Two papers
presented here today at the at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s
Scientific Congress in San Antonio (ASRM 2017) highlighted the importance of
yoga in patients undergoing infertility treatments.
It is known
that stress negatively affects reproductive outcome in ARTs and Yoga help
improve the pregnancy rate and reduce the anxiety levels as an adjuvant treatment
during the period.
Both the
papers were also published in Fertility and Sterility September supplement.
A team of researchers
from a private clinic in New Delhi examined the impact of Yoga on pregnancy
rates for women who had already undergone one unsuccessful IVF treatment with
fresh embryos.
Women with
more than 5 years of subfertility, less than 38 years of age with no anatomical
uterine anomalies were randomized to receive (n=105) either 30 sessions of Yoga
over a period of 3 months, including asana (exercises) and pranayama (regulated
breathing) followed by frozen embryo transfer or to have the embryo transfer in
subsequent month(n=53) without any yoga sessions.
All women in
the Yoga group completed Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM- D), Hamilton
Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) and FertiQol questionnaire at baseline (S1) and
after 3 months of YOGA sessions (S2) to assess the anxiety scores.
Following
embryo transfer, 63% of the women in the yoga group achieved pregnancy as
compared with 43% in the group with no Yoga training (P = 0.039). There was
also remarkable improvement in the psychological wellbeing in women who had the
yoga training.
The team
from Chicago investigated the efficacy of attending an on-line or in person yoga
class in bringing down the stress and anxiety levels in women with previous
failed IVF.
In this small
prospective cohort study of 26 patients, women were allowed to enroll into in
person or an online yoga class for about 6 sessions. Spielberger State-Trait
Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were completed before and after the intervention.
A
significant decrease in anxiety and stress was observed in both the groups,
which furthers the idea that an online yoga teaching is also equally effective as
in person.
The study is
still ongoing and recruiting participants, and the additional data will help
strengthen the previous results.
We know
infertility patients suffer from very high stress levels. These studies show
that yoga represents a promising therapy for reducing patient stress during
infertility treatment and even potentially improve outcome of such treatment,”
said Richard J. Paulson, MD, President of the ASRM in a news release.
