It appears that causes of infertility may also be psychological, originating from stress or psychological blockages.

Physical stress caused by violence, malnutrition, lack of sleep or excessive physical effort, for example, alters the brain's secretion of certain hormones, disrupting fertility and, in some cases, leading to infertility. But what about psychological stress?

Intuitively, it has been thought for many years that stress is a cause of unexplained infertility. Now multiple studies tend to demonstrate this scientifically.

As you may have already noticed, stress can delay ovulation, for example.

There are countless reasons for psychological stress: stress at work, stress in your private life, stress in your relationship, pressure from people around you (why haven't you had a baby yet?) or simply the stress created by the simple fact of not getting pregnant!

The stress associated with infertility is usually greater for women.

To assess stress levels, simply take a saliva sample to check the levels of cortisol and alpha-amylase, two known biomarkers of stress.

This is the finding of a team led by Dr Courtney Denning-Johnson Lynch, Director of the Department of Reproductive Epidemiology at Ohio State University. The conclusion of this study is that "women with high levels of alpha-amylase have a lower probability of becoming pregnant than women with low levels. High levels are even associated with higher risk of infertility".

Similarly, an Oxford University study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility found that women with high adrenaline levels (another bio-marker of stress) had a lower chance of pregnancy than women with lower adrenaline levels.

And even in cases of "explained" infertility, stress, even if it is not the cause, adds to the medical reasons to make the situation worse.

Finally, stress appears or worsens throughout the IVF process due to fear of failure and constraints of treatment.

Conventional medicine makes no provision for eliminating or reducing this stress as part of IVF treatment. This is where alternative medicine or therapies can be of invaluable help as a complement to medical treatment. Serious studies are tending to demonstrate the complementary benefits of these therapies, proving that osteopathic treatment improves quality of life and increases pregnancy rates.

Conclusion: to have a baby, banish or reduce stress from your life!