In a recent study involving women who had not ovulated for six months, a 'staggering' 80 percent of those receiving therapy started to ovulate again compared with just a quarter of those not having it.

The finding came in a study which showed for the first time that stress may lead to infertility.

Doctors discovered that when stress levels are high for long periods, hormones can interfere with ovulation, meaning women cannot conceive. An American professor told today how her research found stress reduction therapy can alleviate the symptoms and restore fertility.

This will offer hope to thousands of career women struggling to start a family and could lead to a rise in the number of patients who are undergoing fertility treatment being sent for therapy.

The research was being presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproductionand Embryology in Prague today.

Root of Ovulation Failure

Professor Sarah Berga, from Emory University, Atlanta, said that her work was the first to show that reducing stress through psychological intervention could restore ovulation in women.

She said ovulation failure was thought to be caused by excessive dieting and exercise but her team discovered that in fact it was stress that was at the root of the problem.

Professor Berga said: "Often, dieting and exercise are a way of coping with psychosocial stress and our previous work had shown that such stress is often increased in women who do not ovulate."

Professor Berga's team studied women who were a normal weight but had not ovulated for six months.

Alternative to Hormones?

They discovered that the women showed increased levels of cortisol, a hormone related to stress. Professor Berga tested her theory by giving some women behavior therapy and others nothing. A "staggering" 80 percent of women receiving therapy started to ovulate again compared with just a quarter of those not having it.

She said: "This study underlines the important contribution that lifestyle factors play in determining overall health and reproductive health in particular. To reverse stress-induced ovulation it is not enough simply to address metabolic sources of stress."

Professor Berga said the therapy could be an alternative to hormonal treatment and ovulation induction.

Claire Brown, chief executive of Infertility Network UK, said: "If, as this research suggests, reducing stress can lead to ovulation and subsequent fertility being restored without medical intervention, this would obviously be hugely beneficial to some couples."

Hypnosis, Lifestyle Changes

Susan Sheenan had fertility treatment three times without success but after switching jobs and undergoing hypnosis to cope with stress, she became pregnant.

The Ayrshire woman was a corporate manager who traveled long distances and was regularly away from home and her husband.

But after a few therapy sessions and becoming a corporate consultant so she could take time off when she wanted, she underwent fertility treatment again and it was successful.

Now a proud mother, she said: "I think being a bit more relaxed and having taken a lot of the stresses away definitely helped."

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(c) 2006 Daily News Central. All rights reserved.