by Danielle Bucco

Many people who have not gone through infertility in some form find it hard to think about the effects and implications it can have on a person or couple, both physically and emotionally. In 2007 the National Survey of Fertility Borders indicated that more than 30% of women experience fertility problems and the number is only increasing. With this large number of people dealing with these issues, it is important to understand all the many different ways that fertility problems can affect a person.

When people who have not gone through infertility think about it, most automatically just think of the physical struggles that a person has to deal with. They think about the treatment process and what could be wrong, instead of thinking of the emotional implications that it has on the people who have received an infertility diagnosis. It has been discussed that pregnancy loss can be suitably thought of as a traumatic stressor. When each form of fertility treatment fails it is often experienced profoundly as the literal death of a child. The pain that is experienced is something that people without infertility, find hard to imagine. Couples have such high hopes each time they go through treatment, only to have their hopes completely crushed by a doctor telling them that it hasn’t worked.

One of the first studies of considering infertility a trauma by Engelhard in 2001 stated that infertility could lead to forms of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). A traumatic event is defined as experiencing, witnessing, or learning about the actual or threatened death/injury of themselves or others. This is definitely something that people dealing with infertility have to go through, some even multiple times. Several of these stress issues fade over time but there are more issues than just the stress factor. Anxiety and depression also play a part in the emotional distress of an individual going through infertility and again, many people do not take that into consideration if they have not experienced it themselves.

This myth, that infertility only affects a person physically, is something that people need to understand is not true. When a person deals with infertility it is something that can lead to so many emotional issues as well. Suffering loss after loss, is emotionally draining and many people suffer from anxiety, depression, PTSD, and so much more because of it. The sooner people begin to understand this, the better they are going to be able to help their loved ones through this hard time and give them the support that they need. Everyone experiences loss differently, which means it can sometimes be hard to figure out exactly what that person needs. The most important thing is that they know they have support and are allowed time to grieve in their own way and on their own timeline.