Sober Curious and Trying to Conceive

The sober curious movement isn’t a fringe wellness trend anymore. It’s transformed how we socialize and unwind. Instead of a nightly glass of wine, more people are reaching for mocktails, adaptogenic drinks, or THC seltzers. Others use microdosed psilocybin to boost their mood or focus.  

Many clinicians recommend reducing or eliminating alcohol during fertility treatments. But even when the alcohol goes away, the ritual rarely does. Most people look for a replacement to fill the void.  

The trouble is that we assume these alternatives are safe because they’re sold as wellness products. And the sleek marketing obscures an important question: How do these compounds affect an egg retrieval or embryo transfer cycle?  

Cannabis and THC Beverages  

Cannabis has become one of the most popular alternatives to alcohol, pitched as a hangover-free way to wind down at the end of the day. You can now buy THC seltzers right alongside kombucha at the grocery store in states where hemp-derived THC is legal.  

The appeal is easy to understand. One Guardian columnist described her experience switching to THC drinks after growing tired of alcohol’s toll on her body. She said she was drawn to the clearly marked dosing and the absence of the next-day hangover.  

However, if you’re using THC and going through fertility treatment, the latest research shows it may not be completely harmless.  

A September 2025 study published in Nature Communications offers the most direct evidence to date. Researchers analyzed follicular fluid from over a thousand IVF patients and found that THC and its byproducts make their way straight into the fluid surrounding a developing egg.  

Patients who tested positive for THC had significantly lower rates of genetically normal (euploid) embryos, and exposing donated eggs to THC in the lab produced chromosomal errors. Strikingly, 73 percent of patients who tested positive for THC hadn’t mentioned their cannabis use to their care team.  

The team also collected immature eggs donated for research. Exposing donated eggs to THC in the lab produced chromosomal errors.  

These findings build on guidance from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which links cannabis use to higher medication needs during ovarian stimulation, lower hormone levels, fewer eggs retrieved, and higher rates of cancelled cycles.  

But not every study agrees. A smaller 2021 study saw no real difference in fertilization rates between users and non-users of THC and even noted slightly higher pregnancy rates in the user group—though those patients were younger, which likely skewed the results. That cellular-level evidence, like the follicular fluid findings above, is far more conclusive than the smaller 2021 study.  

A THC seltzer isn’t a neutral trade-off for a glass of wine. It enters the same environment where your eggs are maturing. More importantly, your care team can’t account for something they don’t know you’re taking. 

Adaptogens  

Adaptogens took over the wellness aisle for a reason. They offer everything a glass of wine promises—gentle, plant-based stress relief—without the alcohol. Ashwagandha, a popular adaptogen, shows up in mocktail mixers, calming gummies, and tea blends aimed at people trying to wind down without a drink. 

The research on ashwagandha and reproductive health is robust, but its safety during pregnancy remains uncertain. A 2025 systematic review of over 100 studies found ashwagandha modulates reproductive hormones, including LH, FSH, and cortisol, with proposed benefits for conditions like polymetabolic endocrine syndrome (PMOS, formerly PCOS) and stress-related menstrual irregularity.  

The widely repeated warning that ashwagandha causes miscarriage traces back to a citation chain the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia formally disputed in 2024. A Danish risk assessment cited a WHO monograph, which cited an AHP monograph, without noting the AHP’s own caveat that the abortifacient claim was never well supported. A 2025 review found no significant reproductive toxicity in animal studies at human-relevant doses and no adverse effects on hormone balance in human clinical studies. 

Still, debunking a bad citation doesn’t clear ashwagandha for use during treatment. Regulators still dispute its safety classification, and no research has specifically examined ashwagandha during an ovarian stimulation cycle. Since ashwagandha shifts the very hormones a stimulation protocol aims to control, pausing it during a cycle makes sense, even without a clinical trial to prove it.  

The takeaway isn’t just about ashwagandha. ‘Natural’ and ‘safe during fertility treatment’ are entirely different claims, and wellness marketing doesn’t always make that distinction.  

Microdosing and Psychedelics  

Microdosing psilocybin is the newest addition to the sober-curious lineup, though it has the least science behind it. It’s rarely marketed as an alcohol substitute at all. Instead, it’s marketed as a subtle, sub-perceptual routine to boost mood, focus, and mental clarity. 

If you’re microdosing while trying to conceive or going through IVF, the reality is that the research isn’t there yet. A 2025 review in Psychedelic Medicine noted that clinical safety data on psilocybin across the entire reproductive timeline is practically nonexistent. That’s a worrisome gap—psilocybin acts on the serotonin system, which interacts with the hormonal pathway governing GnRH, estrogen, and your menstrual cycle.  

Furthermore, a 2026 scoping review on pregnancy exposure to psychedelics found only old case reports, far too thin to base any medical advice on. (In rat studies, psilocybin’s active byproduct crossed the placental barrier.) 

Even researchers running human trials draw a hard line at pregnancy. Trial protocols exclude pregnant participants and require contraception throughout the study. This isn’t proof of harm; it’s proof of how little basic safety testing has actually been done. 

That puts fertility patients in a tough spot. There’s no hard evidence proving microdosing is unsafe during treatment, but there’s no evidence saying it’s safe, either. In reproductive medicine, an absence of bad news isn’t the same thing as permission to proceed. 

The Common Thread  

These options are framed as safer, cleaner swaps. THC seltzers take the place of alcohol. People reach for adaptogens for stress or to replace a nightcap. When you’re just trying to trade a bad habit for a better one, that feels like an obvious win. 

But most patients don’t think to mention any of it to their care teams, as the 2025 IVF study found—not because they were trying to hide it, but because a THC seltzer just didn’t register as something their doctors needed to know about. 

Your care team isn’t asking so they can judge how you cope with a hard stretch without wine. They’re building a stimulation protocol around your hormone levels, and anything that impacts those numbers should be part of the conversation—whether it came from a bar or a grocery store shelf. 

If you have questions about how your routine might impact your treatment, we’re here to talk it through. Schedule a consultation with our team.  

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