What some myths about preventing infertility?

What some myths about preventing infertility?

Richard Paulson (Chief, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, USC) gives expert video advice on: Is it true that "relaxing" about my fertility will improve my chances?; What some myths about preventing infertility? and more...

Infertility is one of those topics that everybody has an opinion about. And, of course, it's intensely emotional and intensely personal. And, for this reason, it, I think, is fraught with more myths than its share in the world of medicine. A common one is: you simply have to relax and then it'll happen for you. This is not true. Whereas stress reduction may be a good idea in general, no-one has ever showed that just relaxing leads to fertility. And couples of course that happen to get pregnant on vacation, happen to get pregnant that way because the probability simply came up. They're no more likely to get pregnant on vacation than at other times. Another myth is that if you simply adopt, then you will become pregnant. The reality is that when someone gets pregnant after a long time of trying, whatever the last thing was that happened just prior to them getting pregnant is going to be given the credit for that miraculous conception. But, in fact, these are not associated with an increased probability of getting pregnant. Some women worry that if they smoke this will decrease their fertility. And, indeed, you can show that there are all kinds of toxic stuff in cigarette smoke. There is nothing good about cigarette smoke. Not one thing. So whatever you look for, if you think it's worse in smokers, you're absolutely right. Whether it's lung disease or, or any other kind of disease, or whether it's infertility, in smokers, it's always worse. But, just remember, there are huge numbers of smokers in some of the countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world. And, of course, the population as a whole continues to be able to reproduce. So it's not an absolute. Alcohol ingestion, caffeine ingestion, all of these things have been suggested to play a role in infertility. But none of those have been shown to have a major impact. Perhaps, it'd be wise to say everything should be in moderation and any kind of extreme is going to be bad for you, regardless of what it is. Perhaps even, too many vitamins or too many health foods could potentially be bad. But, of course, we don't know any of those things. I would simply say maintenance of a, of a healthy lifestyle, a normal level of activity, a normal body weight is about as far as we know in terms of what can specifically impact infertility from a lifestyle perspective.