JUST STARTING OUT
Over the years we have been teaching yoga for fertility, we have worked with over a thousand women and couples who are trying to conceive. In our experience, yoga can help with fertility in a whole range of conditions. If you are just starting to try to conceive, yoga for fertility will help prepare the entire endocrine and reproductive systems to be working as effectively as possible. The earlier you start, the better, as yoga has a cumulative effect over time.
UNEXPLAINED INFERTILITY
If you have been diagnosed with “unexplained infertility,” you are not alone. This is a rather common diagnosis, and hints at the fact that current science and medicine does not yet understand, or have the ability to address, many of the factors that impact fertility. In these cases, yoga can help unravel the factors that may be contributing to the fertility issues. Imbalances in the hormonal system, which have not been detected because they lie outside the normal fertility clinic testing, may be responsible. As we have seen, yoga can help support the endocrine system, and over time will help to regulate some of these imbalances.
Another common contributing factor to unexplained infertility can be the body’s response to high stress levels, which causes non-fertility-supporting physiological changes in the body. Yoga has been clearly shown to help to calm the body’s fight-or-flight reaction, and reverse those physiological changes.
A third common factor in unexplained infertility can be emotional or subconcious barriers to conception. The nature of yoga is that it helps peel away the layers of “avidya,” which we regard in yoga as matter that clouds our clear perception of things. The Western version of “avidya” might be layers of emotional patterning. These layers create obstacles to our being able to see situations clearly, and accomplish what we are intrinsically completely capable of doing. Mind/body medicine continues to demonstrate how innately linked the body’s responses are to our emotional states. Yoga helps to balance our emotional responses.
PCOS
An increasingly common diagnosis we see in women with fertility challenges is polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This is a condition in which the ovaries produce many small, cyst-like follicles, which fail to develop properly. It is attributed to an insulin/blood sugar imbalance in the bloodstream—a condition that is controlled by the pancreas. The pancreas is one of the glands in the endocrine system, which sits near the kidneys and adrenal glands. As we have seen, yoga for fertility can help to rebalance the endocrine system, and thus can be helpful in improving the underlying conditions that cause PCOS.
ENDOMETRIOSIS
Another fairly common diagnosis for fertility issues is endometriosis, a condition in which cells like those that line the uterus (the endometrium) attach to other tissues inside the abdomen. An estimated five to seven million American women currently suffer from endometriosis, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 40% of women with infertility may have some level of endometriosis.
It is not usually possible to give a definitive diagnosis of endometriosis without actually looking into the abdominal cavity, although ultrasounds can sometimes indicate its presence. A laparoscope is used to see into the pelvic cavity to look for the lesions that indicate endometriosis, and sometimes these are removed surgically. Endometriosis lesions can be found on the uterus, ovaries, Fallopian tubes, and even in areas of the body far from the pelvis, such as the lungs. Sometimes the lesions can bind the reproductive organs to the pelvic walls or ligaments, or other organs. Endometriosis may be exacerbated by excess estrogen.
There is no real consensus about the cause or the cure for endometriosis. There have been some studies suggesting that reducing general inflammation in the body can help alleviate endometriosis.1 Dietary changes, supplementing with antioxidants, yoga, and stress reduction techniques can all help reduce inflammation.
We have observed that gentle yoga can help alleviate the discomfort of endometriosis, which often causes debilitating pain. Also, if excess estrogen is contributing to the problem, yoga for fertility can help rebalance the hormonal system to correct the estrogen/progesterone ratio.
MISCARRIAGE
Over the years, we have had many women in our yoga for fertility classes who have had one or more miscarriages. We have found it to be the case almost universally that these women eventually are able to carry a pregnancy to term. Sometimes, in addition to adding a daily yoga practice, this has required making some lifestyle or dietary changes, or dealing with some emotional or other factors. In some percentage of cases, medical intervention is also required.
Continuing a yoga practice has helped them cope with the stress of miscarriage, as well as helping to overcome the underlying problems that may have contributed to the pregnancy losses. Yoga for fertility classes can also offer a support system for women grieving from miscarriage. Usually in our classes there are a few women who have been through miscarriages, and so the level of understanding and empathy is very high. In our culture, this type of support system is otherwise very much lacking. Often, women who have had miscarriages are just expected to carry on, or try again, without any acknowledgment of their deep and recent losses. Sometimes, accumulated grief from miscarriages can impede further attempts to conceive. Because yoga helps to move emotional energy rather than allowing it to just sit and accumulate, yoga is a useful tool for working with grief, as well as other strong emotions.
Indira’s Story from Lynn’s Yoga for Fertility Class
Several years ago, Indira joined one of my yoga for fertility classes. Although she had been born in India, she had not done yoga before. In fact, she told me that her mother and her mother’s friends used to do yoga at her house, and her mother would try to get her to join them. But she thought yoga was silly and old-fashioned, and refused to try it. She was a modern Indian woman, who worked in a high-stress job as a project manager in a high-tech company.
From the start, I could see that Indira lived almost totally “in her head.” Her body awareness was so poor that she was unable to follow my instructions in class. She simply had no idea what her body was doing (or not doing). Not only was two-way mind/body communication missing, but even one-way communication from the mind to the body was lacking. Her fertility history included six miscarriages over the past two years. It is perhaps not surprising that she had decided to “ex-communicate” her body!
Indira soon realized that yoga was helping her feel less stress in her daily life, and told me she thought that maybe her mother had been right about yoga! She checked out yoga books from the library, and would stay after class to ask me questions that had come up while she was reading them. It was not surprising to me that she chose such an academic, head-centered approach to learning yoga, as it seemed to be the way she approached everything in her life. But she also began to practice yoga at home for at least an hour a day using a routine I prepared for her. She was very disciplined, and she practiced yoga every day for over a year. Over this time, I noticed a big change in her ability to pay attention to her body while in yoga class.
When she got pregnant again, she was understandably very nervous after having endured so many miscarriages. Her husband was so concerned that he refused to let her drive, and instead he brought her to class every week and waited for her outside. She continued her home yoga practice with a modified routine for early pregnancy. She passed the eight-week mark, which had been the point of her previous miscarriages, and was feeling fine. By the end of the first trimester, she began to believe that this pregnancy could stick. It did, and she now has a very healthy son.
Indira has continued to practice yoga at home in the ensuing years, as she has become convinced of what her mother was trying to tell her so many years ago. Yoga helped her achieve her and her husband’s dreams of parenthood. It has also helped her understand and believe in the wisdom of her body.
IS YOGA FOR FERTILITY HELPFUL FOR MEN?
The short answer to this question is “yes, absolutely.” While hormone imbalances are not as big an issue for men as for women, men often have other impediments to fertility that yoga can help with. For instance, men who have desk jobs often suffer from stagnation in the pelvic/reproductive area, just as women do. Yoga helps to increase circulation and energy in the pelvic region. And men may be even more inclined to “stuff” their emotions, particularly their reactions to fertility challenges. Yoga can help them move through these emotions, and men are often more comfortable moving than talking. In addition, many men are working in stressful jobs, so a stress-reduction program is equally valuable for them.
While the information in this book more specifically addresses women’s fertility challenges, it is important to remember that at least 25% of fertility challenges are due to male factor specifically, and for a full 50%, the male is a contributing factor. And yet, most treatment programs focus on the woman. The basic yoga routines we offer in this book are also helpful for men. We would strongly suggest, when possible, that couples practice yoga for fertility together. We have had many couples attend our yoga for fertility workshops, or take private instruction together.
There are many benefits of doing yoga with your partner/spouse. For one, it is just easier to keep up with the discipline of doing a daily practice if your significant other is doing it with you. Partners can also assist each other with some of the poses, increasing the benefit of the poses.
When dealing with fertility challenges, or when trying to conceive becomes paramount, a couple’s sex life often suffers. Spontaneity may go out of the window and the need to perform “on demand” can dampen desire. Yoga offers a non-sexual way to be together physically, which can bring back some of the intimacy that may get lost in the process of chasing conception.
A not-much-advertised benefit of yoga, but one that is well-known among regular practitioners, is that a daily yoga practice improves one’s sex life. Several factors are responsible for this, including improved blood and energy flow to the reproductive organs, increased control, and better ability to “be present” with your partner during sex. Specific practices such as pelvic floor exercises, breathing practices, and legs-up-the-wall pose, are especially beneficial.
THE RESEARCH: IS YOGA FOR FERTILITY EFFECTIVE?
The most famous studies tying yoga and meditation to fertility have been done by Dr. Alice Domar at the Mind/Body Institute at Harvard Medical Center. In her studies, “infertile” women were assigned either to a control group, or to a group who participated in peer-support discussions, or to a group that received training in mind/body techniques such as yoga and meditation. Her studies showed that the women who practiced mind/body techniques achieved pregnancies at a rate almost three times that of the control group. Within the year following the program, 55% of the mind/body group became pregnant, compared to only 20% of the control group. In addition, 42% of the mind/body group’s pregnancies were conceived naturally, compared to 20% of the control group.2
Although I haven’t (yet) done a statistical analysis, I estimate that more than 80% of the women who start and continue in my classes eventually conceive. The average length of time a woman is enrolled in my classes is around twelve months. Doing a regular yoga practice at home definitely helps reduce the time it takes for the yoga to be effective.
For some women it takes longer, and some women decide to move the process along by using IVF or donor eggs. A majority of the women in my classes also use complementary treatments such as acupuncture, Chinese herbs, or abdominal massage. But my experience is that for women who commit to a gentle and supportive yoga program, like the yoga for fertility program, most will eventually be able to conceive either naturally or with assistance. And it is worth noting that most of the women who join my classes are not the “easy” fertility cases. They have generally already been trying to conceive for at least a year, and have very often already consulted a doctor or a fertility clinic about their situation. Their age range is generally between 33–45, with the average age around 38.