Environmental Infertility: Woman Up and Make The Necessary Changes

Sometimes the results of an infertility work up provide you and your spouse with data that is actionable.  For example, some causes of infertility are purely environmental. And sometimes environmental causes are ‘possible contributing factors.’ Basically ladies, if you are struggling to conceive, don’t wishy-wash around the ‘Is it really? Is this maybe? Could it possibly be preventing…?” and DEAL.

What I personally call ‘environmental’ causes of infertility (I’m sure there is some actual professional term that I don’t know) are factors that are within your power to change – and only within your power. Things that a doctor can tell you about, but do nothing to alleviate themselves.

Examples of some ‘environmental infertility’ causes and contributing factors include

1. Being overweight or underweight
2. Being inactive
3. Being over-stressed
4. Smoking/drinking
5. Inadequate nutrition
6. Lack of intimacy
7. Lack of Financial Resources and/or Insurance

And yes, we all know tons of people who have some or ALL of these factors and still manage to get pregnant at the drop of a hat. But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about us. The ones for whom hat-dropping is not working.

All of the above ‘environmental factors’ can be big deals, so I’ll write on each one individually in this particular series. Bear in mind, we are talking about things that we CAN control.  For example, if you do sixty minutes of cardio a day, eat less than 2000 calories a day and are still gaining weight, congratulations on being a medical mystery. The following sections would not apply to you. If you live and work in LA and your husband works in London and you see each other once a year – well, you’re not a medical mystery but good luck with the baby thing. We’ll talk later about how being a medical mystery can stink-you can skip straight to that blog entry if you like.

As a disclaimer, I am NOT a doctor, or a medical professional of any kind. I’ve seen lots of them, I read a lot, I think the following info is factual, but if it isn’t please let me know specifically what is not factual so I can correct it! I have no idea if the  following entries are psychologically correct, as I have zero shrink training. And unfortunately, I’m not sure how to be nice about saying some of it, because I honestly believe some of it just needs to be said. Weight was/is my particular challenge, and these are the things I had to say to myself.  But regardless of which challenge it is you are facing, the reality is that if these environmental factors, which are totally within our control, are the things that are stopping you from having a baby – it’s time to woman up and take control of them.