AssistedConception.org

It is likely that every woman on the planet who has experienced infertility has heard from someone, or from lots of someones, to “just relax”. Or to “stop trying so hard”, or to “just adopt and you will get pregnant” or one of a thousand silly remarks which might have been meant to help you, but end up doing just the opposite.

Telling someone who is doing everything in her power to conceive a healthy baby to “just relax” is insulting, demeaning, and insinuates that her stress level is causing her infertility.
But what is the relationship between stress and infertility? Is it possible that stress is harmless in this situation, that indeed shots and procedures and surgeries override any impact of stress? Or is it possible that indeed stress can play a role in infertility?
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Counselling helps “perfectionist” women regain their fertility and become pregnant, US researchers say. They found cognitive behaviour therapy alone was enough to help some women who had stopped having periods and ovulating to regain their fertility. The therapy is usually used to treat people with depression.

A European fertility conference in Prague heard a build-up of stress can play a major role in preventing a woman from ovulating. But sometimes the effect can build up gradually in a subtle way.

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) can counter this by helping women to “make molehills out of mountains", the researchers said. Many of the women seen by the team were perfectionists - whether they had high-powered jobs or stayed at home - leading to high levels of stress.

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Cradle held its 3rd Fundraising day in just 12 months on the 3rd June 2006. This years return to GOALS in Glasgow was an excellent day with great weather and some fantastic football played by 22 very sporting men and 1 extremely enthusiastic girl.



All players were fantastic for taking part and the winning Cradle trophy went to John Gray’s team who out played all other teams on the day. We had a superb turn out of just over one hundred friends and family of Cradle members who raised in the region of £1400.00. This money will go towards helping us to continue to provide all of the support and information to patients and their families for the next year. Part of last years money went towards supporting one of our group leaders in completing a counselling skills course at Glasgow University. Due to the benefits that these skills have brought in helping to work with others in difficult situations, we plan to send one other group leader on the same course this year.

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A drug which may encourage embryos to implant in the womb has shown encouraging results in early trials - producing babies for women who had endured repeated IVF failures.
The drug, LIF, will now move to wider trials before it is offered routinely to women.

Fertility treatment is successful in fewer than half of all couples who try them, even after repeated attempts. Many of these failures cannot be properly explained, although doctors suspect that in some cases, the fertilised embryo fails to implant correctly in the wall of the womb after it is transferred back by doctors.

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