One of the most frequent questions I am asked by both men and women is whether stress may be affecting their fertility. There is a lot of evidence that stress can adversly affect a woman's fertility.There are studies showing that interventions with acupuncture and Mind-Body programs can have a positive influence on the chance of IVF success.

Now a multi-center study in the March 2010 issue of the journal Fertility & Sterility shows that more than two recent stressful life events decreased sperm parameters. In order to decrease the affect of variables that they may have found in infertile men, they examined the sperm of 744 fertile males. They found that men reporting more than two recent stressful life events had an increased risk of being classified below standard thresholds for “normal” defined by concentration, motility and morphology criteria, compared with men reporting less than two stressful life events.

The authors conclude that stressful life events may be associated with decreased semen quality in fertile men. Based on these findings the experience of psychosocial stress may be a modifiable factor in the development of male infertility.