Stress And Infertility

The advocates at one camp reply, "No, you can't get pregnant by simply not worrying about it. This is not possible. Blah."

I know it's exasperating having to listen incessantly to well-meaning friends and relatives telling you to relax in order for the stork will visit you.

This makes it look like YOU are at fault, and that YOU are too tense up inside to bear a child! They are not helping, besides adding insult to injury, they're contributing to your anxiety.

You may be delighted to know that conventional medical research cannot prove that worrying about getting pregnant will in any way stop you from getting pregnant. It is also not scientifically proven that not worrying about it will help you conceive.

While there is medical evidence linking one's emotional well-being to one's physical well-being, it is not conclusive enough to suggest that stress will lead directly to infertility.

The advocates on your side suggest that there is a very specific relationship between 'extreme' stress and conception. Yes, that it would take an enormous amount of extreme tension to actually make you infertile, not just any normal daily anxieties.

An extreme level of stress can so pressurize a woman that it actually affects her ovulation causing Anovulation (no ovulation) or Amenorrhea (the absence of menstruations).

The extremity here refers to an intense level of stress such as those experienced in a trauma or during a war. The advocates over this side maintain that ordinary, everyday worries, including worrying over getting pregnant would not cause infertility. So as long as you're ovulating normally, being stressed from work or family, or even from an infertility treatment will not affect you very much.

The only direct impact such daily anxieties can have on your conception efforts will be leaving you too tired for sex. A busy, highly strung couple with less time is likely to have less sex than a couple who is relaxed and has more leisure time. So if the busy couple could spend more with each other and take a holiday for example, they may conceive. There is absolutely no mystical mind-body connection theory here, but the pregnancy is achieved because they've spent more time in bed together.

Having said this, I have to move on to what the opposite camp of advocates say. Don't throw stones at me yet...

Yes, there is a direct relationship between stress and pregnancy, that you can get pregnant by worrying less about it!

This is the position maintained by the opposite camp; the alternative health physicians, that anxiety and depression can have a significant negative effect on conception.

The 'mind-body connection' theory that tension compromises fertility can be logically explained.

We've all experienced firsthand how our mind affect our body - in positive and negative ways. Do you remember succumbing to the flu or cold during a bout of depression? What about the time when a little relaxation actually eases your tension headache? Mind-body medicine recognizes that such experiences are not coincidental.

Increasingly, a growing body of science is finding links between emotional health and the ability to conceive, spawning the idea that you can "think" or "feel" your way to improved fertility! Advocates this side recognize that mind-body connection and interaction is the foundation upon which your total health, and therefore your fertility rests.

They're convinced that the agony from constant worrying over fertility issues can actually produce stress hormones that suppress your immune system and interrupt the cirulation of blood flow and vital energy to your reproductive organs.

While conventional research could not prove much, recent studies have shown a correlation between successful treatment of mood disorders and increased pregnancy.

Alternative treatments to correct emotional imbalances vary from breathing exercises, visualization, meditation, self-relaxation techniques, counseling to hypnosis. These techniques are sometimes used together with other conventional therapies.

It is unlikely that doctors would treat infertility solely through stress management, but more and more health care practitioners are beginning to accept that fertility can certainly be enhanced through reducing anxiety, depression, and other emotional problems.

So can the worry of trying to have a baby literally prevent you from reaching your goal?

While stress is not a deciding factor in infertility, it is a contributory factor. At the very least, it affects your motivation.

Persistence is needed to achieve your goal. If you believe you can do something, you would continue trying. And if you try hard enough, you may succeed one day.

It can't be said that you'll surely end up getting pregnant if you try hard enough because pregnancy is far more complex than this. But if you give up trying, you will never get pregnant!

What can I say? Whatever the case, try to rest and relax, I think you deserve a good break.

Stress And Infertility, Stress And Pregnancy