Fertility Docs Uncensored is hosted by Dr. Carrie Bedient from the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas Fertility Center, and Dr. Abby Eblen from Nashville Fertility Center. In this episode, we discuss frequently asked questions such as whether birth control pills affect fertility, whether IVF is painful, and whether anyone can safely carry a pregnancy. We cover conceiving with irregular menstrual cycles and what lifestyle factors, including alcohol, caffeine, and marijuana use, may impact fertility. We also explore complementary therapies such as acupuncture and review which supplements are helpful and which are unnecessary. We address IVF success rates, intrauterine insemination (IUI), and when each treatment option may be appropriate. Male factor infertility topics, including low sperm count and erectile dysfunction, are also discussed, along with how they can influence fertility treatment planning. Topics and questions covered in this episode include: Do birth control pills affect fertility? Does IVF hurt? Can anyone carry a pregnancy? Can I get pregnant with irregular cycles? Can I drink alcohol or coffee while trying to conceive? Can I use marijuana when trying to conceive? Does acupuncture improve fertility? What fertility supplements should I take? What are IVF success rates? Can I do IUI? How does low sperm count affect fertility? How does erectile dysfunction impact conception? This podcast was sponsored by IVF Florida.
Episode Transcript:
Susan Hudson (00:01)
You’re listening to the Fertility Docs Uncensored podcast, featuring insight on all things fertility from some of the top rated doctors around America. Whether you’re struggling to conceive or just planning for your future family, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.
Carrie Bedient MD (00:22)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Fertility Docs Uncensored. I am one of your co-hosts, Dr. Carrie Bedient from the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, joined by my cute, confident, and charismatic co-host Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas Fertility Center, and Dr. Abby Eblen from Nashville Fertility Center. How are you girls doing?
Susan Hudson MD (00:36)
Hello everyone.
Abby Eblen MD (00:40)
Hi guys.
Great to see you.
Susan Hudson MD (00:41)
Doing good.
Carrie Bedient MD (00:42)
So my deep burning insightful question for both of you is what are your favorite comfy clothes? And they can be for work, for pajamas, for as soon as you get home from work, what are your go-tos?
Abby Eblen MD (00:54)
Well, I have this from the brand Soft Surroundings and it’s this kind of long like sweater. It almost feels like cashmere-like, but it’s kind of like a little bit soft and particularly when I’m cold, I love to just wrap up in that and watch TV. Saturday mornings if I don’t have to work, I like to wrap up in that too. So that’s my favorite.
Susan Hudson MD (01:12)
Soma jammies. They’re so nice. They feel good. They keep me cool enough but warm enough and it’s the perfect balance and they’re super smooth which is nice and those are my faves. What about you, Carrie?
Carrie Bedient MD (01:20)
I like my Eber Jay jammies for all the same reasons. They’re cool enough, they’re warm enough, they’re super soft, and they’re my default as soon as I reasonably can. But there’s an honorable mention for Vuori because I don’t have any of their stuff but my husband does. And so I find that I am very much drawn to snuggling when he’s wearing them because they’re just so soft. And so I like that one too. Okay, so today we are going to go through the most commonly googled fertility questions because we decided why should ChatGPT have all the fun when you can actually have doctors answer these questions. But before we go to the internet’s questions at large, Susan do we have a listener question?
Susan Hudson MD (02:15)
We do have a listener question. Our listener question today is, really need your advice. I had a miscarriage at six weeks and found out that I have a 1.7 centimeter septum. I got a hysteroscopy from an RE, but they could only remove the white tissue and is now a 1.5 centimeter vascular. The advice given from RE is just to try again because it’s not standard of care to remove vascular myometrium. However, I’ve had a MIGS, which is minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon, who says he can remove it no problem via laparoscopic guidance. I am so scared just to leave it and try again. I don’t want to have another miscarriage or even worse, a second term loss. What should I do? First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for writing in this question.
Carrie Bedient MD (03:04)
Fabulous question. Abby, what do think?
Abby Eblen MD (03:07)
So in my day I’ve removed a lot of septums and the general thought is that if, and there is an if there, if a septum actually causes a miscarriage, that it’s usually the non-vascular tissue, kind of what you described as the whitish tissue. The rule of thumb for everybody is that once you get beyond that whitish tissue, once you start cutting and you hit an area that starts bleeding, that means it’s vascular. And if it’s vascular, we’re not really doing you any favors by taking that down. If we cut into that, one of more serious things we worry about is that we’re really close to the top of the uterus and we can make a hole in the uterus. And that’s not going to really help anybody. And so it’s really not about the dip in your uterus. And that’s a pretty small dip. It’s really more about getting rid of that non-vascular tissue because the concern is if an embryo implants on that non-vascular area, it won’t get the blood supply that it needs. And one other thing I would add in, there was a, randomized perspective study done in Europe a few years ago. It was part of our continuing medical education materials that we had to read. And it randomized patients as best it could in the study to treatment versus no treatment for a septum. And the only difference in the study that was shown was in the treatment group, they had a high risk of uterine perforation and bleeding related to because they were instrumented. There was no difference in pregnancy outcomes. So my best piece of advice would be I wouldn’t worry about that. I don’t think you need to go to a MIGS surgeon and have them cut into your uterus. Any of us could take an instrument and cut into your uterus and sew it up. But the question is, should that be done? And the answer is probably no.
Susan Hudson MD (04:35)
Carrie, what are your thoughts?
Carrie Bedient MD (04:36)
I think that getting a laparoscopic guided procedure in this case probably isn’t going to add a whole lot. The laparoscopic guidance just makes sure that you don’t go through the uterus. I tend to prefer to do those surgeries with an ultrasound guidance. You can do either and I don’t think there’s necessarily right or wrong, but when you are dealing with a really vascular muscle The big concern about a septum is you’re not getting good blood supply to that baby. If you start cutting and you start getting a really bloody area, then you’re going to get good blood supply if that kid implants. And a 1.5 centimeter septum is really hardly anything at all. There’s many people with arcuate uteruses where you see that a dip just normally and those you cannot fix and they do just fine. I think reasonable to let this go. Yes, you will always second-guess yourself if there’s another negative outcome, but I think this is a very reasonable thing to say I did what I needed to do and discretion is the better part of valor and I’m not going to keep doing for the sake of doing.
Susan Hudson MD (05:36)
And we understand that suffering a miscarriage is, it’s a terrible loss. It absolutely is. Statistically, a six week loss was more likely due to the pregnancy not developing normally, whether it was chromosomes or when certain structures were trying to develop, that those were the issues. We all help repair septums. However, as Abby said, we do only get to the point where you start having bleeding and you stop there and realize that sometimes bad things can happen later. I had a patient one time that I did a septum resection. She moved, left my practice, went to another physician. They decided to do an additional septum resection because I had gone to the point where there was bleeding. And then they went back and did a more aggressive one.
And she ended up with a placental abnormality where the placenta invaded at the top of the uterus to a point that she actually ended up having to get a hysterectomy at the time of delivery because the placenta couldn’t be removed. As much as we want you to have a safe and normal pregnancy, the surgery you’ve already had, I think is what you really needed.
And anything above that is starting to potentially put you and future baby at more risk than where you are at this point. And realize that even in the situation of you’re thinking of somebody with a second trimester loss, when we’re thinking of somebody who maybe has other uterine anomalies, those types of things, those are, those are very rare. Very, very, very, very, very rare to have a second trimester loss.
And a second trimester loss is not going to be caused by a 1.5 centimeter septum.
Carrie Bedient MD (07:21)
Agreed, agreed.
Susan Hudson MD (07:23)
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Carrie Bedient MD (08:36)
All right, let’s turn to the depths of the internet and see what are the most commonly asked questions and just go through a bunch of them and see what we come up with. So first question, is infertility caused by birth control?
Abby Eblen MD (08:40)
No, infertility is not caused by birth control. What confuses patients sometimes is if you stop birth control and say when you were a teenager you were put on birth control because your cycles were irregular and they put you on them to regulate your cycles, you forget that that was the whole reason why you were put on them in the first place. So fast forward 10 years later when you stop birth control, sometimes people in that situation for a couple of months, which can be really confusing, will have normal cycles because their hormones will be regulated.
And then once the birth control completely gets out of their system, go back to the way they were when they were 14 or 15, which is having irregular cycles. That wasn’t caused by birth control. That was actually prevented by birth control. And once it gets out of your system, you go back to the way you were when you started.
Susan Hudson MD (09:31)
Now, one thing to keep in mind if you use a certain birth control called DepoProvera, when you get those injections, those injections can have an effect up to 12 months. So once you’re past that timeframe, it really shouldn’t have much impact. Birth control pills are usually out of your system pretty darn quick, realizing that actually your best chances of getting pregnant are within the first few months of stopping birth control pills and when it comes to IUDs, usually that effect is relatively immediate.
Carrie Bedient MD (10:03)
The one exception to all of this is if your birth control is a sterilization procedure, like having your tubes tied or having a vasectomy, that will definitely impact your chances of getting pregnant. And assume that those are non-reversible procedures. Some people go into them saying, I don’t want any kids right now, but if I were to find a new partner in the future, I’d consider it. In those cases, don’t assume that it is a reversible procedure because much of the time it is not.
Susan Hudson MD (10:28)
And it not being reversible doesn’t mean we can’t help you achieve pregnancy. It just means we’re not gonna get you back to your original state of fertility.
Carrie Bedient MD (10:36)
Next question, can someone with periods all over the place get pregnant?
Susan Hudson MD (10:40)
Absolutely, all the time, every day. However, if you do have irregular periods, you’re somebody who should probably seek help sooner than later to figure out why those periods aren’t happening, whether it’s from a hormonal imbalance or if it’s a structural issue.
Carrie Bedient MD (10:56)
Next question. What is the usefulness of getting fertility testing before ever trying to get pregnant?
Abby Eblen MD (11:02)
Because if we can narrow down what the problem is, and sometimes we can and sometimes we can’t, we’re able to hone in better on the treatment that you need to help you get pregnant. So for example, if you’re 25 and your male partner’s 25, and you guys have tried for a year or two and you can’t get pregnant, and we do a test to look at your tubes and both of your tubes are blocked, that’s our answer. We know what the problem is. We know that your tubes are blocked and the sperm and the egg can’t get together. So we don’t waste our time doing other things that are not gonna be helpful for you.
Susan Hudson MD (11:28)
And for people who are wanting testing before they’ve ever even tried to conceive, say maybe you’re older and time is very important, or you’re missing a component like egg sperm uterus, that helps us really get you to your end destination sooner than later. And time matters for everybody.
Carrie Bedient MD (11:47)
Should everybody get that testing before they try and get pregnant, including couples that are in their 20s and early 30s?
Abby Eblen MD (11:55)
Yeah, because I mean, you can always have a tube problem or a sperm problem and not know about it, even if you’re in your 20s.
Susan Hudson MD (11:55)
Good. But if you haven’t tried getting pregnant at all, I would say if you are super anxious or you just have this gut feeling that you want to have it checked out, absolutely. However, most people who are having regular cycles and they’re less than somewhere between 33 and to 35, I would recommend trying to conceive for about a year and if you’re over 35, six months. If you’re over 38, get in ASAP.
Carrie Bedient MD (12:30)
Next question, should people routinely freeze their sperm with their eggs?
Abby Eblen MD (12:34)
Depends a little bit. If you’re a guy and you’re about to undergo some sort of treatment for cancer, then yeah, I would definitely think about doing that because you don’t know what you’re gonna get. You don’t know how it’s gonna damage your sperm production.
On the other hand, if you’re a woman, you’re born with one set of eggs and that’s all you get. Ultimately the things that most dramatically affect egg quality are age, the other thing is chemotherapy. If you’re beyond the age of about 30, 30 to 35 is a great time to freeze eggs and sometimes beyond that, but we prefer eggs between 30 and 35 because genetically they tend to be better eggs, more likely to be genetically normal.
If you’re thinking about or if you need chemotherapy because you’re undergoing cancer treatment, the critical thing there is to get in to see a fertility physician really quickly because we can’t freeze eggs or we don’t freeze eggs well after you’ve had chemotherapy. It essentially damages at least the pool of eggs for the next year and then ultimately the long-term impact of chemotherapy depends on what type of treatment you got, how long you got it for and the age that you were when you started getting it.
So freezing is a good thing for young women, particularly if you don’t have a partner on the horizon, or if you just want to, for whatever your treatment because you’ve got to finish school or for whatever reason don’t have the money to do IVF right now, to get pregnant or to do fertility treatment, it’s reasonable to freeze eggs.
Carrie Bedient MD (13:55)
How do patients get pregnant if their partner has erectile dysfunction?
Susan Hudson MD (13:58)
They can seek the help of a urologist. I do highly recommend seeing a urologist who has been through fertility training. Just like OBGYNs, they’re really good at doing what general OBGYNs do. However, when you see a fertility specialist, there are other things that we pay attention to. Same thing goes on the male side.
We often enlist their help to see if there needs to be some hormonal modifications, if there needs to be medications taken. Sometimes the male partner may need under extreme situations have sperm aspirated so that we can use it for things like IVF. But a lot of times we can do things a lot more gently and less invasively, but that’s kind of the extreme of the situation, especially when we have gentlemen who maybe have spinal cord injuries or something of similar nature.
Susan Hudson MD (14:54)
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Carrie Bedient MD (15:33)
Next question. How old is too old to be pregnant?
Abby Eblen MD (15:36)
To be pregnant, most of our, and I think we talked about this in a recent episode, most of our clinics will go up to age, I think we said 52 to 55, somewhere that range, but to use your own egg, that’s a different question. So for women, there is an age limit to egg production, quality egg production. Many women have difficulty over the age of about 43 or 44 getting pregnant using their own egg. If they use an egg that was donated from an egg donor with partner sperm or donor sperm, many of those women can carry a pregnancy into their 50s, but they also need to have an evaluation done by a high-risk OB doctor because just because you can do it in some situations doesn’t mean you should. If somebody’s had a lot of medical issues, cardiac issues, out of control, diabetes, high blood pressure, any of those sorts of things, those may preclude a woman in her 50s from getting pregnant or from carrying a pregnancy even if it’s from a donor egg.
Carrie Bedient MD (16:30)
Next question. Can just anybody give sperm for donor sperm?
Susan Hudson MD (16:34)
Yes and no. So anybody can apply to do so if you’re wanting to donate for a sperm bank, anybody can apply. However, only about 1 % of people who apply in professional sperm banks actually get to donate. Now, if you’re talking about you have a friend or family member and want to have a known donation, then yes, they can be a candidate. However, there is screening and processes that have to be performed. Realize that this is under the same rules that cover any other type of organ donation, whether it’s heart, lung, kidney, those types of things. We in the United States have to follow the rules of the FDA. And that can include, physical exams, infectious disease testing. Also realize that there has to be legal documentation of things of who’s going to be the legal parents, responsibilities, and those types of things. Don’t skip that step because otherwise it can make a sticky situation later on.
Carrie Bedient MD (17:39)
Does IVF hurt? .
Abby Eblen MD (17:42)
Yes, well, yes and no. It is a surgical procedure. have to give yourself quite a few injections leading up to IVF and those are uncomfortable. And most people are nervous about those at the beginning, but by about the third or fourth injection, you’re kind of like, not a big deal. Most of the injections are subcutaneous, meaning they go just underneath your skin. So they’re kind like a TB skin test if you’ve ever seen that or somebody that’s ever given themselves a shot because they have diabetes, they’ve given themselves insulin, it’s smaller needles.
Once we transfer an embryo, sometimes the injections are a little bit more uncomfortable, they’re intramuscular. In that situation, we teacher friend or a partner how to do those. The procedure itself, the good news is you’re asleep for that because that requires us to take a needle through the vaginal wall into the ovary and aspirate the egg out. So we do have to prick your ovary times on each side to get the eggs out. And so that can be uncomfortable, but you’re asleep for all.
Carrie Bedient MD (18:35)
Okay, next question. Can I just take pills to get pregnant?
Susan Hudson MD (18:38)
Sometimes. So if you’re a person who does not ovulate or have regular periods on a regular basis, you might be a good candidate for taking pills to help you achieve pregnancy and just be able to use that with timed intercourse. However, if you do have regular menstrual periods, and the rest of your evaluation is good, then we still do recommend intrauterine insemination or IUI because really the synergy of doing the ovulation induction with the IUI is what drives up success rates.
Carrie Bedient MD (19:15)
Couple lifestyle questions. Can I drink while going through any kind of fertility testing evaluation or treatment. Presumably this is drinking alcohol not something like kombucha or filtered water.
Abby Eblen MD (19:23)
and switch.
Generally, there’s no safe amount of alcohol when you’re talking about exposure of fetus to alcohol. In a perfect world, we’d say don’t drink, but we the real world is that people do drink and do enjoy a glass of wine every now and then. I think it’s reasonable to say for the first two weeks of your cycle, we know you’re not pregnant, it’s reasonable to drink alcohol in moderation. I mean, not excessively.
The second two weeks when you don’t know whether or not you’re pregnant is probably reasonable not to drink at all until we’ve found out the results of your pregnancy test.
Susan Hudson MD (19:56)
And as a general rule of thumb, when we’re saying reasonably, that’s no more than one to two in any given day for men or women. And especially speaking to our guys who have weekend drinking, if you sit there and drink a six pack or a 12 pack in a day or on a weekend, that’s too much on those situations because it can interfere with how the brain and the testicles communicate with each other and can have an impact negatively on your fertility future.
Carrie Bedient MD (20:27)
The very, very close relative to that question is, can I drink coffee in fertility treatment?
Abby Eblen MD (20:34)
Yes, but again in moderation and nobody really knows there’s not randomized prospective studies that truly guide what we say, but generally most physicians would say you can have 200 milligrams or less of caffeine during a cycle when you’re trying to get pregnant. If you go to Starbucks though and you get that, you know, giant big whatever grande drink that probably has a lot more caffeine in it than what you would get from your own, coffee at home.
Generally that’s about two cups of coffee for the average coffee drinker, using coffee from their house.
Carrie Bedient MD (21:04)
Third part of this question. Can I vape while going through treatment and pregnancy?
Susan Hudson MD (21:09)
Can you? Yes, should you? Absolutely not. You can do anything. Should you do it? No. Realize that vaping nicotine is bad for eggs. It’s bad for sperm. We’re all really good at doing what we do. That’s probably one of the number one things that you could have control over that’s going to have a positive impact in your fertility future. And even if you’re vaping non nicotine substances. We don’t know what those substances are doing. And theoretically, that stuff is still affecting your reproductive future. So why risk it?
Carrie Bedient MD (21:48)
And the quadruplet in the lifestyle questions is, what does marijuana do? Is it really that bad? Especially if I’m not smoking it and just using an edible.
Abby Eblen MD (21:58)
So we don’t know, that’s the question mark. And certainly don’t know much about edibles. We know that smoking, vaping, marijuana smoking, all those things have chemicals in the smoke that can be damaging. There’s a few studies in animals to show that implantation can be affected negatively by marijuana use. If we don’t really know the answer to that, then the best answer is just don’t do it because we just don’t know what you really could be doing to your future fetus.
Susan Hudson MD (22:22)
I think there’s growing evidence that marijuana use during pregnancy does have negative effects on the baby developing and having a healthy pregnancy.
Carrie Bedient MD (22:31)
From both sides, not just the woman, but the male side as well.
Next one, what foods can I eat to help me get pregnant faster?
Susan Hudson MD (22:39)
We would love to be able to tell you McDonald’s french fries.
Carrie Bedient MD (22:42)
And pineapple, that’s my personal favorite.
Susan Hudson MD (22:45)
Yeah, and the issue is that there’s no one magic food that’s going to help you achieve pregnancy. I’m a big fan of a Mediterranean style diet, lean proteins, healthy fats, lots of green leafy vegetables, have a very colorful bouquet of foods in front of you. So we want to see some green, we want to see some red, we want to see some yellows and oranges, we want to see all of those beautiful things that show healthy vitamins that are coming into your system in a very natural way. But realistically, even though people tout certain fertility diets, I don’t think that there is any well-designed study to show that one thing is better than the other.
Abby Eblen MD (23:22)
Well, one thing I would add to that too is portion size. Some people are like, well, I eat all the right things. I eat oatmeal and avocados and nuts, but I’m just, my weight’s spiraling out of control. I’m gaining weight. Well, even with healthy foods and certainly things like juices, orange juices and things like that, that’s sugar. And you can gain weight on those things. If you’re trying to lose a little bit of weight in order to improve fertility, sometimes it can be difficult if you eat a really large portion size. And just as a rule of thumb, basically your palm size is about the size of the portion you should have of meats, of proteins and things like that. And keep that in mind, try and reduce your portion sizes, but still eat all those healthy things that you would get in a Mediterranean diet.
Carrie Bedient MD (24:06)
Will acupuncture help me get pregnant?
Abby Eblen MD (24:08)
We don’t really know. Acupuncture can help improve blood flow to your endometrium, and that can certainly have some positive impact on implantation potentially, but there’s really not a good way or a good study, and I have recently done a lot of research in that area, and there are very, very, very sparse studies on humans that look at that, but there is some older data that suggests it.
That blood flow to the endometrium can be improved by acupuncture and it can just help you be more relaxed. And that’s certainly a good thing as well.
Susan Hudson MD (24:36)
Probably the strongest studies show that acupuncture when used in combination with Western medicine, so using both Eastern and Western medicine together, tend to improve outcomes. But I do think that one thing that we do know is that one time acupuncture, and I think everybody who’s involved in either Eastern or Western medicine will agree with this, that one time acupuncture really doesn’t do something. What you’re really trying to do is change the physiology of something, whether that’s your endometrium or your chi. And I really don’t know much about acupuncture, but I can say that I did do it when I did my IVF cycle myself, that getting one treatment of acupuncture the week or two that you’re doing your IVF cycle is really probably a waste of money.
That it’s something you need to start before and you do all the way through and potentially into some of your pregnancy.
Carrie Bedient MD (25:31)
Does IVF work?
Abby Eblen MD (25:32)
Yes, it does. That’s why we wrote a whole book on it because it worked really well. In fact, it works so well that a lot of people don’t understand how successful it can be. I’m kind of saying that as a joke, but it’s really true. When you look at what we did three or four decades ago, we were lucky to have a 10 % pregnancy rate probably three decades ago. Now we have a pregnancy rate in the order of 65%. If you have at least one genetically normal embryo, meaning normal boy embryo or normal girl embryo, and we transfer it in you, have a 65 % chance in most centers of having a baby in your arms at the end of nine months. So it’s actually very successful compared to if you tried on your own, if you had just started trying to get pregnant and you were maybe 25, best case scenario, you’d have about a 20 % pregnancy rate with one try. But for people, even people who’ve tried for several years, if they do IVF and have a healthy embryo, 65 % chance of having a baby in their arms at the end of nine months.
Carrie Bedient MD (26:28)
Should I do an IUI?
Susan Hudson MD (26:29)
IUI is a great option. If you have mild male factor infertility, or if you have non male factor infertility, and we’re really maximizing egg and sperm interaction. If you’re older and potentially only want to have one child, and we’re not worried about potentially banking embryos for use in the future, but you have to look at the whole picture of what is your and your partner’s actual physiology and what are your reproductive goals to be able to figure out is IUI or potentially IVF going to be a better option for you.
Carrie Bedient MD (27:07)
And probably the most popular, why am I not getting pregnant?
Abby Eblen MD (27:11)
I don’t know. No, I often say that to couples and they look at me like, did she just say that? And the reason I say that is because there’s many, many, many things we don’t understand about reproduction. And as Susan mentioned earlier, there’s very few tests we have to really look at all the things that could go wrong. What we try and do, the idea is to try and look at all the things that we do have tests for and base a plan based on that to…basically increase the tipping point, to change the tipping point to give you a better chance of getting pregnant. So unfortunately, a certain percentage of patients have unexplained infertility. We can never tell them why they’re not getting pregnant. But certainly it doesn’t mean we can’t do treatment to try and help you get pregnant, even if we don’t know the why.
Carrie Bedient MD (27:50)
And one last question, this one always makes me smile when I see it because it seems so counterintuitive but is really an excellent question because just about everybody has it. Can I have sex while trying to get pregnant when I’m using fertility treatment?
Susan Hudson MD (28:04)
Carrie, you take that one.
Carrie Bedient MD (28:05)
So yes and no. Depends on where you are. It depends on what you’re doing and where you are in treatment. So with…having intercourse in the midst of fertility treatment, if you are, for example, right about to go through an egg retrieval or you’ve just finished an egg retrieval, no, we do not want you to have sex. And the reason for that is we don’t want your ovaries to twist, we don’t want them to bleed, and we really don’t want you to get pregnant with six children all at once. And we’re gonna tell you to abstain during those times. There are other times, if you’re planning an insemination, for example, where absolutely go for it, because we will take any edge in a fight.
And this is something where it’s very helpful to ask your fertility center, ask your doc, ask your coordinators, when is it okay for me to have sex and when do I need to stop having sex? Because every center is going to have a policy and a way of thinking about this, depending on what your situation is, what type of treatment you’re doing and where you are in that. If in doubt, ask, I guarantee you there is nothing you can ask us that we have not heard before. And…most the time that people ask me a question and I can see the trepidation in their face of, my god, this is the weirdest question ever, you don’t even break the top 10. So if you have a question, ask.
So to our audience, thank you so much for listening. Subscribe to Apple Podcasts to have next Tuesday’s episode pop up automatically for you. Be sure to subscribe to YouTube. That really helps us spread reliable information and help as many people as possible.
Susan Hudson MD (29:28)
Visit fertilitydocsuncensored.com to submit questions and sign up for our email list. Pick up your copy of the IVF Blueprint today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookstore. Check out our Instagram and TikTok for quick hits of fertility tips between weekly episodes.
Abby Eblen MD (29:42)
As always, this podcast is intended for entertainment and not a substitute for advice from your own physician. Bye.