After my research on the topic of cannabis and fertility, in which I gave a talk at Yo San University’s Integrative Fertility Symposium in March of 2023, my perspective on the subject of cannabis and fertility took a dramatic shift.
Once upon a time ( about 2017) a woman asked me if she had to stop taking her CBD gummy because she wanted to get pregnant. According to the research, I was in the 90% of providers who did not know.
Now I know that it is best if you stop your gummy if you want to maximize your fertility. IT IS ALSO IMPORTANT THAT YOUR PARTNER MAXIMIZE HIS FERTILITY IF HE STOPS CANNABIS AS WELL, so says the research.
According to a Canadian study, 73% of women disclosed cannabis use to their provider when they were seeking help with fertility. Of those providers, LESS THAN 10% told them that it was in their best interest to stop cannabis use.
I HATE taking away a coping mechanism from a patient, be it alcohol, sugar, tobacco or cannabis, without assisting people find the help they need to bolster their health. Thus these addictive substances are not so attractive.
For example, for those with a sweet tooth, I help find healthy sugar-free substitutes and I help them shift their metabolism so that sugar is not so attractive. For those who find it difficult to give up cannabis, I develop a plan using Chinese herbal formulas, carefully designed towards patient’s health concerns, AND their constitution to assist in weening process.
I want people to be happy and healthy! I want to help them find the best way forward towards health and if they wish it, fertility! We will example some alternatives to cannabis use for those wishing to fall pregnant in further posts.
For those science geeks out there, what is the Endocannabinoid System (ECS)?
The ECS is the system that rules all systems with receptors in the brain, liver, heart, gonads, adrenals, ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes, embryos, sperm heads and tails, various parts of the brain, skeletal tissue and more.
This system is incredibly vast. Even new embryos, only 5 days old, have endocannabinoid receptors! Therefore, looking at the ways cannabis use can change our fertility is a big topic. Can you imagine cannabis use changing the way your sperm or egg developed, how it traveled down the fallopian tube in the form of an embryo… and influenced that embryo’s implantation?
From a sperm’s life to the life of an embryo, passage through the fallopian tube to implantation in the uterus, our ECS is hard at work! As we discussed, more stimulation of the ECS is not necessarily better, and the body is under the direction of the ECS at every level.
When the fetus implants, the body is working to guard the pregnancy. This and the next phase of pregnancy will be the topics of discussion during the following series on cannabis and your fertility.
