# In news today - stress and infertility



## Bumble Bus (Apr 23, 2013)

This on the front page of the Metro and on lots of news websites today (I picked the one with no comments at the moment as the rest of them mostly have the typical rubbish) -

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/stress-infertility-women-us-study

I have mixed feelings about this as it's good to know but also bad for women to have more pressure or feel like it's their (our) fault. I guess we all have our coping mechanism and do the best we can.

Anyway, thought it might be of interest....

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## goldbunny (Mar 26, 2012)

i definitely believe stress can have a serious effect on fertility. Yet people manage to get pregnant despite hard work, famine, war.....
So presumeably the individual's reaction to the stressors is what counts, not the actual thing 'causing' the stress.... 

I think long term stress can be just as bad or even worse than a short term 'event'. What is frustrating is that in that article (as well as elsewhere, presumeably) they call a person 'infertile' if they fail to get pregnant after trying for a year. there's nothing as stressful when you are TTC as being told you are infertile! There ought to be some middle ground description, where the word 'infertile' should only ever be used for someone for whom pregnancy has been proven to be completely impossible. Perhaps they ought to make more use of the word subfertile. Or something similar, which suggests difficulty but not impossibility.


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## Bumble Bus (Apr 23, 2013)

gb, agreed re people getting pregnant in all sorts of awful circumstances.

Also, the clinical definition for infertility is not achieving a pregnancy after 12 months of TTC.  There is already a word for being completely unable to conceive (woman) or impregnate (man) - sterility.

x


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## goldbunny (Mar 26, 2012)

but that's the problem. I was told i had 'primary infertility' and i had no idea at all what they meant by that, as far as i was concerned a GP had taken one look at me and defined my entire future, i went into a complete tailspin for weeks... flat panic, the stress levels went through the roof! As far as i knew, you were either fertile or you weren't, end of. If he'd written 'trying to conceive' instead of 'primary infertility' on that form i would have felt completely differently. They just should never tell anyone they are infertile unless it is impossible. It's too stressful!


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## FlyingCat (Jan 23, 2011)

Taking this article alongside other research, I wonder is this purely because people have less sex when they're stressed!

without a causal link I'm still unconvinced it has any relevance on those of us with a diagnosis of any kind...


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## SimonD (Jun 22, 2014)

I for one will never forget the day i sat there in front of the doctor to be told i was Azuspermic, and very low chance of producing anything .I remember my wife and I were in tears and numb for many weeks after ,now 20 years later it is still affecting our lives.O for a little one all of our own


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## Squiggly (Sep 20, 2013)

My gyno uses the term 'subfertile' and didn't like it when I said 'infertile'. Stress is not stopping me from getting pregnant; having endo/ adeno/ cysts/ adhesions/ hydrosalpinx/ irregular cycles is what's stopping me. But perhaps the doc is right. Perhaps there is a small chance.


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