If a woman gives birth to a healthy child, then she is healthy herself. Well, this was at least how one of the famous philosophers thought during his time. During the past couple of years, we can see a decrease in the number of children being born in Armenia. This is not only due to poor social conditions, but rather to the poor health of youth today.
Infertility and miscarriages have become major problems for society today. “Infertility has always been an issue for developed and undeveloped countries,” says head of the reproductive department of the center for family health and management Georgi Poghosyan. “There are structural differences and the reasons are different. I can not present concrete statistics, but I can say that I have many patients. The structure of the illness has also changed. Whereas before I used to have women coming to me for second time infertility, today more women are coming to me with first time infertility problems.” Doctors explain the reasons for second time infertility in the following way: at a time when abortions were banned, women were doing abortions against the law. They would do abortions in garages and in homes by asking unknown professionals which later became a serious problem for getting pregnant again. As for first time infertility, one of the reasons for this is the husband’s unlimited time due to work abroad.
“Married couples not only bring money by working abroad, but they also bring viruses which they have “worked out” by not using protection when having sexual relations. These are not venereal diseases and are called sexually transmitted diseases which cause either infertility or miscarriages” says G. Poghosyan. Today, the number of infertilities connected to stress has gone up. Stress raises the level of prelatic hormones in men and women; this represses the release of ovaries for women and sperm production for men. “Different people have different kinds of stress; someone may receive a heart attack, while another infertility.” Sexually transmitted diseases and stress make up practically 70-80% of infertility cases.
It is not hard to cure infertility. It is hard to find the reason for it. Curing is a standard way. “If a woman naturally has a vagina, womb, Eustachian tubes, ovaries and a husband, she can get pregnant.”
Nowadays many people, especially adults, believe that birth control pills cause problems for young women later on in life. Doctors agree with this, but they add that if a woman uses the pill correctly, then they are not that dangerous. “In order for the woman not to get pregnant, there must be some artificial form of infertility. That is formed by different factors,” says G. Poghosyan. “I can not say that they are 100% safe. The problem is that people think that using birth control pills is simple and use them without consulting with doctors. The doctor must decide what is good for the women to use-pills, birth control pills for the vagina, or even abortion.” There are women who are forbidden to use pills because they have lumps and some health problems. The same refers to spirals which can lead up to hemorrhages. The birth control pill must be safe, easy to apply and easy to refuse. G. Poghosyan told us that during his practice, women have taken desperate measures in order to get married and that has caused them problems in the future. “Women like to turn their vagina into a grocery store-they put lemon, aspirin, you name it, into the vagina so that they can create an atmosphere where it will be impossible for her to get pregnant,” says G. Poghosyan. Of course, not many women do this, but there are some.
G. Poghosyan talked about another issue which plays its role in the decrease in the level of child birth. “There are cases when the woman has gotten too old to have a first child. Whereas before girls used to get pregnant at 21 years of age, nowadays men start families late. However, the man’s age is not that important. Now they even say that an older man has a smarter child. What’s important is for the woman to be young. Today, the first thing that the couple thinks about as soon as they get married is having a home to live in.”
Generally, when Armenian grandmothers see girls walking around with open bellies, they say: “Will this girl with an open belly ever get pregnant?” Georgi Poghosyan has good news for the grandmothers out there: open bellies have nothing to do with pregnancy. “Women usually get cold by staying in the cold, or when they get their cold feet, but even that is only an inflammation which does not predict infertility.”
Miscarriage is a more serious issue facing women today. “The rise in miscarriages is connected to infections which immediately affect the immunity.” For example, the majority of people (70-80%) has a problem with herpes, however, the woman with herpes may have a child because the herpes is not active in her organism. But if the immunity gets weak, herpes may come up and cause miscarriages. So, what can we do to have a healthy generation? “We must first of all be healthy in order to have a healthy generation. The health of youth today is in jeopardy. If you tell young people to swim 100 meters, 50 will drown. What I am trying to say is that they are not involved in sports. They smoke, use drugs and this weakens the immunity. However, for some reason, Armenians don’t want to accept this as the reason and throw the blame on the poor social situation. In India, women can eat bananas and have 80 children.”