While fertility treatments have helped many people become parents, they commonly result in multiple births, increasing the risk of prematurity, and leading to lifelong complications. But this doesn’t have to be the case, according to Yale School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues, who recommend sweeping changes to policy and clinical practice in a study published in the April issue of Fertility & Sterility.
Tag: Fertility Treatments
THE FERTILITY DOCTOR: A Patient’s Obesity Can Impact Fertility Treatments
Obesity affects over 35 percent of American public. It is associated with many health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and other conditions. Obesity is also associated with infertility and with infertility affecting one in seven couples, many obese women find themselves requiring fertility treatments.
Government to Offer Free Fertility Treatments to Create Parsi Baby Boom
Each day, gray-haired men and women shuffle into the offices of Bombay Parsi Council, the governing council for the Parsi-Zoroastrians of India. Each day, they huddle behind rickety desks, stacked with dusty ledgers and pictures of their prophet, and pray for Parsi children to boost their rapidly dwindling numbers.
10 Things Not to Say to Someone Going Through Fertility Treatments
In celebration of National Infertility Awareness Week, here’s a list of what not to say to someone going through fertility treatments.
Fertility Treatments May Put Women at Risk for PTSD Symptoms, Study Suggests
Women who undergo fertility treatments may find the situation so distressing that they develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says.
In the study, close to 50 percent of participants met the official criteria for PTSD, meaning they could be diagnosed with the condition.
That’s about six times higher than the percentage of people in the general population who suffer from PTSD (8 percent.)
The findings suggest the definition of PTSD may need to be changed so that its causes include potentially traumatic experiences such as infertility, said study researcher Allyson Bradow, director of psychological services at Home of the Innocents, a nonprofit organization that helps families in need in Louisville, Ky.
Currently, the definition of PTSD says people must have experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event, or event that could cause serious injury.
“The definition of trauma should be expanded to include expectations of life,” said Bradow, who went through fertility treatments herself, and conducted the study as a doctoral student at Spalding University in Louisville. “Having children, expanding your family, carrying on your genetic code — that’s an instinctual drive that we have as human beings. And when that is being threatened, it’s not necessarily your life being threatened, but your expectation of what your life can be or should be like,” she said.
The finding also shows that a greater effort should be made to counsel those who go through fertility treatments, to help them cope with the emotional and psychological effects of the experience, Bradow said.