Struggling with infertility is a heartbreaking journey to be on. There can be underlying anxiety that develops as people search for their root cause trying to figure out why infertility happened to them. While it is a good idea to relax and trust the process it’s also good to do some research and try to find your own unique root cause.
Both men and women can struggle with infertility. There are many medical reasons for infertility that medical doctors can pinpoint through various tests.
What are some common root causes of fertility struggles?
Abnormal Ovulation
To conceive a child, a woman must first ovulate. Having issues with ovulation is an obvious reason to struggle to get pregnant. What issues can a woman be faced with in regards to ovulation? Issues like PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), thyroid issues, and ovarian insufficiency are top contenders when it comes to abnormal ovulation.
Age
Many couples now are waiting until they are much older to begin building their families. This advanced age has some benefits since couples can be more emotionally mature, more financially stable, and feel like they’ve been able to live a little before settling down with children.
But being older when you’re trying to conceive can pose a challenge. Why? A woman is born with all of the eggs her body with ever have. Once puberty beings those eggs are released each month until menopause. As a woman gets closer to menopause the quality of her eggs decreases since her hormones are changing.
The quality, quantity, and agility of a man’s sperm can also decline with age. This makes it hard for his sperm to reach the egg before it dies to fertilize the egg.
If couples began their families sooner they may not have issues with conception. But this is a personal choice that every couple needs to make and choosing to start a family sooner won’t guarantee that you won’t encounter any issues at all.
Endometriosis
Endometrioses is a painful condition where a woman’s uterine lining grows too rapidly and can even grow outside of her uterus. During menstruation, this can cause extreme pain for the woman. And it can make it hard for a fertilized egg to properly implant in the uterine lining.
The severity of a woman’s endometriosis will determine how hard it is for her to get, and stay, pregnant. But there are treatments available to try to help.
Clotting Issues
If your issue with having a baby isn’t with conception but with reoccurring miscarriages when you might have an issue with the way your blood is clotting. Clotting issues are responsible for up to 20% of miscarriages.
Talk to your doctor about testing to see if you have a clotting issue if you have suffered from repeated miscarriages.
Sperm Quality
Commonly people think of infertility as a woman’s issue, but men can contribute to the difficulty in getting pregnant. To get pregnant you need healthy sperm to get to the egg to fertilize it. If this doesn’t happen then conception cannot occur.
A man’s sperm should be tested as the first line of defense when a couple goes to their doctor with infertility. A simple sperm analysis will be done and then you can move on with an action plan to help you get pregnant.
Common issues with sperm include:
- Motility
- Quality
- Number of sperm
Alternative Causes
The alternative medical community is doing some great work to try to help couples in finding their root cause of infertility. If you’ve gone over all of the conventional reasons why infertility happens then it might be worth considering if any of these are worth diving further into.
If you are online at all these days (and you must be if you’re reading this 🙂 ) then you will have seen that many people struggling with infertility have discovered an underlying issue of some kind that could have been causing it that the conventional medical community might have missed.
These issues can include:
- MTHFR gene mutation issues.
- Autoimmune conditions.
- Physical structural blocks.
- Emotional blocks.
- Nutrient absorption issues leading to deficiency.
- Food Intolerances.
- Toxin overload.
How To Overcome Infertility Naturally
The first line of defense in overcoming infertility naturally is to look at your lifestyle and see if there are any tweaks you can make. Could you clean up your diet by eating more fresh vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats? Drinking pure clean spring water is another must-do step.
Other factors like the quality of sleep you are getting each night can affect your overall health. Stress is another emotional factor that can affect your health. Do your best to remove any of the stressors in your life you can so that your body can do the work of getting and staying pregnant.
Getting adequate exercise to maintain a healthy body weight is an important factor in getting pregnant and it can help keep your stress levels in check. Excess weight may also cause hormonal issues that can prevent you from getting pregnant.
Take a look in your cupboards, could you change out some of the toxic cleaners you use? Do you use any scented candle products or body products that could contain chemicals that your body would have a hard time detoxing?
Alternative Therapies
Many couples undergo alternative therapies to help them conceive. These include:
- Acupuncture
- Nutritional Counselling
- Chiropractic Adjustment
- Chinese Medicine Treatments
- Lymphatic Massage
- Emotional Therapies like EFT
Seeking out alternative therapies if you’re struggling with infertility have been said to be very beneficial. With infertility on the rise, it begs the question of why?
My cause of fertility issues was due to Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. We ended up undergoing IVF, but I made changes to my lifestyle, too. Acupuncture (which studies are coming out now that it may not help infertility as once thought), I cut down on my intense exercise and endurance running, and added in yoga. I upped my calories to add body fat and about 10 pounds. I believe all of these things combines resulted in our successful IVF round and we have a 16 month old son 🙂
Hey Janine,
I had a miscarriage a few years ago due to low progesterone, and saw a naturopath the following year to clear up any issues that would prevent me from carrying a pregnancy. I also used the book Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility, which combines both Western and Eastern Wisdom, and worked to build up my blood by eating well-cooked, iron-rich food, drinking warm teas, and keeping my body warm in general. I got pregnant soon after. From my experience, I feel like the combination of naturopath and Traditional Chinese Medicine is a powerful thing, and especially for older moms. I had my daughter a few months before I turned 35, and we will try for a second in a few years when I’ll be close to 40. With this in mind, I still practice everything I learned so that my body will be in optimum health and hopefully make conception easier. I appreciate you mentioning nutrient deficiencies as a possible issue, because that’s something I learned about from my naturopath. I wasn’t producing enough stomach acid which kept me from absorbing nutrients. It was a simple fix with a daily supplement of hydraulic acid for a few months. I don’t know that that’s something my regular MD would ever have looked into. Thanks for a great article 🙂