How Infertility Can Impact Mental Health: Tips to Support Wellness During Treatment

We recognize that infertility can create a profoundly distressing life crisis for the individuals and couples impacted. It is demonstrated without question that, for some, infertility, reproductive losses, and the impact of assisted reproductive treatments can lead to excessive stress, anxiety and even depression. The process often involves uncertainty and grief that can take a toll on one’s emotional well-being. Many patients go through multiple treatment cycles on their journey to reach their goals, and with each cycle, the anxiety and stress is known to increase. On top of quality-of-life impacts, emotional burnout in treatment can lead to stopping treatment before goals are achieved.

Dispelling the Blame Around “Stress”

The relationship between stress and infertility is still not adequately understood. What does this mean? It means that until we have more methodologically sound research, blame and misconceptions around stress causing infertility, or negatively impacting treatment outcomes, need to be corrected. While it can be hard not to fixate on the outcomes in this process, we have to ensure they do not come at the cost of mental and emotional well-being! The important shift in focus, for fertility patients and their providers, should be to proactively support patients holistically – mentally, emotionally and physically – during treatment.

5 Tips for Coping:

1) Engage in mental health support:
Proactively seek mental health support from a provider who specializes in infertility and assisted reproductive technologies. 

• •   Find a provider from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s Mental Health Professional Group (MHPG)
  •       Participate in RESOLVE support groups
  •       Find a provider who is covered by your insurance: Use keywords when searching for a provider who specializes in assisted reproductive technologies and infertility.
• Spring’s in-house offerings:
  • Join us at Spring for community support groups
  • Ask your care team to connect you with our in-house psychology team, who can call you for a check-in, offer individual or couple sessions, or provide you with a private practice referral of a fertility-specialized provider who may be covered through your primary health insurance

2) Check in with your thinking and emotions:

• • Try Naming, Normalizing & Allowing Thoughts and Feelings
    • Notice & Name: “Wow, I am having X thought a lot today” and attempt to create some distance between you and the thought, and calls it what it is – a thought and not a reality!
    • Let the thoughts come and go, noticing them and holding them loosely: “My brain is working really hard, trying to solve this unknowable thing for me.”  “My body is really wound up in a vigilant and self-protective mode.”  Try to tell your mind/body they are allowed to rest.     
  • Practice curiosity NOT criticism (around feelings, needs, fears, etc.)
    • See if you can create just a little more space for the feeling without trying to change it, maybe by breathing some air around it. You don’t have to like it; you can just try to make space for it.

3) Create personal affirmations:

•  “I can trust my future self to manage X” [e.g., a loss, an undesired outcome].”
•  “I have survived Y [a loss or challenge in your own history], I can survive Z.”
•  “I will find my way back to wholeness even if I don’t feel it now.”
  •   Use self-compassion:
    • “I am worthy of love independent of this outcome.”
    • “I am proud of my own hard work, dedication, resilience.”

•       Use acceptance to release pressure on yourself:
  • Shift “If something is hard, I must be doing it wrong/missing something” to "This feels hard because it IS hard.”
  • There will be times in this process you cannot problem-solve your way to a solution. Try, “Acceptance is the only answer for today.”
  • If you stay accurately informed with your medical counseling and follow treatment protocols, remind yourself: “I have done my part.” Disappointment or loss cannot be pre-processed.

4) Focus on self-care & self-nurturing activities:

•       Engage in activities that bring pleasure and feel good – now more than ever! If these pastimes or “treats” need to look different for medical reasons while in cycle, be creative and remember this change is temporary.
•       Get outside, increase movement and engagement with nature.
•       Be gentle with yourself. This may be a time to reduce other responsibilities, if possible.
•       Plan to have your favorite food or watch your favorite show.
•       Honor boundaries for your individual privacy needs, but challenge any impulse to self-isolate. There is no replacement for relational support from loved ones.
•       Engage in activities that make you feel in control (e.g., choosing foods, movement activities, social activities, self-care activities)

5) Lean on your safe support persons:

•       Identify and lean on those individuals in your support system who are SAFE.
•       Be clear with friends and family about what helps or hurts you (as this is highly individual!) - less advice-giving, more listening, hearing about their infertility or pregnancy loss experiences, not forcing constant optimism, waiting to hear from you about outcomes after cycles, etc...  
•       Point your supports to more information on infertility so they can best show up for you!