Infertility – A Functional Medicine Approach
Infertility treatments not an option?
Infertility treatments not working?
Looking for a more natural way to get pregnant?
Nothing’s wrong with you, but you still can’t conceive?
Suffered from miscarriages?
Infertility
Statistics show that one in six couples have difficulty getting pregnant and need to seek medical help. This is a terrifying statement – the most natural thing to women (and men) has become almost impossible. This has motivated me to take it upon myself to study the possibilities of natural, non-toxic solutions to this problem and to identify some of the major reasons why this is happening today. What I have found is that in almost every instance natural, non-toxic methods were the answer, because having kids should be the most natural thing we can do as humans.
I found that the biggest cause of infertility is stress – men and women are stressed out. Most of you only think of one thing when I say stress the mental/emotional kind, but there are two other types of stresses that are contributing factors – structural and chemical. All three stresses play a major role in infertility for women and men. Ladies, please don’t forget about your men. All too often we only concentrate on the women and dismiss the men. Men are stressed too and may need more help than we think. In our hurry for a baby, we use extremely powerful drugs to take over the normal body function that literally forces the body to do what it wants. Yet, the body, as many of you may have experienced, still under such extreme force refuses to get pregnant. Why is this? Could it be genetics? The answer is most likely no. The majority of the problem stems from the stresses stated above. The body is very wise. It knows that the most important thing in life is life itself. The body knows that if it gets pregnant and it is not functioning optimally, you and your baby are at risk for serious complications that may include death. So, because of stress and the dysfunction that it causes your body, your body knows it is not ready to be pregnant. It doesn’t say never, it just says not right now.
An example of how stress can lead to infertility includes toxicity. The majority of people living in an industrialized nation are over exposed to toxic chemicals and because of less nutrient dense foods and increasingly poor digestion our bodies can’t absorb enough nutrients from food to get rid of the toxins. Our body knows it is too toxic to grow and nourish a baby. Another example of how stress affects fertility is blood sugar handling problems. In women, high insulin levels will shift production of estrogen into testosterone. Also some women may have high aromatase enzyme activity which can convert testosterone into estrogen. This mass confusion and imbalance of hormones due to stress is not conducive to having a baby.
Everything I have explained above may go undiagnosed by your primary care physician, because they are trained to look for a state of disease. The examples I previously discussed, PRECEDE disease and can be fixed, but without fixing the issue they can be the reason for infertility. These subtle dysfunctions and changes in your body is what we focus on at the Functional Medicine Center. We have specialized tests, such as saliva testing to look for these dysfunctions. Once any underlying dysfunction is discovered he can work with you to fix them naturally so your body can have a better chance of following its natural reproductive cycle.
