This question is real stupid, I know, and probably a bit tmi and juvenile, but it really has been plaguing me since I’ve had trouble conceiving. All my life I have enjoyed taking hot baths, and when I say hot, I mean, as hot as I can possibly stand. A few times in highschool I actually passed out after getting out of the bath from being…I don’t know…over heated? My skin is usually a deep pink when I get out and I have to drink big glasses of water to … recover, I guess.
But it feels so good on menstrual cramps and back aches and I just love soaking and reading in a scorching hot bath.
And now I’m worried that I may have sterilized myself, or if I have been ‘pregnant’ in the past, that before I knew it, I’ve been in a bath that’s too hot and it hurt the baby, since I read that once you’re pregnant, hot baths are OUT.
I know hot baths are bad for MALE sperm count, but can they do anything to my eggs?
If you’re asking if you’ve “hard boiled” your eggs (sorry, I couldn’t resist), I’d say the answer is no. I’ve never read anything to suggest that hot baths would cause problems for a female (IANAD, so take it FWIW).
Have you tried going to the doctor to see what the source of your problem might be? Maybe hubby’s tadpoles aren’t up to the task.
Short of taking a bath so hot that it actually brought your total body temperature up to at least 120 degrees or so, I would say that it is not POSSIBLE for a female human to sterilize herself via bathing. Those eggs are pretty well stored, way the hell and gone in your abdomen. You’d practically have to cook yourself to harm them (or use an X-Ray or beam-radiation device of some sort, which is not standard equipment in most bathrooms).
Since a bath this hot would likely be lethal, or at least produce major brain damage, and you are still able to operate a computer and post on a bulletin board, we may assume that this is not the case.
I can’t speak for anything ELSE you might have done to your eggs, but I can say with some assurance that unless you had a bath one night that did you some MAJOR harm in a variety of other ways you would have certainly noticed by now, you did not harm your eggs by BATHING.
yay! Back in the bath I go.
Tucker: doc says no testing until we’re unsuccessful for a year, which is a month and a half away…and I guess it’s normal.
I’m just trying to find some sort of cause.
I don’t think a woman has to worry about her eggs, but I know fertility doctors who say men can damage their sperm, if they spend a lot of time in hot tubs and jacuzzis.
After all, the testicles are placed where they are to keep them cool.
Well, yes, but a woman is born with all the eggs she’s ever going to have. She doesn’t generate any more.
Men, on the other hand, manufacture sperm continuously. A sperm cell only lives 72 hours or so, and its working life is somewhat shorter than that.
Admittedly, if I am trying to impregnate my wife, sauteeing my jewels in the hot tub is counterproductive. A hot bath can cook the little devils, right there in the testicles, or at least weaken them enough that they can’t really operate on all eight cylinders, if you’ll pardon the rather oblique pun.
Eggs and sperm are very different critters. Eggs are precious, nonreplaceable resources, and fairly durable. Sperm are frivolous, numerous, and expendable, and considerably more fragile.
My wife says that’s actually a pretty good metaphor for them what carries them, too…
Okay, it’s probably an old wive’s tale, but worrying is probably having a huge effect on your efforts.
Unless MrJarbabyj is secretly nuking his testicles 
Worrying is HAVING NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER and even if it did, do people really think that telling women they are causing infertility by worrying will help? Sorry to shout Barbarian but I am getting so sick of that UL.
Jar, there’s some research which supports not taking very hot baths or hot tubs in early pregnancy as it does increase the incidence of neural tube defects. If I were you, I would not take a very hot bath after you’re ovulated and until you’re sure you’ve not conceived. I’ve never come across any research linking infertility in women with overly hot baths.
Thanks prima. I was wondering why it was bad AFTERwards as well as before.
J
Taking a hot bath may have a slight effect on male sperm production and sperm performance, but Cecil has addressed the subject. It ain’t reliable contraception, folks.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_210.html
Nobody ever said it was, Cecil included.
Primaflora: evidence linking hot baths and neural tube defects? I was not aware of this.
I am NOT disputing your word – if you read it, I’ll take your word for it – but do you know where I could learn more about this? I’m interested.
Does anybody read OPs anymore or do they just answer titles?
If you’re addressing my post, jarbaby, I was continuing a related discussion that appeared in the thread. GQ is flexible enough to allow for that, I believe. Unless once a question is answered to your satisfaction, you feel it should be closed…
Wang-Ka
I’m actually not sure that the evidence/research has stood the test of time. I know that when I was researching a book on pregnancy loss about 7 years ago, the neural tube defect, hot tub/very hot bath link was being slung around as ‘proven’ but doing a search isn’t bringing up much about it.
http://www.babymed.com/docs/english/663.asp
suggests that baths over 39 degrees for longer than 15 minutes may act as a teratogen but fever seems to be a higher risk.
Eh, I don’t know. If it were me, I’d scarf down my folic acid and avoid very hot baths in early pregnancy but I tend to the neurotic due to my obstetric history. Well, folic acid isn’t neurotic but maybe the bath is.
I thought we were gonna leave the modding to the mods…
jarbaby, my ex used take hot baths, just as you described, and she has had three children.
I am not a Dr., but from my personal observation, her bathing practices didn’t keep her from conceiving.