Increased risk of depression with successful fertility treatment

Counterintuitive to popular assumptions, a new study out of the University of Copenhagen suggests that women’s whose fertility treatment results in a baby face more risk of depression than women whose fertility treatments proved unsuccessful. The new study shows that women who give birth after receiving fertility treatment are five times more likely to develop depression compared to women who don’t give birth.

The study is based on a database of 41,000 Danish women who underwent IVF treatment. Those who had babies following the procedure are more likely to have developed depression than women who didn’t have babies, and the risk is particularly acute in the first 6 weeks following birth.

Hormonal factors could be one influence, but researchers are now committed to preventive treatments and therapies to reduce the impact of depression on women undergoing IVF to have children.

Reference:

University of Copenhagen The Faculty of. (2015, August 19). “Increased risk of depression for mothers undergoing fertility treatment.” Medical News Today. Retrieved from
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/298333.php.