Role of Hormones and the Potential Impact of Multiple Stresses on Infertility

Abstract

Infertility has a remarkable global impact affecting approximately about 48 million couples worldwide. One of the most contended concerns in reproductive biology is the prospective influence of psychological stress on pregnancy rates. Individuals struggling to conceive face a stupendous amount of emotional turbulence and have a greater risk for psychological vulnerability. Both stress and infertility reinforce the impact of each other; hence, there exists a reciprocal relationship. Stress may be the major contributor to subsequent infertility. Infertility treatments may enhance stress levels as well as reduce treatment outcomes. The biological mechanisms that interlink stress and infertility are the outcome of the hormonal actions at the brain level, where they stimulate or suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and have a potential influence on the secretion of the respective hormone by the reproductive organs and the pregnancy outcomes. Sex hormones play an essential role in reproductive biology as well as in general physiology where they generate the cycle and provide a potential environment for pregnancy. This article reviews the impact of stress on reproductive rates and the implications of sex hormones on infertility. Additionally, it suggests strategies to overcome the stress conditions and the scenarios that may lead to stress.

Keywords

• infertility
• stress
• sex hormones
• hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
• pregnancy stress management