Stress is exposed as the “inability of an animal to cope with its environment.” Stress likewise is responsible for many things including subfertility. It has been recognized that there is a link between reproductive function and stressors has been known since the late 1930’s. The stress hormones released are secreted in response to the stressor and they elicit the “fight or flight response.” The rush of adrenaline accompanied with the sympathetic system could be a mechanism for why stressors inhibit reproduction.
In a study of agricultural animals it was discovered that stressors do in fact inhibit reproduction. Dairy cows show that certain stressors such as milk fever and heat sickness increase the length of conception by intervals of 13-14 days. This is due to increased chemical releases of chemicals effecting the hypothalamus. Such stressors are also known to interfere with the precise timings of reproductive hormone releases. The exact way stress influences reproduction is not clearly understood but it “may involve a number of endocrine, paracrine and neural systems.”
In humans things are a little different. Although many infertile couples blame stress for their infertility, studies are proclaiming that as reverse causation. In the majority of cases stress is not the cause of infertility. There is however, a biological interaction between stress and infertility due to the stress hormones increased levels in the brain. These especially effect the hypothalamus-pituitary and on the female reproductive organs. Stress hormones interact with the hormones that are responsible for normal ovulatory cycles, thus having the ability to influence fertility at the organ level.
Although female hormones and sex organs can be effected by stress, it does not cause infertility the way it does in farm animals such as dairy cows. The testing and studies done on the animals does not lead it to be a factor in humans, but like lab studies on other animals it could always provide information that could be studied more directly with humans. The correlation does remain that technically stress could be a factor in infertility and reproduction, but there is most likely a confounding variable. That being said the stresses of college WILL NOT make it so you will not get pregnant, so be safe.
When I read this post, I couldn’t even believe that this was something that existed. Do people really think that the stresses of college are enough to keep them from getting pregnant? There are way too many studies and modern technologies available to us as a society intended to prevent pregnancies so why wouldn’t college students rely on that instead of an assumption? This article says that only 20% of instances with women hint at infertility due to stress. Thats an entire 80% of women who don’t have problem with conceiving even if they are stressed. It is in rare cases that stress keep a woman from getting pregnant. And even if some college students are in that 20%, it is way better to be safe than sorry.
What an interesting study! For obvious reasons, cows and women are different however it would be very interesting to see an actual experiment done on this. Everyday couples struggle to have children and while most of it has to do with infertility, it would be interesting to see if some of it has to do with stress.
The title of this really caught my eye because I stress a lot and have a lot of bad symptoms. And I know how bad stress is for the body, so for some weird reason one day it crossed my mind that if I keep feeling this way it can have a lot of consequences on me. One of them being I could have problems having kids. Weird to think about because I just started college and have no plans for kids, but this blog really reassured me that its a real problem. It also reassured me that it might not all be due to stress, but a third variable like you said. And I also believe how the tests done on animals can’t actually show how stress affects a humans reproductive system, because both are different. But it does give really good insight for it, and really opens up a discussion and study for more information regarding it.
I think that testing this situation on animals would make sense, except it really does not help the case for humans at all. This is because heat stress on animals is not in any way related to humans, and the study on the humans proved that stress does not cause infertility. This reminds me of the conversation we had in class about cigarettes and how they cause lung cancer but we do not know why for sure, it seems like that is where you were trying to go with this but then you found that that statement is not supported by data.
When I first read the blog title I was amazed. I thought there was no way being stressed could act as a substitute for birth control. I mean there is no way you could trust your stress filled life to help prevent getting pregnant. As i continued reading it became clear that it isn’t really a substitute for birth control but rather just a factor that can be related with the inability to become pregnant. I thought it was interesting that they conducted experiments on animals. But can you really fully trust the outcome of an animal experiment when it’s clear that we as humans have different reproductive systems? I found this blog truly interesting and it’s nice to know that stress can factor in to the inability to reproduce.
Although we use animal testing as an indicator for human reactions, I am not sure how much I trust it in this situation. I do not see how the fact that heat stress causes some infertility in cows relates very much to humans. I do, however, agree that a reverse causality is very possible here. While I have not experienced it, I know that infertility can be stressful for couples. It is very easy to imagine infertility causing stress and stress becoming a hypotheses for cause of infertility.