Sex & fertility

How the mind - body connection affects fertility

By Niravi B. Payne, M.S.

If you are having difficulty conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term, you may be unaware of how strongly your family’s history and early childhood experiences affect your overall health, which includes your ability to conceive.

Seeing yourself as a part of a family system that influenced your emotions, beliefs, thoughts and attitudes about sexuality, conception, pregnancy and childbirth opens new reproductive possibilities as you resolve the ties that bind you to past conditioning.

Because family patterns are so influential, it is very helpful to understand how you may be repeating the past or reacting against it in your life today. We have accepted many of these patterns of beliefs and behavior, often without knowing we are doing so, or without appreciating their impact on our lives today.

Unresolved family issues can affect your relationship with yourself, your mate and family members, and can block your ability to support conception and pregnancy.

In the past 22 years, I have worked with thousands of clients who increased their opportunity to conceive when they realized that their infertility was not solely a medical problem, if at all. My methods have been developed into “The Whole Person Fertility Program” , which offers a step-by-step journey to help you connect with your inner self and understand the underlying causes of your fertility problems. It is a highly effective process, whether or not one is working with a reproductive specialist. Let me summarize it here.

The mind - body connection: how does it work?

The mind is an amazing recorder of events and feelings. Every single thing that ever happened to you is there, somewhere in your memory bank. In a sense, you have a whole personal history book inside your head. There is a constant “dialogue” between your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that produce chemical, hormonal, neurological and muscular changes. These changes can throw off the delicately balanced hormonal system involved in reproduction.

Hormones released in response to emotional upset, tension or anxiety disrupt the natural flow of important pituitary gland secretions necessary to produce and release luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). With this disruption, menstruation may become irregular or ovulation may be suppressed altogether (anovulation). Nerve fibers traveling through the spinal cord also link the brain directly to the ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes. In men, because of similar links between the brain and the reproductive organs, tension can reduce sex drive and cause impotency.

You may not be aware of what you are feeling about an event, person or experience, but your mind - body reacts. Exploring all of your feelings involved in becoming pregnant is an essential part of the total process of conception, maintaining your pregnancy, and your labor and delivery.

Every feeling and every thought, no matter how vague or subtle, gets registered in our neuromuscular structure, producing tension in our muscles and cells. The “messages” the body sends manifest themselves in many forms, not just infertility: over time, these emotional experiences may surface in the form of organ dysfunction, chronic pain, even disease.

No guilt, no blame: understanding is the key.

Often when I raise these important mind - body issues for consideration, I am met with comments such as, “Are you blaming me for my fertility problems?” On the contrary, becoming aware of emotional issues involved in conception does not mean either you, your body or your partner is to blame.

Most of our lives we have been accustomed to looking outside of ourselves for healing what ails us inside. My intent is to resolve this age-old split between “it’s all in your mind” , or the equally damaging view, “it’s all in your body” . Both views have left us either feeling something is “wrong” with us mentally, and hence, we are to blame — or going the drugs-and-surgery route as the cure-all for the “sick” body.

Both views have sadly left us not trusting the wisdom of our own bodies when it “sends” us “messages” in the form of symptoms, including infertility. If we are willing to hear these messages as “wake-up calls” about our lives, we can learn what we need to change to live healthier — emotionally as well as physically.

Who says you or your eggs are too old?

Contrary to popular belief, fertility is not determined by one’s age or the number and quality of one’s eggs alone. Fertility is a lifelong relationship with oneself regardless of age or whether one has a biological child.

Efforts to portray women above the age of 35 as “too old” undermine the confidence of millions of women concerning their fertility. It also places undue fear-based pressure on women in their 20’s and 30’s to have families when they are not yet ready to do so. I am concerned that under the weight of these judgments one’s natural ability to conceive is sadly being lost in the shuffle of ageist-based statistics, charts and dictums which unnaturally separate one’s emotional life from physiological consequences.

Doctrine overturned? For generations, scientists have believed that every female mammal is born with all the eggs she will ever have. This is the basis for the argument that “old eggs” cause the decline in fertility as women age. But a recent study at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital discovered that female mice have germ-line stem cells in their ovaries that can make new eggs throughout the female’s fertile life. This would parallel the function of germ-line stem cells in males, which make new sperm throughout the male’s fertile life. Though more study is needed, this is a very hopeful breakthrough for women struggling to conceive. To read the National Institute of Health summary of this study, click here >>

Madonna and Geena Davis are famous moms-over-40 but far from alone. In 2000, over 450,000 babies were born to women 35-39, and almost 95,000 to women over 40. Ironically, birth rates for women over 40 are still only half the level in 1960, before the advent of “the pill” , small families, and women working instead of having children. A lot of forty-something women don’t realize how fertile they are, which can account for the fact that they are second only to women aged 19-25 in frequency of abortions.

Understandably, many women I work with initially feel devastated at being told that they or their eggs are too old, and the age for this determination is getting younger and younger. My concern is that if women are convinced that they are too old and that there is little hope, if any, this belief will be reflected negatively in their bodies.

Meryl and Richard’s story: the power of sibling rivalry.

In 1982, one of my clients, Meryl, 36, tearfully told me of her frustration at not being able to conceive. She and her husband, Richard, 38, both attorneys, had been trying to have a baby for 13 years. Meryl cried and when she told me, “It hasn’t happened for us, but I can’t give up my dream of having my own child.”

The medical diagnosis offered to Meryl and Richard was “unexplained infertility” — which meant no apparent medical reason why they were not conceiving. As we worked together, their life stories revealed unresolved family conflicts and painful childhood experiences. Meryl’s parents were locked in a combative relationship, abusively treating their children as unwanted beings. Meryl’s father would lock Meryl out of the house as a way of punishing her for the slightest infraction of his rules. While crying for a child, Meryl was also terrified that she would repeat her family’s destructive behavior with her baby. I have heard many clients express this deep concern.

Richard’s dad died at 39 and his mother turned to his older brother, Jim, and himself as substitute mates, demanding their unrelenting attention. They had to be home by 4 PM every day regardless of their outside interests. Her demands increased once her sons were married: “I want grandchildren!” Despite their mother’s intense pressure, the brothers did not comply, both experiencing “sperm-quality” problems. Jim and his wife, Irene, were unable to conceive for 15 years.

Richard, becoming consciously aware of the basis for his resistance, realized he was not serving his own heartfelt desire for a baby. Our intensive therapeutic work ultimately resulted in the natural conception and birth of Ashley. Ironically, when Meryl and Richard conceived, Jim and Irene became pregnant three months later. Jim’s energy was fueled by his desire not to be outdone by his younger brother. Amazing, in harnessing the power of sibling rivalry both brothers and their wives presented their mother with two children, just three months apart, after more than 13 years of trying.

What about your emotional history?

At this point, you may be asking, “What are the family messages and experiences that I am holding onto that could be adversely affecting my efforts to conceive and birth a baby?” An excellent question, but not one with a simple answer. The following questions are offered as an opportunity to stimulate your thoughts and feelings about you, your family history, your birth and their impact on you today. Your responses may provide you with some clues. As you read the questions and your responses, be aware of any reactions you may be experiencing in your body.

1. As you were growing up, did you hear negative stories about menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth or childrearing from your parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles?
2. Specifically, what did you hear about your birth? From which parent? Do the stories differ between your mother and father?
3. Do you feel that children were valued by your mother, father, grandparents and siblings? Do you feel that you were valued? How?
4. Did any of your siblings have difficulty conceiving? Did they conceive and did you?
5. How does your family view working women and motherhood?
6. Are many of your major life decisions based upon whether your parents would approve?
7. Why do you want to have a baby? Why don’t you?

Now ask yourself: do you see any family issues in your responses?

Here’s what Women to Women recommends...

We’ve learned that all women benefit from a holistic approach to their health, which includes dealing with their emotional histories. This approach is especially valuable for women who struggled to conceive a child, even after the infertility treatments of conventional medicine.

If you are one of these women, be sure to begin with a conventional medical screening to identify any physical problem. Then, develop a sound program of preventative health that’s aimed at maintaining hormonal balance. (Our Personal Program offers a guided version; call us toll-free at 1-800-798-7902.) If that isn’t enough to restore your hormonal balance, we recommend you find a practitioner who is experienced in the use of bioidentical hormones. Click here if you would like information on becoming a patient at our clinic.

We also highly recommend Niravi’s groundbreaking book, The Whole Person Fertility Program, which you may order online; it’s also available in German and Spanish editions. Lastly, we recommend the chapters on Fertility and Pregnancy in Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, MD, one of the co-founders of Women to Women.

 

Last Modified Date: 04/19/2011