Many couples are grappling with infertility without knowing what to do.
A naturopath, Dr Solomon Abutoh, says there is no cause for alarm because the condition can be treated.
According to him, regular consumption of juicy fruits, such as oranges, pineapples and water melon can help to correct the condition.
He suggested that apples, pawpaw, bananas and strawberry should be part of daily diet to help detoxify the system.
According to him, vegetables, such as waterleaf, pumpkin leaves (ugu), ewedu, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, Brussels sprout and carrots are also useful.
He said: “When couples clear or detoxify their systems, especially digestive, hormonal and reproductive pathways, they would be fertile enough to produce their young.”
The alternative medicine practitioner recommended whole meal, bread and oats for men challenged by infertility.
“Similarly, seeds, such as ogbolo, melon (egusi in Yoruba) and sunflower oil as well as wheat germ oil and peanuts are good in boosting fertility. They should reduce alcohol consumption; nicotine from tobacco should be minimised or done away with, as these deplete male’s semen production capabilities,” Abutoh said.
Honey, he said, should replace white sugar during breakfast. For women, he approved plants, such as hormonal adjusters like jokoje in Yoruba, milk thistle and ewedu.
Pounded yam, Abutoh said, should be consumed moderately three times a week, adding that eggs and oily fish are ideal for male and female.
“Beef is not too good at this period, though it contains iron and protein, which could be sourced from fish, eggs, vegetables. Where there are infections, a physician must be consulted to determine type of infection and appropriate treatment thereof,” he said.
The alternative medicine practitioner identified age, erectile dysfunction (ED) and blocked tube, among others as problems affecting fertility.
Age, he said, is the major problem because couples above 30 years are more likely to experience the condition since their reproductive organs are losing their natural abilities to perform optimally.
Describing infertility, he said, it is a health condition that is generating problems in family and social circles.
“Infertility is a biological situation whereby couples are unable to have children of their own after 12 months of having intimacy,” he said.
He said infertility can be primary and secondary. “Primary infertility means a couple has never produced any child while secondary portends they have produced, but stopped midway, especially before menopause,” he said.
Abutoh said women are not the only cause of infertility as men also have something to do with it. “It is wrong to ascribe infertility to women aloneThe fact, however, remains that it takes the male and the female to bring forth a child. It is absolutely wrong therefore to point accusing fingers at the woman alive, as has frequently been the case,” he said.
He said women who still see their menses should ovulate every 28 days to be able to have babies of their own.
“The follicle stimulating and the Leutenizing Hormones must be functioning at optimum to make for quality production of eggs in the ovaries. The fallopian tubes which connect the ovaries with the uterus (womb) must be free of any blockade or rupture, however slight, as the corpus leutus are meant to glide through without any form of inhibition,” he said.
Abutoh said further: “There must not have been any form of mechanical damage to the tubes or the uterus in the process of previous dilatation and curettage (D and C) on the part of the women, especially during previous illegal, termination of pregnancies by the female concerned.
“The female blood and entire reproductive system including the vagina, urethra and even the urinary bladder must be free of infections, especially bacterial and fungal whether sexually transmitted or not.
The woman having challenges, he said, must be emotionally balanced as it could interfere with the relevant reproduction hormones.
Besides, the women must not be exposed to prolonged use of contraceptives, as they are capable of depleting the chances of ovulation, and indeed conception.
He identified erectile dysfunction, a situation where a man is unable to sustain an erection, stressing that the process of reproduction in males revolves around the question of erection.
The alternative medicine practitioner said the man’s reproduction system, such as testes, prostate gland and bladder as well as urethra, must be free of infections like bacterial, fungi and viral, whether or not sexually transmitted.
He said the male sperm bank must not be below 400 million per ejaculation, adding that it must have the needed motility.
Moreover, it is another fact, which determines the liveliness of the male sperm and ability to swim through the female organ to the cervix, to fertilise the female eggs within the fallopian tubes, before implementation in the uterus.
He said excessive consumption of alcohol is capable of undermining the male’s ability to effect conception, even when the female situation are intact, especially in secondary infertility as the man ages.
He advised men to be in the right frame of mind, before and during intimacy for the whole process of erection and proper ejaculation.
Traces of diabetes mellitus, he said, in the male could affect erection as even sustenance thereof.
Abutoh said orthodox tests remain the best way to determine an infertile woman.
“We ask them to test for infection (Urine/Blood, Swabs), Then genotype, hormone fests (LH, FSH) and Prolactin. Progesterone/oestrogen and hysterosalpinogram, laparoscopy and fertiloscopy,” Abutoh said.
Men, he said, are also told totest for infection (Urine/Blood), genotype and diabetes (fasting blood sugar).
Others are semen analysis/count and motility test for per cent of fully active, slightly active or dead semen.
This test, he said, determines the capability of the male semen to penetrate right through the cervix, to fertilise the eggs released by the ovaries.
