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In the Mood for IVF Success

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What role does state of mind play in IVF outcomes?

I had always assumed there was only one mood you could be in when undergoing IVF - ‘bad'.

At least this was based on my own experience as a multiple IVF patient and the observations I made of other patients at the clinic. Admittedly there are some variations because ‘bad' was really a combination of anxiety, depression and fear in various quantities depending on the drugs and the time in the cycle.

‘Good', meaning jolly, merry or joyful didn't come into it. Show me a frisky IVF patient gamboling in a jocular manner and I'll say she's been supplementing the IVF drugs with others of an illegal nature or the whole thing's sent her crazy.

So it seemed curious to find that Canadian scientists were studying the link between emotional state of the IVF patient and how many embryos were subsequently implanted. Dr Christopher Newton of the University Hospital of London, Health Sciences Centre Canada, found that the number of embryos a patient requested to be implanted was related to the degree of negative moods the woman experienced.

A woman who was feeling pessimistic tended to have multiple embryos implanted, which is the higher risk method and a woman less negative more likely to have what is known as the less risky single embryo transfer (SET).

Research unrelated to that of infertility, i.e. gambling and lottery, supports the view that people in a negative mood are more likely to engage in those behaviours than happier people. Therefore bad mood equals risky behaviour.

It is only in recent years that the push to have SET has gained momentum, as techniques have been improved thereby reducing the need for multiple transfers which are associated with premature births and other pregnancy risks.

I do recall the ‘Hallelujah Praise the Lord' expression on my gynecologist's face when, for reasons unbeknown to us, my husband and I said we'd have the one embryo transferred. It was the same expression we had when we learnt it was successful.

So I can only conclude that, despite the sheer terror I was experiencing that day, I must have been in one of my better states of mind. Maybe they're right, when it comes to IVF, it pays to be in the mood.

Jodi Panayotov