A leading Ghanaian fertility expert has advised women who are addicted to coffee to reduce its intake if they want to get pregnant.
The Founder of Lister Hospital and Fertility Centre, Dr Edem K. Hiadzi, who gave the advice, said it had been found that significant coffee intake in women could make it difficult for them to get pregnant.
He added that men addicted to coffee could experience similar effect.
“Once the baby isn’t coming, watch every single thing you do,” he advised.
Dr Hiadzi, who is also the immediate past President of the Fertility Society of Ghana, said this in a Merck Foundation Health Media Training organised online.
Training programme
The training was designed to benefit journalists in understanding the infertility issue in African communities and to learn the best media practices to cover such issues in order to raise awareness by following international standards of reporting and media ethics.
It also highlighted the important role that journalists played to influence African communities to create a cultural shift, to break the silence, and be the voice of the voiceless in order to raise awareness on sensitive social and health issues.
Dr Hiadzi said other causes of infertility in sub-Saharan Africa — one of the regions with highest burden of infertility — included infections in the reproductive tract which were commonly due to sexually transmitted infections (STIs); overweight, underweight and poor diet.
“We know that the majority have delivery by traditional birth attendants or in churches where non-steroidal delivery procedures are practiced.
This results in very high pelvic infection after delivery, and subsequent difficulty with pregnancy, leading to infertility. Other infections like tuberculosis or schistosomiasis may damage both the individual or the tubes, leading to infertility.
Then the practice of female genital mutilation, which sadly still occurs in developing countries, is usually associated with complications leading to infertility,” he said.
Additionally, he said, having HIV could also affect the body’s ability to produce hormones required to be pregnant and lead to early menopause.
STIs
Dr Hiadzi said Chlamydia and gonorrhoea, which were also STIs, could leave individuals with certain infections which could cause pelvic inflammation and complications which led to either infertility or ectopic pregnancies should pregnancy occur.
Other factors which posed a threat to fertility, he said, included viral infections such as mumps, previous hernia repair, varicocele and drug and alcohol abuse.
Dr Hiadzi said infertility affected not only women but men as well, adding that it was now known that about half of the causes of infertility were due to men.
He mentioned the impact of infertility to include violence, especially for women, divorce, emotional stress, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.
The fertility specialist urged the media to spread the information that infertility was not a stigma, and further called for public awareness and health education, as well as for the public to practice safer sex.
The Vice-President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Rebecca Ekpe, urged journalists to promote expert-led discussions on infertility, adding that in this era of social media, journalists needed to be circumspect and to make sure they were not contributing to the fray, but rather providing credible information to address issues, including stigma surrounding infertility.
A consultant psychiatrist, Dr Francisca Tshitenge Bwalya, said it was important for the media to ensure that what they published or broadcast on infertility was medically accurate and not communicated in a manner that contributed to stigma of the condition.
Dr Ruben Kanime, an alumnus of Merck Foundation, spoke on the importance of a healthy lifestyle to prevent diabetes and hypertension.
