New Study Connects Stress to Infertility? Not Quite.

Once again, the media has taken a study and made it out to be something it's not. If you read the New York Times online, you might have come across this headline:

"Old Maxim of Fertility and Stress Is Reversed."

The article then goes onto to say that some infertility experts claim stress does not cause infertility, but in fact, infertility causes stress. It then postulates that this is no longer accurate, given the latest study on stress and infertility. Referring to stress and infertility, the article states, "Now researchers suggest that the two conditions may indeed be linked."

Except that's not exactly true.

What the latest study does say is that acute stress may make it less likely to get pregnant - at least during the first cycle.
The study from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development involved tracking approximately 270 couples, who had just begun trying to conceive, between the ages of 18 and 40. They analyzed their salvia (their spit) during the fertile window, looking for biological markers of stress.

They found that higher levels of the enzyme alpha-amylase, a marker for stress, correlated with a decrease in the couple's pregnancy rate during the first cycle of the study.
The article at the New York Times says the study showed this decrease occurred "each month". Except, what the research actually found was that during the first cycle of the study, this stress related enzyme seemed to be linked to a lower likelihood of pregnancy. But, when researchers looked at all the months from the study combined, there was no statistically significant difference.

In other words, when looking at the big picture, this stress enzyme did not lead to trouble getting pregnant.
Also, as an interesting aside, the study found that higher levels of cortisol - another stress related hormone - seemed to be linked to higher rates of pregnancy overall. Cortisol levels may be higher in those who experience long term stress, while alpha-amylase is related to acute, short term stress. (The difference between having an extremely stressful life, as opposed to an extremely stressful day or week.)

However, the article was not titled "Long Term Stress Boosts Pregnancy Success."
Which I find interesting... because if we're going to be fair, and we're going to conclude that stress causes infertility based on only the first cycle's data, wouldn't it make sense to take the data as a whole and conclude that long term stress is good for fertility?

Now to be clear, I'm not arguing against the incorporation of stress reduction as a part of infertility treatment. And I'm not saying that stress does not reduce fertility in some way.
In fact, I think fertility clinics should provide clients with stress reduction services, and when the insurance companies start covering fertility treatment (which they should do since infertility is a disease), I think the stress reduction services should be covered. Not just as a way of boosting success rates, but also to lower depression and anxiety.

What I am pointing out is that this particular study did not find that stress causes infertility, despite The New York Times headline.
Infertility is defined as the inability to get pregnant after one year of trying - not the inability to get pregnant after one month.
Thoughts? Please share them in the comments below!
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