Category: fertility

Without meaning to, people sometimes say the wrong thing to someone who has suffered a miscarriage or who is dealing with infertility. Sometimes an insensitive faux pas is simply annoying or frustrating; other times, it can add to the person’s stress or heartache, which is probably the last thing the speaker means to do. Granted,… Continue reading What to Say and Not Say to Someone Living With Infertility

Fertility, or the ability to conceive and have children, changes with age. Around 1 in 8 couples have trouble getting and staying pregnant, according to the National Infertility Association. (1) The Role of Age in Pregnancy, and Fertility Basics Normal, age-related declines in fertility are most pronounced in women over age 35. Before pregnancy can… Continue reading Getting Pregnant After 35: What to Know

In the early 1900s, coal miners used birds in cages to monitor air safety and alert them when they were inhaling noxious gas while they could still act to save themselves. Today, researchers are studying pet dogs to learn about the chemicals that men are exposed to at home — in search of warning signs… Continue reading What Dog Testes Tell Us About Human Fertility

Embarking on a fertility treatment journey can feel like falling down a rabbit hole: Not only is it difficult to know what to expect in terms of the process and the outcome but there are also lots of fine points and nuances that your doctor may neglect to tell you. “Doctors often describe what a… Continue reading Fertility and Infertility Treatments: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

Although maternal mortality is declining around the world, the United States is an exception. In 2018, the country’s rate of 17.4 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies put it last overall among industrialized countries, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to improving healthcare access for society’s most vulnerable people. Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) or Excessive Bleeding… Continue reading Uterus Removal for Postpartum Bleeding Is Too Common

If you want to know how fertile you are now and how much time you may have left to try to have a baby, you’ll be happy to hear that a greater variety of at-home fertility tests is now available than ever before. While fertility tests that measure blood levels of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) have… Continue reading Anti-Müllerian Hormone Tests Confuse Consumers, Study Suggests

People often think of fertility in absolute terms — as in, someone is either fertile or infertile. But the reality is fertility exists on a spectrum, with a substantial gray zone of what’s often called subfertility between the two endpoints. The distinctions are more than semantics. Ultimately, “it comes down to time to pregnancy,” says… Continue reading Subfertility and Infertility Are Different

There’s no question: Having a miscarriage can be devastating, so it’s natural to be concerned about the possibility if you’re pregnant or trying to conceive. But there’s a lot of misinformation about the primary causes of pregnancy loss, which can ratchet up your worries unnecessarily. Also called a spontaneous abortion, a miscarriage occurs when an… Continue reading Miscarriage, Pregnancy Loss, and Fertility: What to Know

The ketogenic diet is all the rage these days among those who are looking to shed a substantial amount of weight quickly. Given that being overweight or obese can reduce your chances of getting pregnant or staying pregnant (having excess body fat is associated with a higher risk of miscarriage), overweight women who want to… Continue reading Does the Keto Diet Help Fertility?

When you’re having trouble getting pregnant, going to a fertility clinic can be an overwhelming experience. Besides being stressful in its own right, fertility treatment comes with a whole vocabulary that may sound like a foreign language to you. The terms in this alphabet soup of jargon often refer to a bewildering array of tests,… Continue reading In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Other Fertility Treatments