Does stress reduce IVF success rates ? The truth about stress and infertility. Why we need to stop blaming the victim

Stress and infertility has become an extremely vexed issue , and many people start blaming infertile women for their inability to get pregnant by saying it's the mental stress which is preventing them from achieving a pregnancy . This is a very unkind form of victim blaming , and has become a huge problem for working couples , where the woman is an ambitious professional , who wants to climb up the career ladder, because she wants to do more with her life than just have babies.

When she finds that she can't get pregnant , everyone around her starts blaming her , by saying that it’s because she is so focused on her job, and because she is stressed out because of her work pressure , that she is not able to get pregnant .

It’s a myth that stress causes infertility. Think about this for a few seconds and you'll understand why . Let’s take a woman who gets raped . Imagine what her stress levels are going to be like ! However, the fact that she is stressed does not stop some women who are raped from getting  pregnant , does it ? This is a biological process which she cannot control

The problem is because infertile women themselves are so emotionally vulnerable , they end up blaming themselves for their infertility . This is especially an issue when the medical diagnosis is unexplained infertility – when the doctor cannot find the medical reason for the infertility because our technology is so crude.

It then becomes very easy to blame mental stress as being the reason for the infertility , because this is not something which anyone can prove or disprove – and even doctors do this routinely !

As we all know , women are often blamed for lots of things which are never their fault , because we live in such a patriarchal society .

The truth is that it is the infertility which causes the stress , and it's not the stress which causes the infertility . After all, being stressed out because you can’t get pregnant when you want a baby is a perfectly normal response ! This is a chicken and egg problem, where the egg came first !

It’s important that you stop beating up on yourself please .

Remember that if stress caused infertility then no IVF patient would ever get pregnant . No IVF patient ever wants to go to an IVF Clinic , and you can just imagine the amount of stress they are under ! Taking injections daily, doing blood tests and ultrasound scans done is extremely stressful.

The fact that they do get pregnant all the time just reinforces the fact that getting pregnant has nothing to do with your mental peace of mind , so you can stop blaming yourself !