Stress relief may improve IVF success

Enrolling in a stress-management class might help women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) get pregnant.

Women who are in infertility treatment report huge amounts of stress. To study if stress-relief classes could help women on IVF conceive, researchers recruited 143 American women who were about to undergo their first cycle of fertility treatment, and randomly assigned about half of them to a mind-body course intended to curb stress levels. The rest got a gift certificate to a spa. The mind-body course consisted of 10 weekly classes during which women received talk therapy focused on changing negative thinking and training in relaxation and healthy behaviour. The researchers then followed the women through two cycles of IVF. A total of 97 women - 46 in the stress-management group and 51 in the control group - completed at least one IVF cycle.

After the first IVF cycle, 45 percent of women in both groups became pregnant - but before the start of that cycle, less than half of women in the stress-management group had attended their first class. The results were different for the second cycle, when most women taking stress-management classes had gone to at least five sessions. Then, 52 percent of women taking the course got pregnant, versus 20 percent of women in the comparison group.

Chronic stress may cause changes in hormones that interfere with the development of eggs, making them release more slowly. It may also interfere with the immune system in a way that increases the chance a woman's body will reject an embryo. So, stress-management techniques could help women conceive.