|
Make that New Year’s Resolution - Give up the Cigs for Fertility’s Sake |
|
|
Written by Administrator
|
|
Tuesday, 18 October 2005 |
If smokers making a new year’s resolution to give up ever needed a
further incentive, it’s a report on Smoking and Reproductive Health,
published by the BMA in February 2004.
The effects of smoking on the unborn child have long been known and
women have been advised to give up smoking while pregnant for some
years. Yet awareness of the effects of smoking on fertility is less
common and advice from doctors and gynaecologists can be patchy.
The report highlights that before that smoking can have far-reaching
effects on a couple’s ability to conceive, causing changes in sex
hormones, affecting the interaction of egg and sperm, and the
implantation of fertilized embryos.
According to the report, women who smoke can take longer to conceive,
with chances of conception decreased by 10-40 per cent per cycle.
And the heavier the smoker, the longer it may take. Women who
smoke were found to be twice as likely to be infertile as non-smokers,
and smoking can worsen the chances of successful fertility treatment,
with smokers producing fewer eggs.
But before men think they’re off the hook, the report dishes up more
evidence to help them kick the habit. Men who smoke have a lower
sperm count than non-smokers, and their semen tends to contain a higher
proportion of malformed sperm. Nicotine by-products found in
semen also reduce motility and men aren’t off the hook when fertility
treatment gives a helping hand, either. In a study of
couples having ICSI treatment, while 38 per cent of women with
non-smoking partners became pregnant, the only 22 per cent of women
whose partners smoked had successful treatment.
There is good news. Stopping smoking can reverse the
effects. Most studies have shown that women who have stopped
smoking take no longer to become pregnant than women who never smoked
and sperm count and quality improves when men stop smoking.
So how are couples seeking fertility treatment dealing with this added
incentive to give up? Is it easier or harder to stop smoking when
undergoing fertility treatment?
Nats, a member of the Fertility Friends ‘stop smoking’ board and smoker
for 14 years, said that she wanted to give up smoking before but found
it difficult. Her gynaecologist advised her that she should stop
to help her conceive. Nikki, a Fertility Friends member and
former smoker of 20-30 cigarettes a day for 15 years was not advised
specifically to give up to improve her fertility, but told by her
doctor that smoking while pregnant would not be advisable.
Claire, a former ten-a-day smoker and Fertility Friend also received
conflicting advice from her gynaecologist. I wanted to give up
smoking before I started trying to conceive. I knew it was bad
for my health and I knew I wouldn’t want to smoke if I got
pregnant. My gynaecologist asked me how many I smoked and just
said, ‘well, it’s not good for you, and you should give up, but it’s
not really going to have a strong effect on conception.’ I take
full responsibility for my own smoking habit but it might have been the
extra push I needed early on.
Is when you’re trying to conceive a good time to stop smoking?
Many cite the pressure of fertility treatment and yet another reason to
feel guilty as a further barrier to giving up. At their lowest
points in fertility treatment, smoking is an obvious prop. Claire
says I still smoked when we were trying to conceive naturally as I was
miserable and depressed that I wasn’t getting pregnant. And that made
me feel bad that I wasn’t helping myself. Every time I had a
negative result in treatment I reached straight for the cigarettes to
deal with the stress. Nikki finds the chance her
treatment will be successful keeps her off the cigarettes. I think that
fertility treatment did make a big difference as I still do feel like
one at times but the thought of possibly falling pregnant has stopped
me.
So how do smokers successfully become ex-smokers? According to
the BMA’s report, 84 per cent of smokers who have used smoking
cessation services to stop smoking succeeded with some form of nicotine
replacement therapy (NRT), available on NHS prescription.
Although there are some concerns that nicotine can have effects on an
unborn foetus, the effects of smoking are considered more dangerous and
so NRT can also be prescribed to women who are already pregnant and
trying to stop.
Nats used NRT. I used nicotine patches for two weeks, this
was to get my hands used to doing nothing whilst I still had nicotine
going into my system. I knew I wouldn’t do both to start with, once I
overcame that, I just stopped the patches. I have been clean for 18
months and I will never ever smoke again. I believe it worked as a
combination of two things, one being the patches, and the second was
the fact that I really wanted to make it work!
Nikki made a new year’s resolution in 2005 and used a nicotine inhaler
to make it happen. I've tried so many different ways:
patches, will power, gum, but the inhaler made me feel like I was still
smoking as I missed the inhalation of the cigs when I tried other
methods. By the time I realised I was being weened off nicotine, I had
already been leaving the inhaler at home. I would recommend it to
anyone who misses the inhalation when they try to give up.
Claire chose the willpower route before her last, successful,
IVF. Eventually I found it easier to give up because I had
to keep stopping during fertility treatment, in case I was pregnant, so
it was an easier progression to not bother starting again. I also
stopped drinking alcohol for similar reasons and I found that by not
drinking I’d lost one of my biggest triggers to smoke.
Many women undergoing fertility treatment find it easier to stop
smoking during this period because they get themselves in shape in
other ways at the same time. They feel more confident when they
can take control of other aspects of their wellbeing in preparation for
treatment. Nats made the link between giving up smoking and the
advice her doctor had given her to lose weight to help her
fertility. I lost weight before giving up because I knew that I
would gain weight and that again has been an issue for me. By losing
the weight I could gain a bit during the process and not use that as an
excuse to start again. I did gain more...but have since joined Weight
Watchers and lost alot of weight.
I also suffered quite bad night sweats and felt feverish at nights,
after about five rough nights I knew I was nearly over the worst and
kept reminding myself that I didn’t want to experience that again and
there was no way I was going back...
Claire found increased confidence by changing her diet, stopping
alcohol and caffeine to help her chances in IVF. I often used
to beat myself up that I couldn’t seem to give up cigarettes for
my own health reasons, although I desperately wanted to. I knew
smoking could kill me but that didn’t seem to be enough. But I
wanted to do everything I could to make the IVF work. If I
could make all the other changes I could change my smoking habits
too. I felt much healthier from a better diet and smoking was the
last thing that prevented me from really feeling good. I was sick
of being a smoker altogether and desperately wanting my baby was
another reason to think ‘I can do this’.
For Nikki there’s still one more challenge: Trying to get my husband to
give up for fertility reasons is harder. He is still smoking.
|
|
 |
|
Our most recent articles...
Syndicate our News on your site!
|
