Infertility treatments and the anxiety and feelings for the baby in pregnant women

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of anxiety and feeling for the baby to the background of infertility treatments in pregnant women.
Method
The subjects in this study were 250 pregnant women of outpatients in the three clinics at urban area. They were requested to fill up self-report questionnaires. The main contents of these questionnaires were the characteristics, the prenatal anxiety scale, feeling for the baby scale. The awareness of from infertility treatment start to pregnancy by Visual Analog Scale was requested to the women who had infertility treatments.
Results
201 questionnaires gave replies (response rate was 80.4%). The women who had infertility treatments were 53 and those who had no infertility treatments were 148. In the expectation for the baby and the changes to the mother's physical appearance of the prenatal anxiety, the women who had no treatments were more anxious than those who had treatments significantly. The women who had treatments were better condition than those who had no treatments on feeling for the baby. The women in a latter pregnancy period were higher prenatal anxiety than those in an early and middle period. The high prenatal anxiety women were not good status feeling for the baby. As the result of comparing the women who had the new technology of fertilization (e.g. in vitro fertilization) with those who had the general infertility treatments, the former feel less distress for treatments and treatments costs than the latter. Therefore, it is necessary to give a counseling and education for the high anxiety women.
Conclusion
It is important to give support to pregnant women whether or not infertility treatments.