Niels H. Lauersen - Getting Pregnant: What Couples Need to Know Right Now

When I was in medical school in the 1960s, the birth control pill was the prescription of the decade. Indeed, young men and women were far more concerned with avoiding pregnancy than with getting pregnant. Happily, this is no longer the case. Today, getting pregnant is something more and more couples view as a joyous life-expanding experience to be celebrated and cherished. And, too, we have seen the birth of the single mother, with many women choosing to honor the alarm on their biological clock by becoming mothers whether or not they have a suitable mate in mind.

Fortunately, along with these changes in our attitude about pregnancy came some equally important scientific advances that made it faster and easier for all women to get pregnant, and for most couples to achieve their parenting goals.

New information about both male and female biology has given us ways to encourage not only faster but healthier conceptions, with fewer chances for miscarriage and birth defects.

Discoveries concerning the cause of infertility have given us new ways for men and women to protect their childbearing ability as well as their sexual vitality while they safely postpone childbearing.

Outstanding advances in nutritional therapy have given us new ways to harness the power of vitamins and minerals and in the process helped us not only reduce the risk of birth defects but also protect and even increase fertility, in both men and women.

Stellar progress made in the treatment of infertility itselfincluding powerful new medications, new forms of microsurgery, and brand-new laboratory-assisted procedureshas not only allowed more previously infertile couples to get pregnant, but has given us new ways that even parents over age thirty-five can have a safer, healthier pregnancy.

In fact, thanks to what we have learned in the past several years alone, almost every woman who wants to have a baby can have one!

Why I Wrote This Book

Although the field of reproductive medicine continues to explode with new advances, my deep commitment to fertility research goes back several decades. As a member of several key scientific teams I have devoted thousands of hours to reproductive research, and my work has taken me around the world more than three times, to the capitals of Europe where the first test tube baby was conceived, to Russia, South America, and the Far Eastanywhere I could learn the latest information on the reproductive system. Beginning in 1990, I joined forces with a team of dedicated physicians and researchers to create a medical center specifically to deal with infertility problems. As a result I have been able to see, firsthand, the exciting, almost miraculous ways in which the field of reproductive medicine has continued to grow, and how it can and does change peoples lives.

Couples who were thought to be hopelessly infertile are now able to conceive and deliver not just one, but two and three perfect children.

Those who previously miscarried up to fifteen times are now giving birth to healthy, full-term babies.

Women who thought they were too old to have a baby are now giving birth to wonderful, beautiful children. Even those women who reach menopause prematurelyin their mid-forties, for examplehave brand-new options for having a baby of their own.

Time and again my colleagues and I have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of our fertility patients who are able to have all-natural conceptions and healthy pregnancies just by making a few simple dietary and lifestyle changes.

As astounding and important as these advances were, as I traveled the country giving lectures and making television appearances, I began to see that too many couples were still not taking advantage of all the possibilities. My colleague and coauthor Colette Bouchez, an award-winning and respected medical journalist and researcher, began to see the same thing, even among her sophisticated urban readers. While we both did our best to bring much of the good news about reproductive medicine to the public, we could see that too often, too many couples were still in the dark about all of their options. While some, certainly, had the basic information about such procedures as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination, both Colette and I were continually amazed at how few people were informed about the really dramatic advances. Indeed, even many physicians were not aware of some of the great and relatively easy new fertility procedures that we knew could change peoples lives.