Genesis Fertility Clinic Blog
searching: “cervix”
April 14, 2010
Robitussin to the rescue?
Some remedies go in and out of fashion. Flat ginger ale for nausea, lemon & honey tea for a sore throat, beer for limp hair, vitamin E for wound healing, tea tree oil for warts, etc. They all have a plausible relationship to their believed effect and they have all been reported to help their ailment.
But did they really help or was it coincidence? That’s where science comes in. It’s the difference between anecdotal-based medicine and evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine has been what has defined “good medicine” for the past 40 years; prove that a treatment is better than luck and physicians will support it.
I do my best to practice evidence-based medicine, and I know I would want evidence-based medicine practiced on me. If I had a cancer I’d like to know that the treatment I was given was tested on X number of people and found to be the best possible treatment, compared to all others.
Recently, the Globe and Mail published an article on the use of Robitussin for fertility. This is anecdotal medicine. Let me explain. About 2% of couples with infertility are infertile because of a problem with the woman’s cervix, mostly thick mucus that is “hostile” to sperm. In the 1960s and 70s physicians would perform a post-coital test to examine the mucus to see how the sperm were faring. “Hostile” mucus was thick and had few motile sperm. While interesting, it did not seem to be a very valuable test as women got pregnant on their own just as often if their mucus was “hostile” or not. So, the test was pretty much abandoned. (I still have a few patients see me with post-coital test reports from fertility clinics, mostly clinics in the developing world.)
So the test doesn’t help. What about treatments that thin the mucus making it less “hostile?” This is where Robitussin comes in… the active ingredient does a half-decent job at increasing the water content (thereby thinning) mucus in our lungs when we have a cold. This thinner mucus is easier to cough out so Robitussin’s active ingredient, guaifenesin, is an expectorant. If it works on lung/airway mucus, perhaps it works on cervical mucus? Well it probably does, but does that make you more likely to get pregnant? No. Firstly, if you are infertile there is a 98% chance that you have another explanation besides your cervix. If you are in that 2% it could help, but the science to date (I will admit it’s limited) indicates that making your cervical mucus less hostile doesn’t matter.
I believe the best place to conceive is at home in your own bedroom, so I am very supportive of treatments and strategies that can help at home. I just don’t think this is one of them.
So, what do I suggest? If there is no other explanation for your infertility and you are young (i.e. you have some time to spend trying), you might chose to try this for a month or two, understanding that what you are doing it is similar to drinking a can of flat ginger ale to settle your stomach. Sometimes your stomach feels better afterwards, but it probably would have felt better anyway.
If you are infertile, here’s hoping you find success whether it comes from modern medicine or good luck. Robitussin is in the “good luck” category.
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility