123 | Why Ovulation Matters with Liane Moccia

0:00 Hi there, welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman and this podcast is for herbalists and nutritionists who are in clinical practice. Today, I'm really excited to present to you a conversation that I had recently with Leanne Mocha regarding ovulation and how we ask clients about ovulation and why it matters. Even when a client isn't trying to conceive, why would we still want to think about ovulation? What does it tell us? The reason that I'm sharing this conversation with you right now is that Leanne and I are co-teaching a menstrual health intensive that is starting really soon. And so I thought it would be a nice time to present to you just a little bit of information, kind of like a teaser of some of the things that might be in the class, and to help you get to know Leanne a little bit.

0:44 So in case you're not already familiar with Leanne, she is a registered herbalist. She specializes in fertility and preconception planning. She is the author of the herbal fertility handbook which came out in 2025 and leanne, although she does focus on fertility she is just a wealth of information regarding the menstrual cycle reproductive health and how we think about menstrual cycle as part of overall health, and so when we teach together i really appreciate how leanne dives into the science but also has a very very practical lens through which she sees everything so if you want to learn more about leanne I'll put a link to her website, just leanemocha.com. We'll put that in the show notes as well as the link to Leanne's book and the link to sign up for the Menstrual Health Intensive if you would like to join us. We'd love to have you. All right, I hope you enjoy this conversation, and I'll talk to you really soon.

1:34 All right, y'all. I am delighted to be joined by my colleague and collaborator, Leanne Mucha, here today. And we wanted to share some information about a specific question related to menstrual health, which some of you may have on your intake form, which is, are you ovulating? Are you ovulating regularly? We wanted to dive into that because it seems like such a small, simple question, but actually there's a lot of nuance in it. Leanne, do you want to start us off and just talk about how you asked this question? Is it on your intake? Do you ask it in person? Give us the overview here. Yes. Yeah. So this is such a great question and it is definitely something that has evolved over the years. It is on my intake and it is something I talk about in person.

2:17 And at first glance, it seems like such an easy question to answer. Are you ovulating? But what I found is that, first of all, it gives us a lot of information as a practitioner. If a person is aware of their ovulation and then can provide information about its timing and how they experience it. So there is important information there. So I think it's worth knowing and asking. But what I've learned over the years is that asking the question in certain ways can sometimes be a little bit confusing to people and they don't always know what we're asking. And often, a lot of times people have never even really thought about if they notice if they're ovulating. Sometimes they're relying on external factors like an LH strip, which is fine.

2:59 But just having the conversation, there's so much information that can come out of asking the question, which is, you know, are they noticing it? And how are they testing for it? And what are those results? And then what is the data? So there's three levels of information there. Yes, absolutely. And I think over the years, I also have this question on my intake form, and I feel like I've gotten the full gamut of, things, responses to it, from everything from I have no idea to, you know, per my Mira device, I ovulated on day, you know, 14.5 this cycle and day, you know, XYZ on the last cycle.

3:39 They have complete data for six or 12 cycles and everything in the middle. And it does provide a lot of information. So one question I have for you is, it's obvious why we might want to know this in the context of fertility. But for people who are not trying to get pregnant, this is not on their radar right now, they're not interested, what have you, why would we still want to know? Right. Why would we still want to ask this question? Yes. And I do still want to know. And a lot of people will, if they're not trying to conceive, will actually say, well, I haven't really thought about it because I'm not trying to get pregnant, so why would I care? And it's really just a really important part of their cycle.

4:20 So we want to know if a person who is supposed to be cycling or has a history of cycling, we want to know if that's still happening for them. And we want to know if it's the regularity of it, the length of it. It's an indicator of other health and hormonal things that are happening in their body. So, I mean, for me, it's as important as all of the other vital signs that are on my intake form around digestion and immune health and, you know, all the other things I'm asking about. The menstrual cycle is just another part of that that is really important to me. Yes, I completely agree. A lot of times, especially people who are not trying to get pregnant and have never tried to get pregnant.

5:02 Or it happened organically for them, they never really had to think about it. A lot of folks haven't been taught in, you know, health class or body literacy along the way, and so they don't necessarily know how to identify if they're ovulating, and it just hasn't been relevant. But in reality, if we start to understand ovulation and where it is in the cycle, we can just have so much information about like, okay, what's going on with FSH? What's going on with estradiol? What's going on with progesterone? We can put the pieces together and try to get to the bottom of other factors that may be affecting the menstrual cycle and or health as a whole. So I do think it's, you know, the nice thing about ovulation is that there are, for most people, there are lots of signs, external signs.

5:47 Like you don't, you can use LH strips or, you know, some of these fancier devices and this, that, and the other, but also you can just completely for free by observing your body and your cervical fluid and. Your energy and the way that you're feeling and so forth. You can also identify it there. And I think that having that understanding is it's a critical part of body literacy. And so I think that's a part of it, too. Right. And I think it's really empowering. I do think when some people, they don't understand or haven't been taught, you've mentioned body literacy, about something like cervical fluid, which is just something that can be confusing if it hasn't been taught or discussed.

6:28 I've certainly had people think it was abnormal or, you know, signs of an infection. And then after we've talked about it more, it's, you know, they understand it's a sign of their, possibly a sign of their building estrogen levels and ovulation occurring within that window, which is, I think, really empowering and helpful, to people to understand that. Yes, absolutely. I also think we don't necessarily think about this when we're, you know, in the throes of the menstrual years, but as you get closer to perimenopause, I also think having an understanding of, am I ovulating and what's happening with my ovulation, it gives you kind of a baseline to compare as things start to get a little wonky on the far end of the menstrual years.

7:09 You kind of understand, oh, things are starting to change. In what ways? It does give you some important information at that time frame as well. And it's nice if you have that baseline from the kind of steadier menstrual years to compare it to. Right. And I don't think it has to be an either or, but I do see a trend to people wanting to do more testing in the perimenopausal years. And that may be the right fit for some people. But I think if we have a lot more conversations about what's, you know, body literacy and what you can observe, it may, potentially reduce the need to have some of this other more expensive testing to see what's going on. Absolutely. I know we could do a whole other podcast episode about testing and hearing menopause because that's like its own, its own can of worms.

7:55 It's an interesting one too. Yeah. So maybe it would be helpful for people who are listening. Are there some common follow-up questions that you might ask around ovulation, in an intake, for example? Like, what are some other things that you might ask? Let's say somebody said, you say, are you ovulating? And they put, like, I think so, or maybe. What are you going to then dig into? Definitely digging into what are the signs and symptoms that you experience, and around what day of the month do you experience them. So I'm looking for things like cervical fluid, energy levels, change in libido, even things like changes in acne, skin, what are they experiencing in their skin, their sleep patterns.

8:40 Some people are testing and monitoring their basal body temperature or just temperature in general. And I like to sort of get that information if it's available because in some cases, people may have the rise of estrogen and might be experiencing some signs of ovulation coming, but we can't really confirm if it happened or not unless we have some other pieces of information. And looking at a rise in temperature is another way to look at that. If a person is also tracking their entire cycle, that can be helpful. So the very first day of their period to the first day of the next period and defining that for people. Sometimes I will say on my intake form, how long is your cycle?

9:22 And I'm looking for that, you know, period to period and I'll get three to four days. And I realized that that has been misinterpreted as how long are you menstruating for? So I think the more clear we, and so now in my intake form, I give examples and say, you know, exactly what I'm looking for, because I think it is something that, you know, the more we ask directly and give examples of what we're looking for, we're more likely to get accurate answers. Absolutely. And those are these are the lessons that you learn the hard way. Yes. You know, you're like, Oh, all right, that's not what I was thinking was going to happen here. And obviously, I need to be more clear. I know you have another example of. Of asking a question in a way that didn't wind up being very clear.

10:04 Do you want to share that one just because it's, it's at least sort of related. And I think it's a great example for other people to hear too. Yes. This was in the earlier days when my intake forms weren't separated out by if then answers. So now I use an electronic form. So if a person, you know, puts in certain information, they won't be asked all the same questions, but this was predates that. So the person, the question was, have you experienced or do you experience painful periods? And the person responded, yes. And when we dug into it, this turns out to be a person who doesn't menstruate, doesn't ovulate. It's not part of his physiology. He was, you know, male gender. And he said, yes, I have painful periods. And when I asked him to explain that more, he said, well, when my mother passed away, it was a very painful period for me.

10:52 And I realized with like such empathy, like, wow, you know, this was a very unclear question. This is not on him that he answered it incorrectly. I need to reword this. And it doesn't happen now again because of the way the intakes flow. But just a great example of how asking a general question like, do you have painful periods, could be misunderstood depending on how clear you are with it. Yes, absolutely. I think it's such a great example of how you just live and learn as you go through these yeah all right that one is on me yes. But it was still very helpful information because then we talked about how he was feeling with the passing of his mother and you know nervous system support and processing and i you know he even said something to me like geez i don't think anyone's ever asked me that before and i thought i'm like i really can't take credit for having asked you that because i didn't really but let's talk about it, yeah sure since it came up let's go there, Before we wrap up here, I also just, additional thought I had was that when we're talking more about ovulation, it also, as you mentioned, if we put it in the context of how long is your overall cycle, we really do need that information about ovulation to see if the luteal phase is, you know, see how long the luteal phase is and to kind of place any kind of PMS or PMDD on the timeline.

12:12 It is sort of an important marker on our menstrual timeline. And so I think it's something that maybe people don't dive into enough if they're not trying to conceive or their client isn't trying to conceive. But in reality, there's a lot we can do with that information when we're supporting somebody around overall health or menstrual health. Yes, absolutely. I feel like, again, as a timeline within the menstrual cycle, if you are thinking about or asking about the menstrual cycle in any way, the ovulation and when we think it's happening is just critical to the full picture. Yes, absolutely. And I'm actually, I'm a big fan of having the question on the intake form and then asking into it later. So I really just have, are you ovulating?

12:59 And then if so, how do you know? And then whatever they put there, I don't have follow-up questions on my intake form. I just want to go, I want to talk it through. In person. So that's kind of how I handle it. Because I'm like, I know we're going to talk about it. So I don't need to bother asking multiple questions here because I just, I want to at least get the basics down and then we'll dive into it together. And getting some basics down in a way where the person can look it up. Because if they are tracking in any way, I'd rather them have the time to think, you know, and pull up their data and enter it than in our intake feel pressure to pull it up on their app and try to find it while we're talking.

13:40 Exactly. Yes, it's one of those things that's just easier to do in the comfort of your own home with an abundance of time, for sure. So one of the reasons that Leanne and I have been thinking about this and talking about it so much is that we are opening a brand new course. It's a menstrual health intensive. And if you're interested in diving into a lot more physiology and. Details about the menstrual cycle, we would love for you to join us. Leanne, do you want to say anything about the course or what's interesting about it, what's special about it, why somebody might want to join us as opposed to another type of training or reading a book about this or something like that? Yes. Yeah, I'm really enjoying the course and pulling all this information together.

14:22 It's deeply rooted in physiology, which I think when we're talking about the menstrual cycle is so important because, if you understand the physiology behind what's happening, whether it's painful periods or PMOS or, you know, any of the things we're going to talk about, hypothalamic amenorrhea, if you understand the physiology behind what's happening, you can pull from all of your clinical experience and teaching and knowledge to think about how you want to support that person. And we do get into that in the course, but it's so rooted in physiology that I think it could be really helpful, for anyone who works with menstruating people because, you know, physiology is something that sometimes we don't, you know, we learned it so long ago, you don't remember it, or you see it through a different lens.

15:04 Even as a practitioner who does this every day, as I'm pulling things up and refreshing my own knowledge of the physiology, I'm remembering things in a new way and like, oh, right, that makes so much sense. And, you know, it gets exciting to think about how we can support people, you know, herbally or nutritionally through these things. Exactly. And I think that is one of the most interesting parts about this course is that we're not trying to tell you, oh, here's the formula for dysmenorrhea. Here's the formula for PMS or PMDD. What we're really trying to say is here's what we know about these things from a physiological perspective, what the data tells us in some general traditional perspectives. is.

15:45 But there's enough room in that for people to, as you said, to tailor it to your own favored methods or herbs, whether you do an energetic model or you have a more kind of Western herbal model or whatever you have. I think having this understanding of the physiology allows you to take it and run with it in ways where you're like, oh, I've thought this through. Here are some herbs or strategies that do these things. Let me try them with these individual people. Something else that's new, Leanne and I have taught together multiple times, but this year we're having a new component, which is we are doing case observation groups as part of the class. So we're going to be learning about things in a very kind of academic, cerebral way.

16:27 We have a live class every week to ask questions and things like that, but also we're going to be working on cases, real people who are looking for help around menstrual health. We're going to do two case groups where we have a client, we're going to interview the client, and we're going to work together on coming up with a formula for them, a plan for them. So I think this is going to really help people solidify the information. I'm really excited about getting to do that together. Yes, absolutely. Amazing. So if anybody wants to join us, we would love to have you. The info is in the show notes of how to sign up. And even if you're listening to this way after the fact, we do make the classes available later as an evergreen model. So if you can't come live, still welcome to sign up. We would love to have you go through the asynchronous version if you're listening to this in the future.

17:11 All right, Leanne, thank you so much for joining me to talk a little bit about ovulation. I will see you in the class, hopefully with lots of lovely folks joining us, and I really appreciate you taking the time to be here. Yes, I can't wait. Thank you.