Stress or Infertility?

Recent research has shown that stress doesn’t cause infertility, but they are definitely related. Those that have struggled with infertility can tell you that infertility most definitely does cause stress!!!!!

This is where Diane Johnston is able to help. She is a registered nurse and psychotherapist who teaches meditation as a tool for relaxation for those experiencing stress. She began her meditation teachings with cancer patients to help them relax and release their feelings of stress. However, now she specializes in working with women with fertility issues.

Johnston believes that women who are using infertility treatments to become pregnant experience high levels of stress for many reasons. To begin with, she says that most of the time it is women who have been healthy for most of their lives. Then out of nowhere they are heavily involved in medical procedures and tests. It is unsettling and stressful to say the least. And at one time or another, many women using assisted fertility procedures will feel depressed, anxious and angry as well. They feel like they are at fault for not being able to get pregnant. It is not a happy place to be in.

She doesn’t claim that meditation increases the odds of becoming pregnant, but she is aware of the recent studies out there that do connect the two. What she does say though is that she can help the women learn to control and manage their stress levels and feel more relaxed each and every day. With that, she does believe that then your chances of becoming pregnant do increase!

The most recent related research has to do with women who have experienced multiple failed in-vitro fertilization procedures and/or have had multiple miscarriages. The studies have shown that in these two scenarios, the use of meditation did increase their odds for becoming pregnant. Researchers aren’t quite sure why this is true, but think that it may be because the use of meditation reduces the spasms in the fallopian tubes, and greatly reduces cortisol levels in the body………..in both instances, these would help eggs successfully attach.

And although stress doesn’t technically cause infertility, eliminating the stress by methods such as meditation do seem to help with conception once a woman has begun infertility treatments of some sort.

So, it can’t hurt to use meditation to help relax and relieve stress if you are trying to become pregnant!