Can Yoga and Mind Body Intervention Help People Get Pregnant Boost Fertility

"If somebody would have told me 3 to 4 years ago that I would be encouraging patients to go for yoga, acupuncture ( to promote reproductive fertility i.e increase chances of having a baby) or any other integrative treatment, they would say my head would need to be examined," said a reproductive endocrinologist......
I remembered this quote from a former article I wrote about in healty medical Blog when I read a recent NY Times article titled Yoga’s Stress Relief: An Aid for Infertility?







Intuitively it seems right that anything that reduces stress ought to help fertility..(My intuition also tells me I ought to be rich ,but that's another story). So it seems like yoga could conceivably help...even acupuncture has been put forward as a way to help infertility..see healty medical Blog see Can Acupuncture Help You Get Pregnant?




The Times article says "Besides taxing the mind, body and wallet, infertility can be lonely. Support groups have long existed for infertile couples, but in recent years, “yoga for fertility” classes have become increasingly popular. They are the latest in a succession of holistic approaches to fertility treatment that have included acupuncture and mind-body programs (whose effectiveness for infertility patients is backed by research); massage (which doesn’t have specific data to support it); and Chinese herbs (which some say may be detrimental).


see

Treating Infertility

see

Yoga's Stress Relief Aid for Infertility?

A Video about Mind Body and Infetility










In the previous healty medical Blog article about Yoga and Infertility, Yoga Touted as Help for Infertility , I referenced a report that said "While some people may dismiss the value of alternative medicines, a study by the National Institute of Mental Health found more than half of 56 participants with fertility issues gave birth one year after joining a mind-body program compared to only 20 percent in a different group".



I think the National Institute of Health funded mind body infertility study they are talking about is one by Dr. Alice Domar of Harvard Medical School, a scientist who has been studying this for years..."Dr. Domar’s five-year study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and examined two questions. First, the researchers asked whether psychological interventions could affect pregnancy rates. Second, they wondered if these interventions could help prevent the depression women tend to suffer as they experience infertility.



"The psychological interventions in the study took the form of support groups or mind/body groups meeting once a week for ten weeks. The results showed that more than half of the women in the intervention groups conceived a healthy baby within the first year. Only one out of five women in the control groups became pregnant. The control groups had received routine care, but no psychological intervention."
see Psychological Support Boost Fertility



Talking about another, different study which looked at stress, stress enzymes and the impact on fertility, a specialist wrote on his blog "With such findings it would appear that patients would benefit if they were enrolled in various stress reducing programs when try to conceive. Mind body programs, support groups, acupuncture and massage appear to offer the greatest benefit".


see

Study Suggests Stress Reduction May Increase Pregnancy Rate



See also

Cycle of stress:Getting pregnant, having monster PMS - how the S factor may play a part