Ask an Endo Surgeon | Can Endometriosis Cause Infertility?

Dr. McHale explains how endometriosis may cause infertility, but that endometriosis does not always cause infertility.

Dr. Melissa McHale, M.D., is a Gynecologic Surgeon and Endometriosis Excision Specialist. She has performed over 300 complex excision of endometriosis cases and she has extensive experience with sacral neuromodulator implants, transvaginal ultrasound diagnostics, and the management of pain and fertility in endometriosis patients. Dr. McHale completed her OB/GYN residency at Johns Hopkins before completing a two-year fellowship with Dr. Andrea Vidali, a world-renowned surgeon specializing in endometriosis, miscarriage, and reproductive immunology at Braverman Reproductive Immunology and Endometriosis Surgery.

At Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine, our pelvic pain specialists provide a functional, rehab approach to pelvic pain. When you visit one of our offices, you spend an hour with your doctor reviewing in detail your medical history and symptoms. Then, we perform an internal exam (no speculum) to evaluate your nerves and muscles. Together, we'll discuss an individual treatment plan that gets to the root cause of your pain and helps you to feel better. The best part: you can begin treatment the same day!

At PRM, our mission is to decrease the time patients are suffering from pelvic pain symptoms.


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Hi, so I'm Dr. Melissa McHale and I'm answering questions today about endometriosis. One of the questions we got is, does endometriosis cause infertility? And the answer is, yes, it definitely can. Having endometriosis doesn't necessarily mean you have infertility. So some patients have pain, but don't have infertility.

Some patients have infertility, but don't have pain. The different ways that endometriosis can cause infertility are either the more obvious structural ways. So for example, if endometriosis is blocking the fallopian tubes or totally surrounding the ovary and adhesions, there's no way for the egg that's ovulated to make its way to the uterus to be fertilized and plant and create a pregnancy.

There are other ways though that endometriosis can also cause infertility. This happens when, even if there's not a structural blockage, you can see, enough inflammation in the pelvis that endometriosis can significantly account for a large proportion of someone's infertility. Infertility is usually not an all or nothing thing.

It's generally that there are ways that fertility can be improved and for patients with endometriosis that's something that we're going to talk about in another post. Thank you for watching.