Why You’re Not Getting Pregnant

One thing that is never talked about when discussing fertility issues is stress. Stress may be the overlooked root cause of why you may not be able to get pregnant. We may not even know we’re stressed because it’s become our “normal”.  

Of course, we know stress isn’t good on the body in general. When we’re constantly in a sympathetic state, our bodies are in fight or flight and can’t heal or repair. When our sympathetic nervous system turns on it signals to body that we need to produce more cortisol. 

This is especially hard on the body when trying to get pregnant. Our bodies do not allow us to get pregnant during times of stress. It’s our body’s way of protecting us and our babies. This is inherent and our body doesn’t know the difference between cortisol spikes because of a presentation at work, or during times of famine. Therefore, our body turns off the ability to produce our sex hormones (such as progesterone and testosterone) when it needs more cortisol – cortisol is needed for fight or flight and our sex hormones take a back seat to allow us to survive since they are not needed during these times. This means that it’s nearly impossible to get pregnant when we’re in a constant state of stress.   

We often think about stress as extrinsic (outside factors), such as lifestyle, relationships, family, work, work/life balance, traffic, etc. However, there are 3 main causes of stress. 

1. Emotional stress – work / relationships / fear / anxiety / depression / overwhelm
   1. We’re stressed at work, in traffic on our way to work, for a big meeting, presentation, deadline, etc.
   2. We don’t get enough sleep, we’re getting to bed after 10 pm (when our cortisol starts to spike again) so we’re not fully allowing our bodies to recover. Our circadian rhythm is often broken and we don’t even know it. 
2. GI (gastrointestinal issues) – SIBO, candida, and leaky gut.
   1. Our bodies may be full of inflammation and we don’t realize it. The cause is often intestinal permeability (or “leaky gut”). 
   2. We may have yeast or bacterial overgrowth or have parasites that we aren’t aware of and don’t have symptoms for but our bodies are working over time to heal.
   3. We may have poor digestion due to lower stomach acidity, or constantly being in a sympathetic state. 
   4. We are constantly consuming toxins and heavy metals, further leading to GI and digestive issues. 
3. Viruses  
   1. Viruses such as Epstein–Barr virus, Lyme, Herpes, etc. 
   2. Viruses cause the body to be in a constant state of stress trying to repair itself. 

You can start to see how our bodies are in a constant state of state, even if we don’t feel stressed. 

As humans, our bodies are built to go through short periods of stress which increases the sympathetic nervous system, and then calm back down getting us into our parasympathetic nervous system. However, with all of the chaos that is our every day lives, it’s hard for us to shut off our sympathetic state. We’re constantly stressed with one thing or another, never allowing our parasympathetic state to kick in. In today’s modern world, we’re constantly on the go and have a never-ending checklist of to-do’s. On top of that, we are consuming toxins and heavy metals putting an “unseen” stress on our bodies. From the non-organic fruit we eat to the processed foods that line the grocery store shelves to our tap water, toxins and heavy metals are nearly impossible to avoid. 

In order to prepare for pregnancy and optimize our fertility, we need to start healing our bodies. This includes getting rest, meditating, and doing activities that put us in a parasympathetic state. This also means detoxing our bodies to rid toxins and clean out our systems to get our bodies in it’s optimal state for pregnancy. 

The best place to start is to do some functional medicine lab testing to understand your cortisol levels, your hormone levels, your toxicity levels, and your deficiencies. Once we know what’s happening in your body, we can start to devise a plan to reduce stress, remove toxicities, and replace deficiencies so we can heal your body and it in an ideal state for pregnancy.