Stress, Fertility, and Hormones: Does Stress Impact Your Fertility?

Fertility doctor, Natalie Crawford, MD talks about stress, hormones, and fertility. Learn how your hormones are all connected and how stress can impact ovulation, fertilization, implantation, pregnancy rates and more. How can you decrease stress? Does stress impact your fertility?

Your body is made to respond to stress.

Stress is a normal part of life.

Stressors can be both good and bad.

And you are supposed to be able to respond to this stress.

That’s how your body is made.

People can have stress for *so many* reasons - and each of us respond differently to different situations - this is what makes stress so unique to us all (and thus, hard to study and understand).

But when you are constantly stressed, with high cortisol - this changes your brain. This changes the release of reproductive hormones. This impacts fertilization and implantation. Stress matters. Understanding how your hormones work and what can happen with constant or chronic stress - allows you to start to reevaluate your life. What changes can you make? How can you realistically reduce stress? How important is stress in your life?

Listen to learn more about your body and then reflect on these questions:

1. What boundaries can you set?

2. How can you utilize your time better?

3. What stress reduction techniques can you begin to incorporate?

4. How can you sleep better

Reviewed in this episodes: Understand your hormones. How are hormones impacted by stress? Does stress impact reproduction? Does stress impact fertility? Does stress matter when you do IVF? How can you decrease stress?