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Did You Know That Stress And Infertility Are Connected?

This is how stress can lead to infertility

By John RuddPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Did You Know That Stress And Infertility Are Connected?
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Stress and infertility are two interdependent variables: stress can lead to infertility, but infertility also causes stress that is difficult to manage. Although stress is not a primary cause of the inability to procreate, the importance of this factor is recognized and debated in many scientific studies.

Regarding the subject of stress and infertility, the process usually goes like this: a couple who wants to have children and fails at the first attempts will face the inevitable stress. With each negative pregnancy test, the stress will increase and make this test more and more difficult.

And in cases where the couple's partners know that the fertility of one of them is low, stress appears from the beginning, increasing with each visit to the doctor, testing, treatment failed.

The relationship between stress and infertility is clear in this regard: infertility invariably leads to frustration and can lead to deep depression. Doctors and psychologists have noticed that men and women diagnosed with low fertility and worse with infertility, lose interest in sex life in particular and in married life in general.

They declare that they no longer feel like a "real man" or a "real woman", feelings caused by the inability to perform an essential natural function: that of reproduction. These feelings occur in any infertile person, but they are even more serious and have long-term negative consequences for people who want children intensely.

The man feels that a low capacity of their sperm damages their virility (although sterility has absolutely nothing to do with virility and impotence), while infertile women feel harmed in their very nature.

But the relationship between stress and infertility in the opposite direction, although it has been studied for a long time, is not at all clear: can stress be the main factor in infertility, or are it other primary factors? Some research shows that this relationship may exist, others may not. Most do not place stress at the forefront of assessing the factors that lead to female or male infertility.

Following the discussion on the subject of stress and infertility, first some basic notions about stress. Stress is a normal psychological reaction - usually - that many people may have to the intense demands of family or work life. Some difficult events can have the potential to make people feel tense, anxious because they usually feel unable to cope with these demands.

Problems arise when the demands are too high and long-term or are present in many areas of a person's life: love, family, profession. Important in stress management is the human reaction to it and its way of adapting: some people can adapt better to stressors, others less, depending on their personality, but also the objective circumstances.

The subject of stress and infertility brings to mind another concept in the field of stress study: exhaustion - the final stage of accumulation of fatigue, after facing stress for a long time.

Exhaustion has effects on the physical, but more importantly, on the person's psyche - his emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. A state of complete exhaustion can thus be a factor in the appearance or rather in the increase of the person's infertility.

The stress caused by various events in a person's life and mainly the specific stress caused by multiple attempts to get pregnant can aggravate the situation and can lead to a higher failure rate. It has been shown that partners who are extremely concerned about conception and want their pregnancy intensely, with frequent doubts and fears, are less likely to procreate, while partners who do not rush and leave things to chance become faster. parents.

And when the variable related to knowing that one of the partners has low fertility appears, the various fears are accentuated, treatments, tests, high expenses increase the stress in the couple's life, which has a boomerang effect on fertility! It is a vicious circle from which it is difficult to get out when it comes to stress and infertility: the first emphasizes the second, its appearance accentuates the first, and so on.

On the subject of stress and infertility, it is important to consider the couple's life as well. The overwhelming desire to have children and the knowledge that the chances are low have particularly negative effects on both partners and their life together, especially their sex life.

It has been mentioned that the knowledge of having low fertility has some effects of symbolic castration on men and an effect of denying sexuality on women. These problems, coupled with the unfulfilled desire to have a baby, can destroy a previously harmonious couple.

Therefore, no matter how difficult it is for them, the partners must remember that their married life is the most important, to support each other and to try to approach this negative situation practically and optimistically, not to blame each other.

In terms of stress and infertility, no scientific studies are needed to find advice: these have been known since ancient times when young girls who wanted children to be happy, optimistic, and relaxed are recommended! Maybe partners are often told, "You're trying too hard, you're too preoccupied with the idea of pregnancy."

No matter how difficult it is for a couple facing an inability to procreate, it does not have to mean the end of the relationship and love. It can go beyond anything - in one way or another - as long as man does not forget himself and his loved one, as long as he does not allow a painful failure to take over his being.

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