Fertility is an area of life that's been around ... well, it's been around as long as humans have. In terms of the medical world, we have made a lot of advances over the years. We're able to help women who are having trouble conceiving get pregnant using in vitro fertilization and we're able to use surrogacy to let one woman carry another's baby to term. But despite these amazing medical advances, many people are still prone to believing folklore when it comes to getting pregnant.
Some of the beliefs that people have about fertility are relatively harmless. They hang extra mistletoe in the house at the holidays and drink teas that were once thought to appease the fertility goddesses. They probably don't work fertility magic but they certainly don't harm the mother-to-be. And these folklore-based rituals may even be comforting to women who are suffering from infertility.
However, there are other beliefs about pregnancy that are derived from times before medicine helped our understanding and some of those can be damaging to women. For example, a recent study revealed that over thirty percent of women believe that a mother's bad mood could cause either miscarriage or a baby born with birth defects. (Read the full study here.) Blaming the mother for her fertility problems is something that medicine should have helped us stop doing long ago.
There is definitely something a little bit magical about having a baby. One life being brought to fruition inside of another is an amazing thing. But it's not something that's so unbelievable that we lack understanding about it. Myths like these can cause women to believe that something is wrong with them when it comes to having a baby. The reality is that if you find a fertility doctor to assist you in getting pregnant, you're taking charge of your life and bringing something wonderful to the world around you.
Question of the Day: Can you think of any fertility myths that you think might be true?
