Welcome to OBGYN Champs, the show where no question is off limits. Join host Morgan Allen and board-certified OB/GYN Dr. Suny Caminero, MD, as they tackle the topics women are often too embarrassed, afraid, or unsure to ask about. From hormones, menopause, and sexual wellness to pregnancy, pelvic health, cosmetic gynecology, and everything in between, each episode delivers honest conversations, expert advice, and practical insights to help women take control of their health with confidence.
Whether you’re in your 20s, navigating motherhood, approaching menopause, or simply looking for trustworthy answers, OBGYN Champs is your place for real talk, myth-busting, and empowering education. Tune in, ask your questions, and join the conversation because your health deserves to be talked about.
Dr. Suny Caminero, MD, OB/GYN
Founder of Cosmetic Gynecology Florida
Website Address: https://cosmeticgynecologyfl.com/
What has your infertility journey been like?
Morgan Allen:
I’m in shape. I thought it would be quick and easy. But I’ve been trying since May, and it is now September. Every month we’re doing our thing, we’re trying our hardest, and then I still get my period, and I’m like, oh, well, I guess I’ll try again next month.
Dr. Suny Caminero:
It is such an emotional topic for every woman that’s dealing with it. Your story is not considered infertility yet; infertility is considered once you have been trying actively for a year, which seems like a long, long time to wait. But for you, it also depends on your age. So if you’re under 35 versus over 35, over 35 is about six months, but under 35 is a year.
So many things have to happen just right for a pregnancy to occur, and when you’re trying, you want it to be right away. It is definitely an emotional letdown when that period comes in. Sometimes your body plays tricks on you: you could be really regular, like 28 or 30 days, and then all of a sudden you’re on a 32-day cycle and think, “Oh, maybe I’m pregnant.” And then the period happens.
It’s such an emotional rollercoaster for so many women that, fortunately, most people will get pregnant after a year of trying. The majority of women who have a regular period and ovulate every month will get pregnant within that year of trying.
Is there a reason why it takes up to a year to get pregnant when trying?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
I don’t know if there’s any science behind the year. I don’t know if that’s when they looked at all the data, and they decided, “this number- 90% of women or 70% of women of this age group get pregnant within that year.” I’m not sure of that data, but what we’re talking about is what is considered infertility.
Infertility is considered after a year of trying, but not necessarily meaning that you can’t get pregnant. Or it could be just some fertility, meaning you’re having more difficulty getting pregnant if you’ve been trying actively every single month for a year.
Can you be doing everything right and still not get pregnant?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
You can be doing everything right. You can have a period every month. You can ovulate. Every month you can have sex just at the right time and still not get pregnant right away. The body’s amazing, and billions of processes have to happen for us to get pregnant. I actually think it’s amazing that we get pregnant so fast. By fast, I don’t mean negatively, but by how many things have to happen exactly right.
The ovary has to ovulate. The perfect egg, without any genetic abnormalities, must form. When it comes to DNA, eggs can normally have tons of different genetic abnormalities. You have to have the sperm that finds its way right at the perfect time. The egg itself lives for about 24 hours, so once it ovulates, the sperm has 24 hours to reach it. The sperm lives about five days.
But the sperm has to survive the trip up there. If there are vaginal infections or infections of the uterus, they can cause inflammation of the inner lining of the uterus. So it essentially kills sperm. And then the sperm has to get through, which is part of male-factor infertility.
There’s a lot of male-factor infertility, actually, so the sperm has to find it, and then it has to find the egg and fertilize that egg. Once that egg is fertilized, it has to go through all the duplicating and multiple, multiple, multiple processes. Then it has to come down to the uterus once it’s fertilized and find a good spot to implant.
Because all that stuff has to happen, it doesn’t always happen the first time. The second time, the third time, it may; for the majority of women, within a year, the majority of women, particularly those less than 35 years old, will get pregnant within that first year of trying every month. What I usually tell women is, please don’t get disappointed if it didn’t happen by your third or fourth month; of course, you’re going to see everybody around you getting pregnant when you’re trying, right?
Continue to eat healthy as much as you can, stay active in your lifestyle as you have, and have intercourse within those days of ovulation. One of the reasons why you want to have intercourse a few days before ovulation and a few days after is because there really are no signs that say it’s going to happen. When you use ovulation kits, they don’t tell you that ovulation occurred. The ovulation kit says your hormone has changed, so ovulation can happen now. So you get this surge. Sometimes that surge is high enough to cause ovulation. Sometimes the egg will come out. Sometimes it may not, or it may be a little bit delayed.
So having intercourse within that time of ovulation is what gives you the highest chance.
I’ve heard that sperm from men who smoke marijuana move a little slower. Is that true?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
I don’t know that about marijuana. It’s a hot topic, sure, but I have not seen anything positive in the infertility world when it comes to marijuana in trying to get pregnant. I don’t have any data to tell me whether that sperm is. I know that people do move a little bit slower.
They’ll move a little bit more chill with marijuana, but it doesn’t necessarily prevent pregnancy. There are so many people that get pregnant on marijuana or on drugs. So many things can happen; pregnancy can still happen because life will try to find a way.
All of that stuff can happen, but I don’t know whether their sperm is slow or not.
Morgan Allen:
I’m just trying to debunk the myths that I see on social media.
Can consuming alcohol prevent pregnancy?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
It depends. Most men who are chronic alcoholics have male factor infertility because their sperm is just not good. It doesn’t move. It’s irregular morphology. They don’t have the numbers. The sperm is absolutely affected by heavy drinking. It’s also affected by vaping and by energy drinks, believe it or not.
A lot of men drink a lot of energy drinks because many work outside or long hours and have to stay awake, and their sperm does pay the price. You can see it on a semen analysis: the sperm count goes down. The morphology is different. They don’t move as much. Another thing that affects male sperm is testosterone. So if anybody is on the side, it can drop them off completely.
How does stress change your fertility?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
Stress affects your cortisol level. A high cortisol level will prevent you from ovulating. It’s essentially an ovulation issue. If your egg can’t come out because of the high stress, then you won’t be able to get pregnant because of that.
When somebody’s struggling with infertility, they’ve been trying for a while, and it’s not happening, you do want to have a workup. One of the workups is something called an HSG: a hysterosalpingogram. You look at your fallopian tubes to make sure they’re open. You could have sex till the end of time, but if your fallopian tube is closed, the sperm isn’t going to get to the egg. Essentially, they’re not going to meet, or if they meet because there’s a little opening, they could create an ectopic pregnancy, which is a pregnancy in the fallopian tube, which is a medical emergency.
Some women, before they start to try to get pregnant, will go and do a program to make sure that their tubes are open. They don’t want to go a year down the line and find out that their fallopian tubes are blocked, and there are different things that can block your fallopian tubes. One is a history of endometriosis because the inflammation can cause the fallopian tubes to block, or any pelvic infection can also cause the fallopian tubes to block. So it’s a good idea to make sure those are open.
Morgan Allen:
What types of infections?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
Great question. Typically, they’re what we call an ascending infection: an infection that goes from the vagina to the uterus and then out the Fallopian tubes. The ones that cause the blockage are STDs, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. Those are the typical infections that can go up and affect your fallopian tubes.
And you can have those infections without knowing you have them, and you can get rid of those infections without knowing that you got rid of them, meaning your immune system just got rid of them. And you never knew you had it. The majority is completely asymptomatic. When we see it, we do a hysterosalpingogram, where you see the fallopian tubes, or we do a hysteroscopy, which is a camera inside the belly to see what are called Fitz-Hugh-Curtis adhesions on the liver. It tells us this person may have had a reinfection in the past and never knew they had it.
As an OB/GYN, there are some tests that I run, and there are others that I would send for infertility testing. Some of the tests are blood tests, obviously. If you’re ovulating, I’ll see if your hormones are regulated. I’ll also do an ultrasound to look at the uterus, make sure there isn’t a fibroid or anything like that in the uterus, or to see if the fallopian tubes are abnormal.
Fallopian tubes really don’t show up on ultrasound unless they are abnormal. You can also see if the ovaries are polycystic; if that’s a normal ovary, you do the ultrasound. You also send for the hysterosalpingogram to take a look at the fallopian tube and see if they’re open.
You also have to do a semen analysis because almost 50% of infertility is male factor in fertility. To only test the woman means you’re missing half the puzzle. If you do that semen analysis and if everything comes back as normal, then now you have to kind of investigate what’s going on. That’s part of that infertility workup.
Do at-home semen tests work?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
I have seen some of them that are actually pretty good. With those tests, you can see the sperm count and whether they’re moving. There’s a lot of other information that you can’t tell on those tests, which is why many infertility practices do a full panel on the semen. The semen has to be fresh semen in order to really know whether or not, you know, the accuracy of the results, essentially.
Some of them are good because if you get it and it says zero sperm, then you will go get a real one done and find out what’s happening. If you get it and it says you have 150 million sperm, are they moving? Because they could be sitting there doing nothing. You have to know whether the sperm are actually motile versus just present. Yeah.
What can men do to get their sperm moving?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
At that point, you have to test their hormone levels, check their labs, and see what their brain hormones are doing to their testicles. What’s happening? Why are these sperm, or what toxins are they exposed to? Why do they not have a tail? Is this all? Is this just some? Does the man use a hot tub, and they sat in a hot tub for a long time and killed their sperm?
Can too much exposure to heat affect your fertility?
Morgan Allen:
I was a hot yoga instructor for ten years and was hosting hot yoga every week, which could probably affect my body. I actually quit that job in June to make sure that I’m not killing anything in my body.
Dr. Suny Caminero:
So hot yoga, not as much. The testicles are different because the ovaries are internal. So the ovaries are always in a hotter environment than the environment around you. Men’s testicles are outside the body because they need air. They don’t like being hot, and so if they sit in a hot tub, that actually kills the sperm; the good thing is that that’s not permanent. In three months, they come back.
Morgan Allen:
Is this the same for everyday heat? My husband’s a commercial electrician, and he’s out in the heat digging holes in the Florida sunshine.
Dr. Suny Caminero:
The biggest thing for him would be making sure he’s healthy, eating well, drinking lots of water, and not drinking energy drinks.
Why does infertility happen?
Dr. Suny Caminero:
For the most part, we don’t know what’s causing infertility. We don’t know about 40% of cases. Often, you’ll do all these tests and find nothing. The good thing is, we have ways to help you get pregnant. So even if we don’t find anything, there are so many things that we can do to help you get pregnant, so please don’t give up.
If you’re older than 35, don’t wait longer because your eggs are getting older. Go in and get help. Sometimes that help is just giving you a pill to make you ovulate. Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Some women go straight to IVF because they want it to happen right now. It’s the fastest way to make it happen; it doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen, but it’s the fastest option. Many people do intrauturonal insemination.
It’s timed, meaning you take a medicine that helps the ovary produce more than one egg at a time. Then, at a certain time, you can do an ultrasound; then you do a trigger injection, and the trigger injection makes it so that the egg comes out in 36 hours.
Since you know when that egg is coming out, you can inject the sperm before that it comes out. Remember, the egg only lives for those 24 hours, so you put that sperm before that egg comes out to give you the highest chance of getting pregnant for that cycle. Oh, wow. There are so many things you can do to help you get pregnant.
I don’t want people to think, “this is not happening for me.” Nowadays, there are many avenues, and it doesn’t have to be IVF right away. Some people do choose IVF right away, and that’s a choice they can make.
