Does infertility cause depression?
This is a question that can be answered on many levels.
Indeed, there has been research comparing the psychological symptoms of infertile women with patients from other chronic medical conditions. The results suggest that females facing infertility had psychological symptoms equivalent to cancer patients and cardiac rehabilitation patients.
Furthermore, additional studies published in scientific journals such as Fertility and Sterility and the Health Psychology journal indicated that alleviating depression and other psychological distress in infertile women appears to make it easier for them to become pregnant.
The precise reasons why depression can make a woman less fertile is not exactly clear to the medical world. For example, depression may also destabilize a woman’s hormone levels.
And here it is worth mentioning that stress and depression affect men’s fertility, too. Studies show that men with previously normal sperm counts are eight times more likely to have low sperm counts after a year or two of infertility.
I am particularly weary of using big psychological words and constructs – such as Depression, Anxiety disorder, Obsession, Phobia, Trauma… They relate to DSM the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders. They are not to be used lightly, although they have infiltrated our everyday language and conversations.
I much prefer to refer to behaviours associated with Depression – working towards getting rid of labels that carry so much extra weight!
So when somebody comes to me saying that ‘I have Depression’ my question to them is ‘Oh, interesting! How exactly do you do that, how do you do depression? I am so curious.’
Infertility can cause depression, because of the implications of all the emotions that come with it, so it is really important to reach out and ask for support, because you need to be able to work through how you’re feeling and understand your emotions and when you’re feeling depressed, you’re going to be spiralling into all of this negative emotion and there is going to be so much more negative energy and the mind body connection is relevant when you are trying to conceive. There isn’t any evidence of stress causing infertility, but, we need to ensure you are in the best place possible to try and do all that you can from making lifestyle changes to doing the things that are going to just help you feel better and hopefully help your body be in the best place possible because we want everything to work as best as we can, from medical interventions to conversations you are having to the treatment you are potentially having and seeking advice from experts on what you can do yourself is just finding ways to look after yourself, be kind and nurture yourself through this.
Unfortunately, infertility is a cause of depression and in my view, it’s probably vastly undiagnosed out there within the infertility community. We often see in the stats that around 2-3 years into a fertility journey can be the peak of where we start to see depressive tendencies coming in but it can happen at any stage. It’s really important to be aware even by looking up this question I hope that that is bringing some awareness to you. To bring further awareness there’s actually a standardized set of questions that you can go through online so if you Google depression quiz, depression questions, and go through those questions that will give you some idea of where you are on that scale and whether you need to seek some support.
I would encourage you if you are checking out this question that you seek some support regardless because infertility can be incredibly damaging to a deep level. There is so much going on in your life with infertility, with the relationship strains, work difficulties, it really does encompass your whole life so it is so important to get the support that you need as you are going through it. You should know that there are so many different types of support out there, so going through your doctor is a key one to going to get the support that you need, there’s also infertility coaches and counselors out there who are able to support you, and also talking with your family and friends, if you’re able to, can also open up new avenues of support outside of those. I encourage you to reach out even though it can be so hard when you’re in the middle of it but to reach out and try and get that support that you need.
