You’ve done everything right. Tracked your cycle and ovulation, been diligent with prenatal vitamins, attended every appointment. And still, month after month, you’re staring at a negative test. Or maybe, you’ve just received a diagnosis that feels like the floor has dropped out from under you.
One of the most painful things I witness in my work with people navigating fertility challenges is the relentless self-blame. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe I waited too long. My body is failing something that’s supposed to come so naturally. Maybe something is wrong with me. That inner narrative is so common, and it is so understandable. It is also, in many cases, profoundly incomplete.
A growing body of research is pointing to an environmental factor that most of us never had the chance to account for: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS - a class of synthetic chemicals so pervasive, and so resistant to breaking down, that they’ve earned the name “forever chemicals.”
What Are PFAS, and Why Should Anyone Trying to Conceive Know About Them?
PFAS are a group of thousands of manufactured chemicals that have been used in everyday products since the 1940s. They show up in non-stick cookware, waterproof clothing, stain-resistant furniture, food packaging, firefighting foam, and in many municipal water supplies.
Because PFAS don’t break down in the environment, or in the body, they accumulate over time. Most people living in industrialized countries carry some measurable level of PFAS in their blood. This isn’t a niche concern for people who work in chemical plants. This is a mainstream, widespread exposure that touches almost everyone.
And here is what makes this particularly hard to sit with: most of the exposure happened before you ever started thinking about having a baby.
The Fertility Connection: What the Research Is Finding
A recent review published in 2026 in Fertility and Sterility Reviews examined PFAS exposure across the full reproductive timeline, from preconception through lactation, and the findings are sobering.
Preconception exposure is associated with:
- Diminished ovarian reserve
- Hormonal disruption
- Poorer outcomes in assisted reproductive technology (ART), including IVF
Ovarian reserve is one of the most closely watched markers in fertility evaluations. When it’s diminished, it can feel like a deeply personal failing. Hearing that environmental exposures may be part of the picture doesn’t erase the grief of that diagnosis, but it does reframe the story. Your body didn’t simply fail you. Your body has been working in an environment it was never designed to navigate.
The research also points to effects that extend beyond conception. PFAS exposure has been linked to placental dysfunction, pregnancy complications, and adverse birth outcomes including preterm birth and lower birth weight. These are not obscure risks - they are outcomes that affect millions of pregnancies each year.
This Isn’t About Blame - Yours or Anyone Else’s
I want to say this clearly, because I think it matters: learning about PFAS and fertility is not an invitation to spiral into a new form of self-blame, or to spend the next week re-examining every pan you’ve ever cooked with.
You did not know. Almost none of us knew. The accumulation of these chemicals in our bodies happened quietly, over decades, through products that were marketed to us as safe. The regulatory and corporate failures that allowed widespread PFAS contamination are documented and ongoing. That is not on you.
What this research offers isn’t a new reason to feel guilty. It offers something more valuable: an explanation that lives outside of you. For so many of the clients I work with, discovering that there may be an environmental factor at play, something that existed long before they ever made a choice about when or how to try to conceive, is genuinely relieving. It shifts the story from my body is broken to my body has been carrying something heavy for a long time.
The Emotional Weight of Unexplained (and Now Partially Explained) Infertility
In psychotherapy, one of the most important truths we explore with individuals and couples navigating infertility is that grief and hope can exist at the same time. The PFAS research adds a new layer to that grief. Because now you may be mourning not just the month that didn’t work, but a kind of loss of innocence about safety and control that you didn’t even know you’d assumed.
That is real. That deserves to be honored.
It can also feel maddening to receive information that explains something but doesn’t fix it. Knowing that PFAS may have affected your ovarian reserve doesn’t reverse it. Knowing your hormonal disruption may have an environmental cause doesn’t make your next cycle easier. The research is important, and the emotional weight of sitting with it is real. Both things can be true.
What I see in my clients, again and again, is that being able to name something, to say this happened to me rather than I am broken, creates a small but significant shift in how they move forward. It doesn’t eliminate the hard days. But it changes the quality of the self-compassion available to them.
We also can’t know for certain, at least not yet, that PFAS are the culprit to any issue you may be experiencing. Everything from Endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) before conception to complications in pregnancy and birth can be impacted by PFAS exposure, but these are also issues that arise for a variety of other reasons. This not only complicates the picture, but adds frustration and greater lack of control.
What You Can Actually Do
Talk to your reproductive care team. If you’re concerned about ovarian reserve or have been navigating unexplained infertility, ask your OB-GYN or reproductive endocrinologist about testing and what your results mean. Organizations like the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) are increasingly attentive to environmental factors in reproductive health.
Reduce ongoing exposure where you reasonably can. This is not about perfection. Simple shifts such as replacing heavily worn non-stick cookware, choosing PFAS-free food packaging when it’s accessible, and filtering drinking water where possible, can be meaningful without becoming a new source of anxiety.
Address the emotional side of this, too. The mental health toll of fertility challenges is well-documented, and it’s significant. Postpartum Support International (PSI) recognizes perinatal mental health as a critical area of care, and that care begins well before a baby arrives, in the trying-to-conceive journey itself. You don’t have to white-knuckle this alone.
A Note on Carrying What You Couldn’t Control
Life throws us so many curve balls, and one of the hardest things about fertility challenges is how invisible they often are. Nobody sees the appointments, the two-week waits, the grief that arrives with a negative test or failed transfer. And now, for some of you, there’s this added layer: a quiet accumulation, over years, of something you never consented to carrying.
You deserved to know sooner. You deserved better protection. And you deserve support now - not just medical support, but emotional support that meets you where the real weight of this lives.
If you’re navigating fertility challenges, whether you’re in the thick of trying to conceive, working with a reproductive endocrinologist, or somewhere in the exhausting in-between, I’d be honored to walk alongside you. Reach out to learn more about fertility-focused therapy, available via telehealth in New York, Connecticut, and Florida. You don’t have to carry this alone.
Ashley Mead, LMHC, PMH-C, specializes in perinatal and fertility mental health. She sees clients via telehealth in New York, Connecticut, and Florida. Learn more at ashleymead.com.
References:
Liu, L., Wang, R., Zhang, W. & Wang, F. (2026). Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances exposure from preconception to lactation: implications for female fertility, pregnancy complications, and birth outcomes: a narrative review. Fertility and Sterility Reviews, 7(1). https://www.fertstertreviews.org/article/S2666-5719(26)00003-4/fulltext#fig1