Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (94 page)

Mindfulness and relaxation training are especially important if you’re going through any high-tech medical fertility treatments, since it is clear that unresolved and unexpressed emotional and psychological stress has physiologic consequences that may hamper the effectiveness of fertility treatments.
⁶⁰
But when emotional stress is addressed and resolved, pregnancy rates go up.

My colleague Belleruth Naparstek has created helpful, guided imagery for enhancing fertility. (See
www.healthjourneys.com
.) Yoga programs, such as those created by Sue Dumais specifically to enhance fertility, can also be extremely beneficial. Dumais is the author of
Yoga for Fertility Handbook
(Trafford Publishing, 2009). (For more information on her program, see
www.yogaforfertilityresources.com
.)

The Male Factor

When people hear the words
biological clock
we usually think “women.” But this simply isn’t true. Fully 40 percent of infertility problems lie with the man, not the woman. Because treating female fertility is far more lucrative and well accepted than thoroughly investigating and treating male fertility problems, however, the male factor often remains hidden. According to urologist and male infertility specialist Harry Fisch, M.D., author of
The
Male Biological Clock
(Free Press, 2005), roughly 10 percent of men trying to father a child—about 2.5 million men in the United States alone—are either infertile or subfertile. Many don’t know they have a problem because they haven’t been tested, or tested thoroughly enough. As Dr. Fisch notes in his book, “Men’s fertility is often checked only by a simple semen analysis. If a man seems to have enough sperm and those sperm seem healthy, he is presumed fertile. This kind of cursory ‘exam’ fails to detect a host of problems that could contribute to a fertility problem—most of which can be fixed relatively easily and inexpensively.”
⁶¹
So the problem remains undetected and medical attention shifts to the fe male. This is a tragedy that is completely preventable.

Many of the factors that affect female fertility also affect male fer tility. For example, sperm quality is greatly affected by nutrition. Recently I had the pleasure of having the husband of a former patient come up to me to show me pictures of his children. He said, “I can’t thank you enough for recommending vitamin C and zinc to me so many years ago. We got pregnant within three months of my cleaning up my diet and starting those supplements.”

An article in the July 2005 issue of
Fertility and Sterility
also showed that acupuncture can significantly improve both total sperm counts and sperm function in men.
⁶²
Unabated stress and the hormonal imbalance that results are also often a problem. “Over the decades that I have been in this line of work,” Dr. Fisch writes, “I have seen firsthand that the male biological clock can be slowed down, or even reversed, and problems with sexuality or fertility that arise at any point in a man’s life can usually be fixed.”
⁶³

Though male-factor infertility is beyond the scope of this book, I urge every couple who is undergoing fertility evaluation to read Dr. Fisch’s book, which gives a detailed plan to enhance male fertility and overall health.

Artificial and Natural Light

Living in artificial light without going outside into natural sunlight regularly can have adverse consequences on fertility, because light itself is a nutrient. Far too many people not only are stressed at work but don’t get outside much. When I was trying to conceive my first child, my basal body temperature rose very slowly at ovulation. (As I’ve already mentioned, ovulation causes a rise in basal body temperature of about 0.8 degrees. The ovary produces progesterone at ovulation, which in turn produces this rise in body temperature.) I decided to walk outside in the sunlight without glasses or contact lenses for twenty minutes each day. (To be effective, natural light has to hit the retina di rectly; we shouldn’t look at the sun directly, but we must be out in the daytime.) Within one menstrual cycle, my basal body temperature began to rise very sharply at ovulation—a big improvement in the pattern. I got pregnant within two cycles of doing this, having tried for five months before. Though this isn’t scientific proof of anything, it is an example of a simple change that had immediate measurable effects. The scientific literature on light and human biocycles is extensive.
⁶⁴

Nutritional Factors

Nutrients affect every hormonal interaction in the body, and ade quate levels of them are clearly important in human reproduction. The standard American diet, high in processed foods and low in nutrients, is a setup for suboptimal nutrition at the time of conception. Studies have shown that taking vitamin C (500 mg every twelve hours in one study) and zinc supplements has helped infertile couples.
⁶⁵
Other studies have shown beneficial effects from folate and B12 supplementation.
⁶⁶
A double-blind placebo-controlled study on nutritional sup plementation done at the Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and published in 2004 doc umented the benefits of nutritional supplementation in fertility patients. Researchers gave infertile women ages twenty-four to forty-six a nutritional supplement containing vitamins, minerals, green tea extract, and chaste berry. After five months, fifteen women (33 percent) of the nutritionally supplemented group were pregnant. None of the placebo group had conceived. There were no side effects.
⁶⁷

If a woman has been on the pill, especially if she is coming off it to conceive, I recommend that she take a good multivitamin if she isn’t doing so already. Given the standard diet today and the stress levels of modern life, I suggest that all couples who are trying to conceive begin taking a multivitamin-multimineral supplement. (Nutritional deficien cies can affect sperm quality in males.) It’s also important to follow a diet that decreases cellular inflammation. (See
chapter 17
, “Eat to Flourish.”)

Eating disorders have also been associated with infertility because they are associated with endocrinologic disturbances. In one study, the investigators determined that 16.7 percent of their infertile subjects had eating disorders ranging from bulimia to anorexia. They recommended that a nutritional and eating disorder history be taken in infertility pa tients, particularly those with menstrual abnormalities.
⁶⁸
Once the eating disorder is successfully resolved, endocrine balance is often restored.

Smoking, Drugs, and Alcohol

Smoking, drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, and alcohol intake have been shown in many studies to have adverse effects on all aspects of reproduction, from conception (both women’s and men’s roles) to la bor and delivery. Smoking causes significant increases in miscarriage and prematurity. Women who smoke are less successful with fertility treatments of all kinds than are nonsmokers. If you’re serious about becoming pregnant, get help for your addictions. (See “How to Quit Smoking” in chapter 17, pages 750–752.)

Tubal Problems

In order to become pregnant, the fallopian tubes have to be able to pick up an egg and assist its passage to the waiting uterus. This process is dynamic and can be affected by a myriad of factors, one of the most com mon being scarring of the tubes from previous pelvic infections that are often the result of sexually transmitted diseases. This can be treated with a variety of techniques including deep tissue massage (see information on the Wurn Technique on pages 430–431). In cases where the tubes are open but not fully functional, emotional work may need to be done. Tubal problems, says Caroline Myss, are centered around a woman’s “inner child,” while the tubes themselves are representative of unhealed childhood energy.

Helpful Modalities for Enhancing Fertility

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Though our culture is quick to bring in the big-gun technologies when it comes to fertility enhancement, these are often not necessary. One of the most helpful modalities for enhancing fertility is traditional Chinese medicine. I’ve been referring patients to practitioners of acupuncture and herbology for years with great success. It’s the first place I go for any health problem myself. My colleague Randine Lewis, Ph.D., has dedicated her life to helping women enhance their fertility through the use of TCM. Dr. Lewis, author of
The Infertility Cure
(Little, Brown, 2004), was in medical school when she began to have fertility problems herself. After exhausting the Western medical approach, she discovered the ancient wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine. Not only did TCM resolve the imbalances that were leading to her own fertility problems, but Dr. Lewis realized that it was the perfect solution for many other women as well. She eventually dropped out of medical school to pursue training in traditional Chinese medicine. Following training in China, she returned to the United States, where she opened a clinic that has a 75 percent success rate helping women achieve optimal fertility. Her fertility enhancement work also supports women who are using assisted reproductive technologies, helping them achieve better out comes. Her fertility enhancement program includes three sections:

1.
New Hope: Enhancing Ovarian Response—opening up to source energies to improve the function of the reproductive system

2.
Paradigm Shift: Improving Reproductive Capacity—improving the endocrine system’s hormonal status and the energies between all the glands

3.
Nurturing the Mother Within: Opening to Implantation—the coming together of ovarian and hormonal responses, and allowing the body to receive

Dr. Lewis points out that in Chinese medicine,
a disturbed ovarian cycle
is thought to take a full ninety days to regenerate.
That’s why she urges her patients to complete a ninety-day program. TCM, like most holistic methods, is aimed at rebalancing the body from the inside out. It’s not a quick fix the way Western medicine claims to be. Dr. Lewis offers Fertile Soul Retreats four to six times per year that include personalized evaluation and recommendations. (See
www.thefertilesoul.com
.)

Treatment of Pelvic Adhesions

Pelvic adhesions from infection, trauma, surgery, or endometriosis can interfere with fallopian tube function and have long been associated with fertility problems as well as chronic pain. It is estimated that approximately 40 percent of female infertility is asso ciated with scarring of the pelvic organs from either prior surgery or infections. A noninvasive, nonsurgical type of deep tissue massage performed by specially trained physical therapists (known as the Wurn Technique after its founders, Larry and Belinda Wurn— both physical therapists) has been shown to do the following:

More than 75 percent reversal of fallopian tube occlusion women with diagnosed tubal occlusion

More than 70 percent infertility reversal in women who were physician-diagnosed as infertile

Significant improvement in IVF results when therapy was performed prior to IVF transfer