Fact or Myth: Does stress cause infertility?

Stress or mental distress, in general, is a feeling induced by stressors that causes one to feel angry, frustrated, and uneasy. To manage the stress, people tend to do some habits like eating, shopping and smoking which result to poor health conditions such as obesity, that have been associated with poor implantation and clinical pregnancy outcomes, and infertility.

Much has been discussed whether or not stress affects fertility. According to Rachel Donnison, of European Medical Journal (EMJ), 46% of people think that stress causes fertility problems or contributes to the inability of couples to achieve pregnancy - some think otherwise.

With Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), fertilization and embryo culture period will be controlled without any stressors using equipment like CO2 incubators which mimic the environment of a woman’s uterus.

So, does stress contribute to the inability of couples to get pregnant? During the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) virtual 36th Annual meeting, Prof. Boivin, who has dedicated most of her career arguing that stress has no direct correlation with infertility, had a discussion on ESHRE's virtual discussion entitled “Stress and Infertility – The Chicken of the Egg”. One of the arguments she mentioned was that, in an area with abundant stressors like poverty, high fertility rates can still be observed across the world. In a counterargument however, Prof. Lawson believes that stress affects fertility. Stress starts even before IVF treatment begins, worsens as the process goes on, and continuously fails to achieve pregnancy.

There could still be lots of arguments about stress affecting fertility but one thing is for certain, reliable IVF equipment such as CelCulture® CO2 incubator with optimized environmental culture parameters, guarantees increased chances of achieving successful pregnancy.

Esco Medical is the leading manufacturer and innovator of high-quality equipment such as long-term embryo incubators, ART workstations, anti-vibration table, time-lapse incubator, and is continuously developing advanced technologies to meet the increasing demand of the IVF industry. Esco Medical’s CelCulture® CO2 incubator offers rapid temperature and gas recovery, ISO Class 5 cleanliness, ISOCIDE™ antimicrobial coating, and an inner door kit to reduce contamination risks. The CelCulture® CO2 Incubator is designed to replicate the natural environment for developing embryos by maintaining low levels of oxygen.