What is the Role of Epigenetics in Your Fertility Condition?
- Brainz Magazine
- Jul 28, 2025
- 7 min read
Danijela is an award-winning therapist, educator, public speaker, and contributor to revolutionising mental health and fertility therapy, and creator of an innovative approach to helping women overcome mental barriers to conception and pregnancy. She has developed a course that upskills professionals to achieve great results with pregnancy issues.
What your grandmother experienced in her lifetime could have modified her DNA, and these changes can be passed down through the generations. Your nervous system learned from your grandparents' nervous system. You were primed to carry the burdens that were not your own. In this interesting article, we explain what the science of epigenetics means for your children and grandchildren.
Even though studies show that over half of the women with endometriosis have experienced some form of trauma or abuse, many patients cannot recall any. Could it be that the trauma was inherited from their mother or grandmother through the genes that were passed on, leaving no direct memory? Science is now confirming that trauma from previous generations, especially on the maternal line, can leave biological imprints that affect your reproductive health today.
I have worked with a client, Sara, whose grandmother (the victim of domestic abuse during her pregnancy) died a few hours after giving birth to her mother. As a result, her mother had prenatal trauma, birth trauma, and experienced the grief and loss due to her mother's death. Because of this traumatic experience, she resisted having children and resisting motherhood, but her husband insisted they have two children. Although she had two children, she was never able to connect with them and was never emotionally present for them. The pain traveled through generations, and she carried the sorrow, grief, and loss. She had experienced abuse during her intrauterine life. This is the inherited information that was embedded in her body, mind, and spirit. My client Sara was affected by her mother's traumatic experiences, but also by her grandmother's.
In our therapy session, my client Sara was able to access her prenatal memories, feelings, and impulses in hypnosis. Babies in the womb have prenatal awareness, and the most developed sense in the womb is hearing, due to the amniotic fluid. Sara remembered that her mother never wanted her and never connected with her in the womb. Broken prenatal bonds imply detachment of the mother from her womb baby. Her mother rejected her and rejected the role of a mother. Sara had many subconscious mental blocks. She had a fear of death while giving birth, a fear of hospitals, and a fear of becoming the same as her mother. She could not conceive after 14 failed IVF procedures. I helped her remove her subconscious fears and mental blocks related to pregnancy and conception, and also assisted her in reconnecting with her womb. Now, at 47 years old, she is expecting a baby girl.
How could your grandmother's life change your cells?
The science of epigenetics promises to deliver big changes to the way we understand heredity and treat illness.
Everyone has heard of the genome: that double helix DNA code that is uniquely yours, except if you happen to have an identical twin. But there's another layer of complexity responsible for creating you, and that's the epigenome.
Your epigenome sits in your cells with your genome. It's a set of instructions that decides which parts of your DNA are activated, or which genes are switched on or off.
Every one of us has a unique DNA code. We all have many epigenomes because every different type of cell in the body, whether in your skin, fat, liver, or brain, has its own epigenome. Each person has one genome but multiple epigenomes, depending on the cell type. And as we age, our epigenomes age.
We know that psychological stress, trauma, physical stress, smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, physical activity, obesity, infectious diseases, environmental pollutants, sun exposure, working night shifts, and countless other environmental factors can change our epigenomes. What we don't know are the details about how and to what extent.
How are epigenetic changes passed on?
The concept of inheritance is one of the most controversial and interesting aspects of epigenetics. It suggests that events in our lives can affect our children's development and health, and possibly our grandchildren's.
The experiences our grandparents had before our parents were born may also impact our lives.
I believe everyone's intrigued by the idea that they're part of the experiences that occurred before them, to their ancestors. It is not just about the genes or your DNA; it is about being a part of the history of your family.
Professor Yehuda, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, Yehuda, studies the impact of traumatic experiences on survivors of the Holocaust, war veterans, the September 11 attacks, and their children.
Her studies found that children born after the war to Holocaust survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were more likely to develop depression or PTSD themselves, compared to other Jewish adults. These children also shared epigenetic markers with their parents on a gene that made them more reactive to stress.
The understanding of how epigenetic changes could be transmitted from parent to child is still not entirely clear, but there is evidence to suggest this happens at the time of conception and during intrauterine life.
From the very beginning of development, genes exist simultaneously in two environments: the micromedium within the cell and the macromedium outside the cell, primarily the mother, and then the growing fetus. DNA and these two types of environments (intracellular and extracellular) interact from the moment of fertilization.
How can grandmothers (and mothers) pass on epigenetic changes?
Everything that a mother experiences while she is pregnant can impact the epigenome of her developing baby.
Did you know that a female baby's lifetime supply of eggs is created when she's growing in her mother's womb? This means that the trauma she experiences can also impact these eggs, and eventually the children they may become.
In this way, the activity of the pregnant mother can touch the lives of her grandchildren. You were shaped inside your grandmother's womb, and you inherited her stress; you were imprinted by her nervous system. If she was stressed, unheard, unseen, wounded, or unsafe, those signals passed into your mother's developing body and into the egg that would one day become you. Your grandmother's cortisol shaped your cells; her vagus nerve tone echoed forward. Her body said, "This is what the world is like. Remember this blueprint."
Then came your mother's pregnancy, and you were shaped again by her experiences, stress levels, sleep, trauma, joy, and nourishment. Your body's ability to regulate stress was set before you were born.
Like a nervous system inheritance, this is what we also refer to as intergenerational trauma. Some effects were observed in grandchildren as well, suggesting transgenerational programming.
Epigenetic inheritance of experiences in humans
There's a very famous, well-documented case during WWII and the Dutch winter, where we can clearly see the impact of famine during pregnancy on a population over generations.
During WWII, the Germans cut off food supplies to parts of the Netherlands, causing a famine.
The Dutch Hunger Winter study is important because of its ability to provide insight into how a starvation diet during limited periods of gestation influences the subsequent health of the offspring. Babies born to women during this time had a lower birthweight. When those babies grew up and had their own babies, the third generation had significantly more problems with diabetes and obesity than the rest of the population.
The Syrian War Survivors, Hama Siege (1982) is among the first human evidence that trauma can epigenetically affect multiple generations. Grandchildren of women pregnant during the siege showed distinct epigenetic marks, despite never directly experiencing the conflict.
Can grandfathers (and fathers) transfer epigenetic changes?
Professor Hannan and his team at the Florey Institute have shown that stress affects the epigenome of mouse sperm, and this can impact more than one generation. The research they conducted showed that increased paternal stress hormones changed the epigenome of the sperm and affected the offspring.
Physical stress in the father mice has been shown to increase anxiety in offspring, Professor Hannan confirmed. But the research also confirmed that increased physical activity in the father mice has positive effects. Fathers could transfer epigenetic changes to their children, and possibly grandchildren, through changes to sperm around the time of conception.
The message of encouragement
Your body is always whispering through symptoms, hormone shifts, skin, weight, energy, sleep, cravings, and mood. If we want a different dialogue from our body, we shouldn’t silence it; we should listen, understand, and address the root cause. Your life always whispers to you, but you have most likely developed a habit of ignoring the messages your body is sending you.
If you’re seeking answers for infertility, endometriosis, PCOS, or any other condition, start this journey with an open mind. Let your body speak, and learn how to change the story it tells. You can book a free 30-minute consultation call with award-winning therapist Danijela Mrdak. In her therapy sessions, she is focused on identifying and eliminating the root cause of any issue. She also creates a personalized audio recording designed to help you reprogram your mind.
“You did not choose the blueprint, but you are allowed to change it. You are the first generation with this valuable knowledge and these tools. You can rewire what was wired in. You can give your body the safety that you, your mother, and your grandmother never got to feel. You can break the trauma circle,” Danijela Mrdak said.
In my therapy sessions, I have seen, for example, that tubal problems in my clients are centered on their inner child. The root cause is that their inner child is not old enough, mature enough, or nurtured enough to feel fertile. If pain were a person, it would be very quiet at first, sitting in the body. After some time, it would become louder, ultimately screaming in some organs. It would show up as an illness. I always tell my clients this: Your mind is the womb. Whatever the mind can conceive, it can create in your reality.
You can heal your life. I always teach my clients this in my therapy sessions:
You are like an arrow; you can only go forward. You can never, ever go back to the past.
Read more from Danijela Mrdak
Danijela Mrdak, Therapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Trauma And Fertility Therapist
Danijela Mrdak is an award-winning therapist, clinical hypnotherapist, and trauma and fertility therapist practicing the Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) method. She also holds a Masters in Law. She specialises in female fertility issues, including conception, IVF, pregnancy, and pre/post-natal issues.
She has had enormous success in helping women all over the world to conceive. Danijela has received awards and recognition for her extraordinary contributions to mental health and fertility therapy and for her innovative approach to helping women overcome mental barriers to pregnancy. She developed a comprehensive course specifically aimed at therapists, coaches, and hypnotherapists to support them in assisting women and conception.
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