Tag: anxiety

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Why it’s important not to stress over infertility

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Baby's feetTAMPA (FOX 13) – Many families want to add a baby to the family, but conceiving isn’t always the easiest thing to do. The CDC estimates almost seven million women have difficulty, and it’s an emotional and heartbreaking problem.

For eight years, Karen Kelly tried having a baby with her husband, but was unsuccessful. Karen visited doctors, explored in vitro, and considered adoption. She says the experience was stressful.

“You start out that marriage saying, ‘We’ll do it when we are ready’ and you think it’s going to naturally happen, then conception came, for us, an ordeal,” explained Karen. “It’s a huge issue that required medical intervention, and medical analysis to figure out what was wrong.”

Karen’s journey pointed her to a familiar face. Retired WTVT anchor Kathy Fountain now counsels women like Karen, and helps couples overcome infertility.

“The ability to conceive is such a primal instinct,” Fountain explained. “Not having a baby when you want to can cause stress and anxiety. Studies have shown infertility can cause depression, just as a woman with heart disease, AIDS, or cancer, which are the most stressful things you can go through.” Read full article.

Fertility Clock Headlines, Fertility Headlines

Stress and anxiety linked to sperm quality

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Doctor Katarzyna Koziol injects sperm directly into an egg during IVF procedure called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection at Novum clinic in Warsaw(Reuters Health) – A man’s ability to produce sperm may depend on his ability to handle stress, according to a new study from Italy.

Researchers found that men with higher levels of both short- and long-term stress and anxiety ejaculated less semen and had lower sperm concentration and counts. Men with the highest anxiety levels were also more likely to have sperm that were deformed or less mobile.

But one fertility researcher not involved in the new work said it’s hard to know how the results apply to the general population because the research included men who were already seeking treatment at a fertility clinic.

“Do you become stressed from becoming infertile or is stress causing infertility?” asked Tina Jensen from Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, who has studied the effects of environmental factors on sperm quality.

Previous research has found that men going through fertility treatment or evaluation have higher stress levels than the average person, and some studies have also shown links between stress and sperm quality, according to the Italian researchers, led by Elisa Vellani of the European Hospital in Rome. Read full article.

 

Fertility Clock Headlines, Fertility Headlines

Health: Body and soul

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Psychological side of infertility has been ignored compared to physiological factors that prevent couples from having a baby.

Biomedical treatments to help infertile couples become parents have advanced greatly in recent years, but psychological treatment to help them cope has lagged way behind. And sometimes, the emotional distress from depression and anxiety alone is a key factor that actually holds back the hoped-for pregnancy.

Fortunately, awareness of this mind-body connection to infertility is growing and the appearance of a Hebrew volume on the subject will certainly give it a push. Called Lehavi Yeladim La’olam (To Bear a Child), released by Aryeh Nir Publishers in Tel Aviv, the book is an important example.

The 256-page, NIS 89 softcover volume was written by Dr. Zvia Birman and Prof.

Eliezer Witztum. Birman is a longtime fertility researcher who was head of the social workers unit in the pediatric, obstetrical and gynecological departments at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem and has provided individual and group therapy to many infertile couples over the last two decades.

Witztum is a leading psychiatrist at Beersheba’s Mental Health Center and Ben- Gurion University and specializes in the complex relationship between culture and society and mind-body. Read full article.