Viagra, the well-known medication that helps men deal with erection issues, may also help women conceive. Yes, Viagra can help men have better, longer sex which can lead to “baby making,” but that’s not the only way the little blue pill is helping women.
The new news
A new study shows Erection Treatment Medication Viagra may help women that have difficulty conceiving. Geoffrey Sher, of the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Las Vegas, had a group of patients that couldn’t get pregnant because their uterine lining was too thin. An embryo needs the lining to implant itself on, but if the lining is too thin the embryo doesn’t “stick.”
In most healthy women the uterine lining is at least 8 millimeters thick by the time they ovulate. Many of Sher’s patients had uterine linings half as thick as typical patients. “It all seemed to be related to the amount of blood to the uterine wall through muscle tissue,” he says.
Sher’s small study
Sher recruited four women, all of whom were having difficulty conceiving, to participate in a study. Over the course of one week women used a special suppository containing Viagra four times a day. At the end of that short trial, three of the women conceived and two of the four have given birth to healthy babies.
A problem worth working on
Sher has tried other ideas when it comes to helping women have children. He experimented with nitroglycerine patches, known to stimulate the release of nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessel walls. While the patches did seem to help women get pregnant, the side effects, which included headaches, nausea and sudden drops in blood pressure, were intolerable. “Patients hated the patch,” he says. After that, Sher decided to test his Viagra theory.
The future
Sher hopes that the drug will make it possible for women with this form of infertility to conceive naturally and avoid pricey fertility doctors altogether.
