What our Reproductive Specialists Need to Know to Support Your Fertility Treatment

To successfully help you on your fertility journey, it is important that you are upfront with your fertility team when providing essential information. This helps us accurately assess, diagnose and treat you on your pregnancy journey. Our board-certified reproductive specialists will be more equipped to give you the help you need when they know the details of your overall health history so what needs to be addressed or changed can be done.

Tracking Lifestyle Habits

-Dietary Intake: What you eat (and don’t eat) affects your physical and mental health, and maintaining a healthy nutritional balance is key. Eating too much or too little can affect your fertility if, for example, your Body Mass Index is out of the recommended range. For women this means issues with ovulation and pregnancy while for men it can mean sperm deficiencies. Tracking your daily dietary intake lets our doctors know what needs to be addressed to support your fertility treatment.

-Exercise Habits: It’s no secret that inactivity is linked to weight gain, and excess weight affects your fertility. But just like dietary problems, excessive exercise can cause fertility issues for men and women. In women, this might manifest as an energy imbalance that stresses the body and eventually disturbs the hormone balance that can interfere with your chances of conception.

-Tobacco Use: Smoking not only harms the unborn as well as men or women who smoke but also those exposed to secondhand smoke. It can interfere with fertility in both men and women. For smokers, it takes longer to become pregnant and reduces the success rate for those undergoing fertility treatments, including IVF. To increase your fertility rate, you will want to abstain from smoking and being exposed to tobacco smoke from others. We will also take into consideration your previous smoking habits as they can still impact fertility outcomes.

-Plant Medicine: alternative medicine such as marijuana and CBD oils can alleviate health concerns, but they can also impact fertility, such as gamete quality and detrimental effects on neuro signaling that could interfere with the neurodevelopment of the growing fetus.

-Alcohol Consumption: excessive consumption can hinder conception because it impacts one’s hormonal balance. For women, this can interfere with normal ovulation cycles and for men, it can lower sperm count and lead to erectile dysfunction.

-Past Sexually Transmitted Infection: If you or your partner has ever had an STI, this must also be factored in, especially if, as a woman, you have had chlamydia or gonorrhea, which often damages the Fallopian tubes.

-Prior Conception: having conceived in the past shows that you or your partner have the potential to conceive. This goes for pregnancy and the outcome as well.

-Tied Tubes or Vasectomy: We will want to know if you or your partner have had your tubes tied or a vasectomy.

-Conception Time: We need to know how long you have been trying to conceive by not using protection during intercourse. This helps our specialists get a clearer picture of your condition.

-Stress Levels: While infertility can lead to stress, stress does not lead to infertility. Still, stress often leads to coping mechanisms that lead to fertility issues. Unhealthy coping strategies such as smoking, drinking, taking drugs, or not adhering to your fertility medication regimen, can also be problematic. Please keep us in the loop if you are excessively stressed so we can better support you during treatment.

-Herbal Supplements: If, like many other couples seeking help with conceiving, you or your partner have in the past or are currenty taking herbal supplements designed to enhance your fertility efforts, please let us know so we can assess how they might affect your fertility treatment regimen.

As you travel on your pregnancy journey, we are honored to be able to help you get there. We welcome you to give us a call at 801-785-5100 to speak with one of our experienced team and schedule you at one of our three Utah locations!