'Fertile Yoga' Reduces Stress And Increases Hopefulness In Women Undergoing Fertility Treatment

Recent estimates suggest that there are at least 50 million couples throughout the world who suffer from infertility. And despite the umpteen fertility treatment options, women undergoing such treatments continue to feel depressed, stressed and hopeless.

A new research reports that women undergoing fertility treatments felt less stressed and hopeful after attending a ‘Fertile Yoga’ class.

Experts have reported that a majority of infertile patients discontinue their treatments prematurely because of stress and feeling discouraged. They also end up feeling hopeless and disappointed and when it gets worse, they end up dropping out of the treatment plan.

“We know that when we decrease stress and sadness and increase hopefulness women are able likely to stay infertility treatment, so we are talking about patient retention, sticking with it," Reuters Health quoted the study’s lead author Lisa Rosenthal, Patient advocate at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut as saying.

She also explained that 'Fertile Yoga' is a very specific type of yoga where two techniques are taught to the women who are trying out fertility treatments:

1. A one-minute mantra: “I am strong, healthy, resilient, hopeful, capable and fertile.”

2. Seven movements of the spine like forwarding flexion, backbend extension, lateral left bend, and lateral right bend, left rotation twist, right rotation twist, and axial extension.

The study included 55 women who were under different fertility treatments. They were asked to complete questionnaires before and after taking up 'Fertile Yoga'. The questionnaire included questions regarding stress, sadness and levels of hopefulness on a zero to 10 scale, where zero indicated nil stress, sadness or hope and a 10 meant the highest stress, sadness, and maximum hope.

The researches highlight the fact that they purposefully used the outcomes of stress and sadness since they weren’t clinical diagnoses but the way a person feels.

Their findings indicated a statistically significant decrease in stress and sadness and an improvement in hopefulness after the yoga class for all age groups.

Women in all age categories felt that the yoga class’ mantra and movements taught were highly helpful during class and that they would continue to follow them in the future.