Infertility is a life crisis with invisible losses, and its consequences are manifold. As per World Health Organization, “Infertility is a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse”. Based on the census reports, researchers show that childlessness in India has risen by 50 per cent since 1981. It is not because couples are choosing not to have children but primarily due to growing infertility.
Infertility is not a just related to women. Both male and female factors are equally responsible for infertility along with unexplained infertility. However, in a country like India women are majorly considered and treated as victims for infertility. At the same time, talking about such a subject has been a taboo for a long time and with the entire societal pressures, the stress and blame on a woman is always enormous. As this is rising in urban population drastically, couples should be more open to sharing and not be additionally burdened with societal pressures.
There is no doubt that women face lot of stigma and discrimination due to infertility. Men may not be stigmatized or discriminated by the family or society. This doesn’t take away the pain and suffering they go through. It is always seen that, men usually hide their feelings and doesn’t feel comfortable sharing their feelings with anyone especially, if the man has fertility issues.
Pregnancy and motherhood is a natural process of mankind. But, in this process, if couple experience biological issues, along with societal, family, marital and peer pressure can cause stress and anxiety. Similarly, the stigma and discrimination around this adds more anxiousness and stress during fertility treatments in couple. Every couple has a different way of looking at these things and deals with them based on their psychological, family support that they receive. Whenever, the situation and emotions take over and affects day to day activities the couple requires psychological support from counsellors.
When couple opt for IVF treatments and approach to treat their infertility, they come with the hope that they might have a chance for a positive pregnancy. But not all IVF treatments gives 100% success rate. Accepting and dealing with the negative results impacts couple more than being infertile. In such a situation, the couple would experience mixed emotions of helplessness, hopelessness, anger, guilt, frustration and would not understand what to do. The families can also be the ones to cause this due to multiple treatments and failures and blame the woman.
What the Couple should so in such situation? Here are some strategies to take care of the mental health during the confused and difficult situation.
Dealing with personal Issues: All infertile men or women have lot of things which has neither been expressed not shared with anyone. This could be due to lack of trust, feeling of being judged or not found a right person to talk. A professional counsellor can help them to deal with issues which might be bothering them without being biased or judgmental.
Dealing with treatment related issues: Accepting the diagnosis and proceeding with the treatment sometimes could be very difficult for the couple. The professional counsellor can work with the couples during the different stages of the treatment cycle.
Before the treatment - Prepare for the treatment based on the stress, fear, anxiousness and depression the couple experiences individually or as a couple.
During the treatment - Handling and provide emotional support for the stress and fear the couple experience during the treatment. This is always associated with end result.
After the treatment - Providing the emotional support to accept and deal with the negative outcome or a miscarriage they are experiencing. This can be done with the combination of clinical and psychological with the help of psychotherapies.
The couple will not be judged and will be provided a comfort zone to share their doubts and insecurities.
Helps them to reduce the burden that they might be carrying for a long time.
The holistic approach in counselling helps in improving overall issues related to mental health and achieve a better quality of life.