Tag: Fallopian Tubes

Major Causes of Infertility in Women: Uncovered

There are many major causes of infertility in women and we should go into all of them to understand the subject better, and this is what we are doing here. But perhaps the most common cause of female infertility is the Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which is also known popularly just as PID. This is nothing but quite a few types of infections caused by bacteria at many organs such as the reproductive organ, the appendix and also the intestine close to the pelvic region. In some cases, PID also affects the fallopian tubes and this is when PID causes the most harm – it is referred to as salpingitis.

There are quite a few types of infections in the Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and they are…

• In a vast majority of cases (as many as 75%), female infertility happens due to an infection from Chlamydia Trachomatis, which also causes a Sexually Transmitted Disease or STD. When the female is affected by this, her fallopian tubes get affected, which is the worst news for reproduction. Gonorrhea is another common cause that leads to infertility. However these instances remain undiagnosed or unattended to in most cases, until the time it is already too late.

• Pelvic Tuberculosis is also often caused by PID. Alarmingly it now seems that there are more cases of Pelvic Tuberculosis, particularly in developing countries.

• Sometimes abortions are carried out in compromised conditions and this also leads to PID and you can blame the unhygienic conditions for this.

• If the appendix gets ruptured or of the woman is suffering from the herpes virus, she may also be a victim of PID.

It also seems that in at least 30% of the cases, female infertility is caused by Endometriosis and so this should also be included in the major causes of infertility in women. But often, Endometriosis is actually a contributing factor and not the main cause of the problem.

In many women, the cause of infertility is also PCOS or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. When she has PCOS, it means that her ovaries are making androgens the male hormone in larger numbers and because of this there is a higher level of LH and a lower level of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) which again prevents the follicles from producing the eggs. And when there are no eggs, the follicles tend to get filled with fluids and this leads to cyst formation. The formation of one cyst eventually leads to the formation of many others, with the result that the ovary assumes the size of a grapefruit. With no egg production, there is no production of progesterone as well, but the estrogen level remains. It has been seen that those affected by PCOS often tend to gain weight, have acne and also develop facial hair, and this is due to the higher androgen levels.

Premature Ovarian Failure known simply as POF also causes infertility in women. Known clinically as Early Menopause, this sets in when the follicles stop making eggs even before she has turned 40, and popularly this is referred to as premature menopause. This is very sad indeed as how can the woman remain productive when she is not even making the eggs?

Though frankly this is quite rare, but Idiopathic Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism is also known to have made a few women infertile. When this happens, the quality of both the FSH and the LH are poor and due to this, the ovaries cannot function properly. There is hardly a remedy for this as modern science does not even know why this happens.

Among other reasons that cause infertility in women, there is the FHA or Functional Hypothalamic Amenorrhea in which, the woman does not menstruate and this happens because the thyroid gland and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system are quite instable. The HPA system incidentally is quite important for reproduction and for other body functions as well.

Benign Uterine Fibroids and Implantation Failure are quite rare, but these two conditions that are caused by Luteal Phase Defect sometimes also cause female infertility. Holistic remedies are useful here as these remedies are known to have cured many such cases.

The fact is, holistic treatments work much better than conventional remedies that merely suggest assisted methodologies without finding out the cause of the problem. Conventional remedies also come with side effects and their success rate is poor too. Holistic treatments on the other hand first finds out the real issue and then suggests remedies that can be Chinese medications, acupuncture, herbs, exercise and change in the lifestyle as well. Because of this better approach, it has been seen that holistic treatments work much better in the major causes of infertility in women.