Female Problems
In Biblical times, when
no children came, the woman was to blame. Society judged
her very harshly, and considered her to be of low value.
Some cultures even allowed a man to divorce his wife
if she did not bear children. Thankfully, our society
does not make women outcasts for failure to produce
a child.
It is still difficult
though, and when a woman does not have a child when
she expects to, her first assumption is that the problem
is with herself. A woman is likely to go to the doctor
and get checked out long before a man will.
The next thing she is
likely to assume, is that if she is not getting pregnant,
that perhaps she is not ovulating. In fact, failure
to ovulate, while a dead certainty to prevent pregnancy,
is not actually going to be the problem in many cases.
Often, ovulation is
occurring properly, and the problem lies elsewhere.
Rarely, a woman has a structural problem, such as blocked
fallopian tubes, or uterine anomalies which interfere.
Frequently though, the problem is much more subtle,
and half the time, it is not even her problem!
D&Cs can also cause
temporary infertility, or contribute to repeat miscarriage.
You will find that virtually every source online states
that "a D&C is a safe and simple procedure",
and indeed, many doctors now recommend them with every
miscarriage, when that simply is not necessary for the
vast majority of women. They do act like there is no
risk to the procedure, when in fact there is! Read the
fine print on the sheet they have you sign before you
have one, and it tells a very different story.
In between my fourth
and fifth children, I suffered a mid-pregnancy loss.
She grew only to the size of a 3 1/2 month fetus, though
I was 20 weeks along. I opted at that time to have a
D&C, because my uterus does not contract like it
should, so there were significant medical reasons for
choosing that option. I had read that the average time
to achieve pregnancy after that procedure was 1 year.
My doctor assured me otherwise, that there was no reason
I could not conceive again within a month or two. It
took just under a year, and then I miscarried again.
I conceived again the next month, and carried her to
term. At the time, I could get pregnant just from smiling
at my husband, so that length of time was unusual.
It is very likely that
repeat D&Cs increase the likelihood of early miscarriage,
and that they can increase fertility problems. It is
known that conditions like placenta accreta (where the
placenta grows into the uterine muscle) are more common
in women who have had C-Sections and D&Cs, which
is proof that damage of some kind is done from D&Cs.
It is sad that some doctors may be recommending an unnecessary
procedure which may in fact cause a condition for which
the woman returns to the doctor later for further treatment.
Many women track ovulation
by cervical mucus changes, or by temperature elevations.
Both methods require diligent observation. For women
with hormonal issues, cervical mucus changes may not
occur, or may be misleading. I have never been able
to track ovulation by that method.
For women who are experiencing
repeat early miscarriage, that masks as infertility,
very early pregnancy testing may be needed if you want
to be able to get any kind of treatment through doctor,
and to get your insurance company to pay for it. The
problem is, pregnancy tests do not show a positive result
until about 4 days before a missed period, and then
with only about a 50% accuracy rate. If conception is
occurring, but implantation is not successful - either
does not happen, or happens incorrectly - then HCG levels
may already be declining by the time that a pregnancy
test would show anything. And your doctor will not take
your word for it.
The problems that a woman may have that are treatable
by non-medical methods, are those related to chemical
exposure, infrequent ovulation, autoimmune responses,
allergic responses, high blood sugar, anemia, hormonal
imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, and other related
disorders.
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