Since I have chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome (which was formerly known as CFS, can be also known as Epstein-Barr), one of the symptoms, oddly enough, is trouble sleeping. Lots of people I know who have CFIDS take melatonin (or, something way stronger), and that’s usually worked quite well for me.
But one of the sites I use for my CFIDS that suggests melatonin, also has a warning about melatonin for people trying to conceive. I’d vaguely “heard” you shouldn’t take melatonin while trying to conceive, and here’s why: it raises your prolactin levels. Prolactin is the hormone that you secrete in great amounts when you are, well, lactating. This is often a signal to the body to shut off other fertility processes, as, obviously, evolutionarily if you have a young baby, it’s not particularly advantageous to get pregnant right away again. This is why breastfeeding is thought to be somewhat (but not always!) somewhat contraceptive.
When we start trying to conceive, I’m going to darken the shades, but put the bottle away, just in case.
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