illness

Women with physical illnesses certainly face many challenges when they decide to have a baby. But certain illnesses can actually affect a woman’s fertility and may require the help of a healthcare provider in order to get pregnant. Some of these illnesses include:

• abdominal disease
• cancer
• sexually transmitted diseases

abdominal disease

The causes of abdominal pain that are most likely to impact your fertility are appendicitis and colitis. These can cause inflammation of the abdominal cavity, which can affect the fallopian tubes and lead to scarring and blockage. Abdominal surgeries can further cause scarring and the formation of adhesions (scars).

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cancer

Cancer – which touches all aspects of a woman’s life – can make it more challenging to conceive by either directly attacking the pelvic organs or through side effects brought about by cancer treatments.

Treatment for a woman with cancer of the ovaries, cervix or endometrium (lining of the uterus) may involve surgery, in which case important elements of the reproductive system may have to be removed. Although the surgery may ultimately save a woman’s life, the prospect of no longer being able to conceive or carry a pregnancy can be devastating for those hoping to still have children.

Some cancer treatments can directly affect female fertility. Both chemotherapy and radiation can damage or destroy cells in the ovaries, or damage the uterine lining and the fallopian tubes, all of which makes it difficult for a woman to conceive. On a more positive note, this infertility can sometimes be temporary, particularly in the case of younger patients. Healthcare providers and the medical community as a whole are recognizing more and more the concerns cancer patients often have about preserving fertility. A woman can have her fertilized embryos frozen and stored for future use.

Although achieving pregnancy using frozen embryos has become commonplace, using frozen unfertilized oocytes (the cells that become eggs) has not yet been successful. Current research focuses on techniques used to freeze oocytes and ovarian tissue to give cancer patients the option to formulate a plan to preserve their fertility prior to treatment.

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sexually transmitted diseases

Many of the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) most likely to affect fertility are those of which women are the least aware. That is, they are the STDs least likely to cause discomfort or produce symptoms. In these cases, women often feel no pain that would otherwise notify them that they might have an STD. When present, symptoms of STDs can include inflammation and abnormal discharge.

STDs that can affect your fertility are gonorrhea, chlamydia, ureaplasma, mycoplasma and human papilloma virus (HPV). Both gonorrhea and chlamydia can cause permanent damage if left untreated, and can eventually lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which refers to any infection of the pelvic organs. PID often results from an STD that has spread from the vagina and cervix to the pelvic organs. It may lead to pelvic or abdominal pain, and severe, untreated infection has been linked to cervical and other cancers, chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver.

PID is one of the most common causes of infertility among women of reproductive age. And the more times a woman gets PID, the greater her risk for infertility. Fortunately, PID as well as many STDs are treatable with antibiotics, and a vaccine is available for the prevention of HPV in women ages nine to 26.

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