Fertility: The misunderstood struggle.
Fertility is a touchy subject for many people as it is a very personal and private topic. Struggles with fertility can bring on feelings of self-doubt, shame, brokenness, and depression. It can feel very lonely even though 1 in 5 women are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying according to the CDC.
Children are a blessing and is arguably the biggest thing us humans can do to leave a legacy here on earth. It is an inborn desire, or desire that develops, for most people to have children be apart of doing life. It is innate intelligence driven, and when the chance of this dream being out of grasp it can be devastating.
So begs the question, why is there so much struggle when it comes to fertility? Is it solely a female problem, or does the male have a contribution as well? (Hint, yes…. Yes they do!) Let’s explore what we know about infertility, the current approaches and then the mis-understood parts about it including a more holistic approach at helping this struggle.
Fertility for females is very complex and can caused by multiple causes. Mayo clinic outlines what western medicine looks for with female infertility. These include:
1. Ovulation disorders
a. Polycystic ovary syndrome
b. Hypothalamic dysfunction
c. Primary ovarian insufficiency
d. Too much prolactin
2. Damage to Fallopian Tubes
a. Pelvic inflammatory disease
b. Previous surgery in abdomen or pelvis
3. Endometriosis
4. Uterine or cervical causes
a. Benign polyps or tumors
b. Shape of the uterus
c. Cervical narrowing
d. Mucus issues
e. And I’ll add prior injury to the uterus (this can even be from prior pregnancy.)
As you can see a fertility doctor has a lot of things they need to check for when problem solving potential issues. What about males! Well, they are about 50% of the equation but usually there are a couple of things that can happen with male’s sperm:
1. Count! (More sperm increases the chance of fertilization)
2. Motility (Can they swim and get to where they need to get to!)
3. DNA integrity. (This one we can’t really measure, but if the DNA of the sperm is defective, it can create an embryo that doesn’t have the correct code for proper growth and development.)
Many want to be parents find themselves in this overwhelming situation and go to their OBGYN or fertility clinic and are given several options to move forward. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. Even IVF is often unsuccessful, expensive, hard on the soon to be mother, and stressful. Many people find that they are victim to a medical system of different things being thrown at them and hopefully something magical happens and sticks. But what other options do they have if they want to be parents?... Right?
Fertility struggles need to be looked at in a differ ent way. With all the science and medical technology afforded to us in the 20th century, we see a problem of why there might be infertility. Once, they can point the finger at one of the problems listed before they get to work. But maybe, we need to be that super annoying toddler and ask the question, “why?”, one more time. Why is that problem there? Why is that part of my body not working the way it was intended? Can the problem really be reduced to just the reproductive system or isn’t it just a part of the whole when it comes to a comprehensive, interconnected mind, body, and spirit?
In asking the question in a more holistic since, what is responsible for the entire body to be interconnected? How does our body know when to digest food, or to speed our heart rate up during exercise or when we see something that excites us? Look no further than the nervous system! The nervous system is the system that makes us, us. It perceives our environment and our internal environment, makes motor plans to speak, reach for things, run, walk, and move our food through our digestive track. It sends physiological messages that alters the epigenetic expression of our cells that can alter functions such as absorption of food in the digestive system, tell our pancreas to release enzymes, the gull bladder to excrete bile, mobilize immunity cells, controls the hormonal balance in the body through the pituitary gland, speed up the heart under stress, slow down the heart when you try to calm down, and can control cell function throughout the entire body.
Your nervous system is constantly interpreting information from the state of our body, learned experiences, and cognitive will. The inputs of all of these will set rules of being that we then make decisions from. A perfect example is wanting to go workout because you know that working out is good for you; you feel better, and it moves you toward your health and fitness goal! So, it’s easy to go workout, right? Well, in this example you just got done working a long shift, you don’t sleep well, and you’ve been feeling tiered for days now. Your nervous system is receiving input from the body that it is tiered! This will change the perception of your world view when making decisions. Even if you want to go workout, it takes an extreme amount of will power and motivation to overcome the tiered body signals. The body, mind, and the will of the spirt is expressed through the nervous system! You cannot separate the body from the nervous system, or your will and mind from the body. They work harmoniously to help protect you, to learn things, reproduce, and to succeed.
So how does this affect reproduction and the desire to grow your family through biological birth? Most want-to-be parents have the desire, the hope, the dream of becoming parents! But as we explained just now, you simply can’t “will” things into being. There is something, a dis-ease, in the function of the reproductive organs or maybe in the body somewhere that is preventing the nervous system to prioritize fertility. If the body’s health and function need to be at a state of ease, then is the key to fertility to just take a vacation and have some fun! This works for some parents actually, but for many it still isn’t fruitful. So if the will to be a parent is there (mind), why is there a dis-ease in the body preventing getting pregnant? Also, why is a chiropractor talking about fertility?
Chiropractic focuses on the function of the nervous system, hence the discussion on the nervous system. As discussed before, the brain is interpreting signals from the body, outside of the body, and our will (mind) 24/7. When we are exposed to stress whether it is from physical stress, emotional stress, or chemical stress, our nervous system has to interpret that stress information and adapt to it. Adapting can also be considered learning from it. This takes the principle of neuroplasticity, essentially when we learn or adapt to something our neurons will make new connections or strengthen connections that will make us be able to respond faster or better to that same stress in the future. As we are infants and children neuroplasticity are at its highest (why children can learn so much faster than adults), and then slows down as we get older. The implications of this are as we are exposed to stress that overwhelms our body (again physical, emotional, or chemical) we will be more impressionable when we are young then when are adults. Injury, in a nervous system since, is much more impactful as a child than it is in an adult.
Great, thanks for the neuro-plasticity discussion but how is this getting to reproduction and getting pregnant? Just as the body can learn good things, it also learns how to combat stress. However, in doing so the nervous system can get stuck in a more alert state as an adaptation to stress that it has been exposed to. When we are exposed to stress, the nervous system is put into a state of fight, halt, or flight. This changes the physiology of our body by shutting down digestion, immunity, sleep, and reproduction; and ramping up adrenaline, quickening the heart rate, and mobilizing energy from the liver. In the processing of adapting to the stressful event, neuropathways can get stuck (or more dominate) in this stressful state.
What does that mean? It means that when you are sitting on the beach, your nervous system is still stuck in a state of arousal. On the titer totter of rest, digest, social-emotional function, reproduction vs. fight/flight system, you are more siding to the fight/flight side. No amount of relaxation from outside of your skin can help calm this down because the internal (inside of your skin) is in a state of arousal. This affects your perception of the world. This causes what we see clinically all the time as a contributor of anxiety, depression, stress, focus issues, sleep issues, and yes… reproductive issues. If your internal perception of your body is stressful, your body is in a constant state of fight or flight. This is known as dysautonomia.
Dysautonomia affects more than just hormones through the neuro-endocrine system, but also affects digestion, absorption, cell replication and cell death, menstrual cycle, and the list can go on! As you can see, dysautonomia can create altered function in the hormonal system and the organ function as well which covers a lot of the issues with infertility listed in the beginning of this blog. So, if these systems are not being prioritized because the nervous system is stuck in a state of arousal, how do we change the neuro-signals from the inside-up to the brain to calm everything down? We want to create a state of ease signal coming from the body so that reproductive system can get busy!!
Chiropractic can evaluate the state of the nervous system function through neuro-scans such as thermography and electromyography (EMG) to see if there is dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system and the energetic system respectfully. Our clinic in Colorado Springs, CO along with other chiropractors across the nation use a these and a neuro-scan called Heart Rate Variability (HRV) which measures the balance of the fight/flight vs. rest, digest, reproduction, social-emotional system. These scans along with other indicators of nervous system function that a chiropractor uses gives us a window of how the body is functioning on a nervous system level. Now this is the cool part!!
A chiropractic adjustment, at its core, affects the signals coming from the body to the brain! Not only that, is that it doesn’t artificially do this, but it finds areas in the nervous system that are stuck in a state of dis-ease (stress signals), and through the adjustment increases movement/good signals coming into the brain. The result is with the stimulus of the chiropractic adjustment over time (meaning adjustments delivered over a course of time), the nervous system will relearn/adapt to the adjustment to be in more of a state of ease. This literally changes the neurological function from the inside-out!!
Through chiropractic adjustments, your nervous system becomes more balanced, at ease, and as a result your nervous system isn’t stimulated in a state of arousal. Meaning that it is safe for more health driven functions to take over. This results in better neuro-hormonal regulation, better immunity function, better cell and epigenetic expression of cells.
Maybe….maybe there isn’t anything wrong with your body. There isn’t anything wrong with you! Maybe, you are struggling getting pregnant because your nervous system is stuck in a state of protection, and it isn’t safe to get pregnant. Is it possible that infertility is an intelligent response based on the information that your nervous system is receiving?
I hope you can see now why traditional fertility treatments are so hard on the mother. Your pumped full of hormones that are responsible for supporting fertility, but your intelligent neuro-hormonal system is trying to fight a tiger at the same time! Or if it’s dad that is responsible, if his nervous system is stuck in a state of fight/flight; epigenetic expression of sperm cells, count, and hormone levels can be altered.
I challenge you to think differently, to change your perspective of yourself and the struggle with infertility. I challenge you to see yourself fearfully and wonderfully made. That what you are experiencing isn’t that there is something wrong with you, but just the opposite. That your body and mind learned how to protect itself from harmful stress from your past. Look at your “infertility” not as something is wrong with me so I’m not getting pregnant, but rather my body has learned to fight a tiger really well, and still thinks that it is fighting a tiger. Give chiropractic a chance to create ease in your nervous system and get your body healthy from the inside-out.
Writers note: I hope you found our second blog post interesting, entertaining, and most of all hope inspiring! My name is Dr. Christopher Eddy and I practice chiropractic with my wife Dr. Jenna Bridgewater at CJ Chiropractic in Colorado Springs, CO. We have dedicated our lives to helping children and their families reach their full potential in a holistic, drug-free, natural and sustaining way. We specialize in pediatrics, pregnancy, and family health care. We would be honored to be apart of your miracle as we have helped countless families grow their family!!
