Study: Depression and Anxiety May Lower the Chance of Having a Baby for Women Undergoing IVF

More and more women who are having a hard time conceiving are subjecting themselves to in vitro fertilization (IVF). They get anxious and depressed most of the time because they are not sure whether they can conceive or not. To add to the pressure they're already in, a new study has recently revealed that depression and anxiety may lower a woman's chance to conceive through IVF.

A team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden wanted to find out if there was really a relationship between depression and the success of IVF. So they gathered data from the Swedish Quality Register of Assisted Reproduction on all IVF procedures performed in Sweden from 2007 onwards and connected it to information on depression, anxiety, and the antidepressant dispensed from the nationwide Swedish Patient and Prescribed Drug Registers.

A new study has discovered that the use of antidepressants, especially selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) has dramatically increased over the last two or three decades in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are about one in 10 Americans who use them. However, there isn't much people know about antidepressants and how it can affect fertility and a woman's ability to conceive, medicaldaily.com reported.

The results revealed that there are more than 23,000 women who are included on the list which researchers believe is the largest sample gathered to analyze the relationship between depression, anxiety and antidepressant and the effect of IVF. According to theadventurouswriter.com, 4.4 percent of women were diagnosed with depression and anxiety within two years before beginning the first cycle of their IVF were taking antidepressants 6 months before the first cycle.

Researchers also discovered that women with depression and anxiety had lower pregnancy rates and live births compared to women who did not suffer from conditions like these or taking antidepressants before the beginning of their IVF treatment, said first author Carolyn Cesta, doctoral student at the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics, in a statement.