Monday, September 13, 2010

The cold hard facts

Approximately 10-15% of couples suffer from infertility. Multiple studies have shown that women undergoing IVF treatment experience high levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. To add to that lovely tidbit, studies show that there is a strong correlation between depressive symptoms and retrieved oocytes, the higher the depression score the less the oocytes. Awesome right?

So, get depressed as a result of infertility and the circus involved in IVF and you will end up with less embryos?!? fan bloody tastic.

But wait there's more, women with higher depression rates and anxiety have much lower pregnancy rates in general. Oh and then there's the study that shows that women who cope poorly with stress during fertility treatment have a much higher rate of miscarriage during their 1st trimester.  Wowsa

Lets not forget the data that shows women who are successful with their fertility treatment are much much more likely to suffer from postnatal depressive syndrome, and something that has been reported to me from fellow infertility sufferers is that during their pregnancies women who have had to rely on fertility treatment to become pregnant often feel guilty when they are feeling unwell and wanting to complain during pregnancy and also feel like they can never complain when going through the many sleepless nights associated with a newborn.

So basically we're screwed.. it really doesnt matter which way you look at it.

2 comments:

  1. Hi. Just looking around this site, thinking about starting a blog. Really appreciated this post- I have been trying not to think about this side of IF but good to see it written down and that someone else is worrying about this stuff too.

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  2. Kate, I think we all think it but verbalizing it is a whole other matter. Thats why I started this blog in the 1st place.. I'm not the most PC of people and I wanted a place where there was some form of anonymity and I could just spit out what I was actually feeling. When I 1st started I had it as private until I decided screw it, put it out there, I know for a fact I'm not alone in most this stuff and maybe someone else feels exactly the same as me. If you are thinking of starting a blog then I say do it, for you!

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