Man Up: When Environmental Infertility is About Him

This entry is the concluding one to the Woman Up Series about environmental factors for infertility. Sometimes all of the environmental changes mentioned in this series, being overweight or underweight, being inactive, being over-stressed, smoking/drinking, inadequate nutrition, lack of intimacy, are ones that your husband needs to change. Although they might seem less directly related to infertility, things that can make your body hesitant to accept and build a baby, can also affect the building and formation of sperm in the male’s body. It doesn’t matter how healthy you manage to Woman Up and be in order to get the best baby-making bod possible, if your husband doesn’t have sperm capable of fertilizing your egg.

For Those Not Feeling it Tonight: Woman Up

One of the most challenging elements of infertility is the necessity of putting marital intimacy on a schedule. Once doctors start giving you shots and drugs to open up windows of ovulation, ‘not feeling it’ is just ‘not an option.’ Unless you are into wasting even more time and money.  Still, it is important to understand that even if lovemaking is happening on a schedule, it should still be making love, not just making a baby. Remember to express love and appreciation for each other, even if the timing of the requisite intimacy is not optimal, or must be brief.

8 Snickers are Less than 2000 Calories: For the Nutrient Deficient: Woman Up

Maybe you manage to exercise, manage your weight, manage your stress, avoid poisonous substances, but you subsist on a diet of soda and candy bars with the occasional pizza thrown in.  Unlikely- but possible. For you, this section alone is applicable.  For most of us, inadequate nutrition is a problem that piles into the car along with some or all of the other environmental factors in this fun ride along the infertility highway.

Smoking, Drinking and Buzzing: Woman Up

And quit. It has been proven more than adequately in a host of medical studies that drinking and smoking are far, far more bad for your body than they are good. So quit. Alcohol and tobacco are socially acceptable methods of altering your mental state by essentially poisoning your body. Your smart body might just be avoiding further trauma by adding a baby into the mix. I added ‘buzzing’ to this list of substances to be avoided, because the proliferation of energy drinks on the market is a relatively new phenomenon, one that the medical community has not quite caught up to yet.  However, it is my personal opinion that once they do, and the ‘energy drink generation’ ages another 20 years or so, a lot of people are going to be shocked at how very, very bad ‘buzzing’ is for you.  If you need more energy - nap or eat an apple. Do NOT artificially force your body to perform beyond its capacity.  Especially not if you want it to perform a little pregnancy miracle for you on the side as well.  

For the Stress-Heads: Woman Up

Life is stressful. Sometimes I feel like it’s a matter of “I breathe, therefore, I stress.” Some of us handle it better than others, some of us even thrive on it as a way to spur ourselves to greater action. But our bodies DO react to high stress levels in ways that the medical community is just barely beginning to understand.  If you are experiencing infertility, reducing stress is something to think about very seriously. It’s an unfortunate catch-22 that infertility can dramatically increase your stress levels (hello!) but understand that, accept that, and cut out something else you ARE willing to give up on, assuming you are still interested in trying to get pregnant.

For the Couch Potatoes: Woman Up

Maybe you spend most days sitting at a desk or on the couch, don’t even think about cardio, and still maintain an absolutely normal weight.  If so, congratulations! You have either won the genetic lottery or have really, really great self-control when it comes to diet and nutrition. However, in order to feel healthy and ready to proliferate the human race, our bodies need some base levels of cardio happening. Add 30-45 minutes of cardio into your daily schedule just to make sure your hormones can fire happily on all levels.

*Remember- this series of entries is about environmental factors for infertility. Your level of activity may not have anything to do with your infertility, and exercising regularly could still not affect it. But you will feel happier!

For the Big Girls and the Skinny Chicks: Woman Up

Being overweight or underweight. This one sucks ladies. Weight can be an environmental factor for infertility if it is interfering with your menstrual cycles and causing you to skip ovulation, or ovulate irregularly. Which makes sense when you think about it – bodies are pretty smart – and if they are too far to either side of the weight spectrum they tell your baby-making hormones now is NOT a good time to be pregnant, as all is NOT well. As if infertility isn’t devastating enough, we have to face the fact that our personal choices could be contributing to it. It’s a rough row to hoe gals.

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.