Stress and fertility treatment are a pair, you could say. Intended or not, Mr. Stress tends to turn up as the uninvited guest every time — and the more you think about him, the more stressed you get.

So what does a woman’s stress actually do to her chances of a baby? A review by Levinson and colleagues (2022) found that stress — whether severe and acute, or the small, unpredictable, comes-and-goes kind — reduces the production of the hormones involved in ovulation.

What follows from that ranges from mild to serious:

ovulation happening later than it should
progesterone production being disturbed, which leaves a residual follicle behind — and no treatment can be started until that has resolved
the embryo implanting less easily, or a miscarriage
and in severe cases, no ovulation at all, with oestrogen low enough that periods stop altogether

A simple way to handle the stress

Stop everything for a moment. Breathe in and out, slowly.
Watch the breath passing in and out at the tip of your nose, for one or two minutes.

I can promise the stress will come down straight away. And if yours keeps rising and falling and you feel you cannot manage it, do consider seeing a psychologist or a psychiatrist — they are excellent at teaching ways to handle stress.

With my best wishes — Dr. Patsama Vichinsartvichai

References

Levinson AL, Igonina TN, Rozhkova IN, Brusentsev EY, Amstislavsky SY. Psycho-emotional stress, folliculogenesis, and reproductive technologies: clinical and experimental data. Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genet Selektsii. 2022.

Stress and the female reproductive system

A simple way to handle the stress

References