A New Fertility Factor by Alice D. Domar Ph.D.
Although the above article isn’t new as the title would suggest, I read a statistic that I hadn’t seen before that made so much sense. The article was written in 2004.
What do we really know about fertility and the mind? For starters, we know that infertility is stressful. Women who have difficulty conceiving suffer as much anxiety and depression as women with heart disease or cancer. A recent study found that 40 percent of them were anxious or depressed. This shouldn’t be surprising. Procreation is one of the strongest instincts in the animal kingdom. Males will die fighting for a chance to mate, and females will die to protect their young. Moreover, most people assume they are fertile. When you’ve spent your adult life taking precautions to avoid pregnancy, it’s a shock to discover that you can’t make it happen at will. Treatment can add to the anguish. You get poked, prodded, injected, inspected and operated on, and you have mechanical sex on schedule.
The line that had me surprised is, “Women who have difficulty conceiving suffer as much anxiety and depression as wmen with heart disease or cancer.” Really. Finally a correlation that I can wave about that shows the amount of stress that I was feeling with infertility. Just as much stress as having a life threatening illness that could possibly kill me. And isn’t that how it felt? Like my life was ending? Or at least a part of life that I felt I was entitled to was dead. I’m hoping that you can understand the relief that I felt reading this statement. Finally I can say, “I was not being dramatic. I was not overreacting.” Finally a little proof to help me take that monkey off of my back.
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