Coping with stress affects IVF outcome

The way women deal with the stress of infertility treatment may affect their chances of becoming pregnant. Women who tend to focus on and share their feelings are less likely to become pregnant than women who found other ways to cope with their stress - such as finding ways to distract themselves from their emotions.Researchers from the Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Greece, studied pregnancy rates among 342 women who underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) at a single fertility clinic. Overall, about 23 percent became pregnant, with lower odds of success seen in women who coped with their stress in emotionally expressive ways. The findings suggest that women's coping styles matter more than the stress itself, in IVF success

Numerous studies have found that expressing emotions may be a boon for physical and emotional health. But those studies have not looked specifically at pregnancy outcomes after IVF.Future studies need to be done to explore whether women undergoing IVF benefit from finding ways to distract themselves from the stress. That's not to say, however, that expressing one's feelings is necessarily negative. More research is needed to figure out when it's beneficial for infertile women to focus on expressing their emotions and when distraction might be a better coping mechanism.