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Depression and anxiety, and not necessarily the use of antidepressant medication, are associated with lower pregnancy and live birth rates following in vitro fertilisation, according to a large register study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
The new study, including more than 23,000 women, is the largest so far assessing the association between depression, anxiety and antidepressants and the outcome of in vitro fertilisation, IVF.
"We found that women undergoing their first IVF treatment who either had been diagnosed with depression or anxiety or had dispensed an antidepressant had lower rates of pregnancy and live birth rates compared to women who did not suffer from these conditions or take antidepressants before beginning their IVF treatment," says first author Carolyn Cesta, doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
"Importantly, we found that women with a depression or anxiety diagnosis without a prescription of antidepressants had an even lower chance of becoming pregnant or having a live birth."
"Taken together, these results indicate that the depression and anxiety diagnoses may be the underlying factor leading to lower pregnancy and live birth rates in these women," says the study's principal investigator Anastasia Nyman Iliadou, associate professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
However, she cautions that since the study was not randomised the results could also be explained by unmeasured lifestyle and/or genetic factors associated with depression and anxiety.
Category(s):Anxiety, Depression, Pregnancy & Birthing
Source material from Karolinska Institutet
