High stress cuts chance of successful IVF

Chronic stress may hinder women’s chances of having a baby through IVF, a study suggests.

Each year 50,000 women in the UK go through the procedure, where their eggs are fertilised in a test tube before being implanted in the womb. About one in four of these operations results in a live birth.

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the University of Nottingham measured cortisol, a hormone that is thought to track stress levels, in the hair of 88 women trying to conceive through IVF. The results, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, suggest that those with elevated levels of the chemical, which could correspond to sustained stress, are almost a third less likely to become pregnant.

Adam Massey, the lead author, said…