Women Affairs

Deborah Kotz One in seven American couples grapples with infertility, often with no explainable medical cause. A new book, The Fertility Diet, may offer a low-tech, low-cost solution for some. It's based on research from the well-respected Harvard Nurses' Health Study suggesting that diet may play a role in women's efforts to conceive. The book identifies particular nutrients they should be getting, such as iron, or avoiding, such as trans fats, to improve their chances of getting pregnant. How much are the odds increased? The book doesn't say. That's because the 10-step plan was formulated from dietary habits collected from surveys—and not actually tested on infertile women. While no one knows whether this plan can truly help women get pregnant, it's based, for the most part, on good nutrition and smart health habits. Book coauthor Jorge Chavarro, an investigator on the Nurses' Health Study and research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, spoke w...

Kristie Leong M.D. Infertility is the inability to become pregnant after a year of trying. It may take the form of reoccurance of miscarriages in women and othe forms related to a man too. Infertility can be a frustrating problem with a variety of underlying causes. There's no doubt that a woman who is infertile experiences various levels of stress due to her inability to conceive. More and more evidence is emerging that stress may actually play a potential role as a cause of infertility. Of course before infertility can be attributed to stress, physical causes for this problem must be ruled out by a gynecologist. He or she can conduct a series of tests and examinations to exclude structural problems as well as hormone related abnormalities. Once physical causes for infertility are ruled out by a doctor, a trial of stress reduction training might be in order. What evidence is there that stress plays a role in infertility? Several studies have shown that infertile women wh...