Dr. Lauren LeBal is a specialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, focusing on fertility, recurrent miscarriage, the female cycle and menopause from an integrative perspective.
Rather than relying on cutting-edge technology to solve women’s infertility problems, Lubal believes in finding the root causes of reproductive disorders.
But it wasn’t always this way: Rubal started her career in conventional medicine, even performing IVF procedures, but what she learned led her to move away from the practice.
“Right now, it’s estimated that there are over a million embryos frozen in the United States, potentially indefinitely, and I think these couples are really struggling with what to do with these embryos,” Lebar says. Allie Beth Stuckey.
“I think it’s because they instinctively know that this is my child, so they don’t know whether they would be more comfortable with, say, adopting this embryo, or donating it to research where it will be destroyed, or just having it destroyed,” she explains.
When Rubal decided to leave, she felt her “soul was at risk.”
“This unborn child is a human being, and that human being has inherent dignity and should be protected as the most vulnerable of beings,” she explained, adding, “These technologies, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.”
There are also greater risks for mothers who use IVF and their resulting babies. One risk for mothers is a 26% increased risk of premature birth, which Lebar says “can be devastating.”
“When a baby is born prematurely, it can cause problems with every organ system, including cerebral palsy and death.”
The risk of high blood pressure problems during pregnancy more than doubles, as does a condition called severe maternal illness, which Lebar describes as “a condition in which the mother becomes ill and is close to death — close to death.”
“It can lead to life-threatening bleeding, or it can be something called pregnancy-induced hypertension, which can lead to eclampsia. Or it can lead to sepsis, which is an infection of the body,” said Rubal, noting that these are just some of the risks to the mother.
“For babies, there is up to a 40% increased chance of non-chromosomal birth defects, increased autism and a four-fold increased risk of stillbirth,” she said, adding: “Thankfully, these figures are low overall.”
Meanwhile, doctors are trained to use the practice as a band-aid rather than exploring more serious issues that could be wreaking havoc on a woman’s fertility.
“It wasn’t until I started looking more deeply into Fertility Awareness Technique that I realized I was learning some things,” Lebar explains. “In fact, in my opinion, only about 6% of obstetrician-gynecologists and family medicine physicians could correctly answer questions about Fertility Awareness Technique and its effectiveness in both achieving and preventing pregnancy.”
Stuckey, an opponent of IVF, was impressed.
“The body really does work together and everything affects something, and often we have a very siloed approach to how these little things work together,” she said, adding, “The fact that we’re giving that power and knowledge to couples and helping us become healthier in the process is really amazing.”
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