I do encourage you to hang in there through the end of this post…it's got wonderful news! I received an email alert today about a study coming out, suggesting that infertility treatments may increase the risk of autism in the babies those treatments produce. (Normally I publish the original reference but since I can't seem to find it online…here's the link to the Time magazine article.)
Well, that pretty much rots! What gives?
Apparently women exposed to fertility medications such as Clomid have a greater chance of having children with autism, and the risk increases with greater (more frequent) exposure to the medication. A second study reports a similar risk for women undergoing in vitro fertilization.
One glaring oversight in this research is the consideration of whether or not there may be a genetic predisposition to both infertility and autism. In other words, are women who tend to be infertile already carrying some type of genetic predisposition to autism? Maybe Mother Nature knows something when infertility happens, and she's trying to encourage us to look at that. Maybe we can fool her part of the way but not all of the way.
My comment is not meant to be judgmental, as I've seen plenty of women battle infertility, then commit to bringing their lives and their bodies back into balance…and have perfectly healthy babies. Our genetic predisposition is heavily influenced by choices we make, and we can make choices to maximize the genetic expression that encourages fertility. We're going to have a webinar on an aspect of this issue, nutrigenomics, in about a month.
The GOOD news in the fertility world today is that great things are being done with acupuncture!!! A study dated June 2010 found that acupuncture therapy could promote the following: (1) increased ovarian blood flow, (2) reduced ovarian volume, (3) reduced number of ovarian cysts, (4) better insulin function, (5) lower blood glucose, (6) reduced stress hormone levels, and (7) normalized appetite, encouraging more balanced eating.
So there is plenty you can do to improve your fertility. Bottom line is, be informed before you make your treatment choices.
Lim CE, Wong WS. Current evidence of acupuncture on polycystic ovarian syndrome. Gynecol Endocrinol. 2010 Jun;26(6):473-8.