stuff with that that is amazing that natural therapy cannot replace.

If someone who has a tubal problem for example, then no acupuncture is going to be able to get the sperm to fly, bypassing the tube and go straight to the uterus. That’s just not going to happen, and IVF would be necessary in those situations so there’s absolutely a situation where ART and IVF is paramount.

But having said that, in the majority of time, it is very important to try to really foster your own natural foundation. Your body is an amazing, amazing machine with an amazing environment. If you give enough nourishment, if you give enough opportunity, it will rise up to the occasion and help you to get pregnant.

You just have to make sure that you get the proper nourishment, so we do this through acupuncture, we do this through herbs, and we do this through some lifestyle guidances and nutrition, and most of people are able to get pregnant with this first line treatment and if that first line treatment doesn’t work, which I frequently would ask my patient to combine with some sorts of ARP plan to trying to achieve that goal.

Michelle King Robson:
Thank you. This has been so helpful.

Todd Hartley:
Well, he is Dr. Daoshing Ni. For more information, you can go to EmpowHer.com or you can visit Dr. Dao on the web at taoofwellness.com. That’s with a T. T-A-O of wellness [dot] com, all one word.

Dr. Dao, thank you so much for joining "The Fertility Journey."

Dr. Daoshing Ni:
It’s my honor.

Announcer:
Your healthy podcast is brought to you by EmpowHer.com, that’s E-M-P-O-W-H-E-R [dot] com.

About Dr. Daoshing Ni:
Dr. Dao is a 38th generation doctor of Chinese Medicine, a Licensed Acupuncturist and is a Diplomat of Chinese Herbology NCCA. Dr. Dao is in general practice at Los Angeles, California’s Tao or Wellness, was an examiner for the California Acupuncture Committee and also participated in the Chinese Herbology Exam development for NCCA. Respected for his special interest in reproductive and gynecological conditions. Dr. Dao is a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Pacific Coast Fertility Society, and American Association of Oriental Medicine. He’s also the author of The Tao of Fertility.

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