If you’ve been trying to conceive and had bloodwork done, they likely tested you AMH level.
Some doctors put a lot of weight on this one result.
AMH stands for Anti-Muellerian Hormone, and an AMH test measures the level of this hormone in your body. This hormone is produced by antral follicles, which are sometimes referred to as the “resting” follicles — recruited for eventual growth, but not yet developing for a particular cycle. You can see them on an ultrasound, and the more you have of these resting follicles, the higher your AMH level. So, ladies with PCOS or polycystic ovaries will naturally have a higher AMH level, which explains why this may be one of the tested levels in suspected cases of PCOS.
Here’s the thing, though: Over the last several decades, AMH has primarily been used to determine how successful Reproductive Endocrinologists will be with IVF — not how likely she is to conceive naturally.
Low AMH suggests a poor response to IVF
When a woman goes through in vitro fertilization, she often starts by hyper stimulating the reproductive system to produce dozens of follicles -- as many as possible getting to the size needed for ovulation. That’s because they want lots of good sized follicles they can mechanically fertilize for possible development.
AMH has been a pretty fair indicator about whether or not the ovaries will respond to this kind of hyper stimulation. Fewer resting follicles means fewer follicles to stimulate, after all. But there is a difference between antral follicles (resting) and primordial follicles (sleeping). Each primordial follicle has an immature egg that can still potentially develop and ovulate in the future.
The research done on AMH levels has primarily been related to whether or not the ovaries will respond to hyperstimulation. So while it’s been very helpful in determining if IVF is possible, it gives us very little information about whether natural conception is possible.
AMH doesn’t have the same meaning for natural conception
At Woven Natural Fertility Care, we are all about natural conception.
And I hope that this is freeing news: a low AMH level does not automatically mean that you cannot get pregnant naturally.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Fertile Faith to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.