On world laughter day, let’s dig a little deeper and understand the extent to which laughter can reduce our problems – even health-related. We are familiar with the concept of laughter reducing stress, helping us feel better when undergoing a complicated treatment, etc.
Did you know laughter can also improve the success rates of IVF treatments? Read on to know more about the power of humour in IVF treatments. Yes, if you actually let go and laugh a little, there are more chances for your IVF treatment to succeed.
Fertility issues are more common than we are aware of. Many couples struggle and try multiple options to conceive. It can be a very stressful journey, which can make one forget to laugh or enjoy the small joys in life.
Stress does not help with any health treatment, including IVF. Stress can cause your blood pressure to increase, immunity to decrease, and even lead to depression and insomnia. All of these can interfere with your IVF treatment outcome.
When your stress is under control, your body is well-balanced and the hormonal levels are in check. When you laugh, your stress decreases and stimulates various organs. The oxygen supply in your body increases, thus reducing inflammations and your body’s fight-or-flight response to stress. As a result, your body is more receptive to health treatments.
Happiness cannot directly increase fertility but it can help combat hormones and immune responses that are getting in the way of your fertility.
Yes, scientific studies show that stress can play an important role in infertility. When a woman undergoes IVF or any other fertility treatment, she is bound to be under a lot of stress. She doesn’t realize her stressing about the outcome of the treatment can actually negatively impact the outcome. Letting go of the stress and laughing can be the perfect solution but it is not quite so easy to laugh through a fertility treatment.
It is important to make the woman laugh not just on laughter day but on other days as well. Some studies showed that making a woman laugh and feel happy just after IVF implantation, increased the success rates. When she does not stress about the results but remains happy, the chances of a successful implantation seemed higher.
It does not stop here. After successful implantation, the expecting mother’s mood affects the entire pregnancy and the foetus as well. As mentioned earlier, stress and depression can cause hormonal fluctuations, which can lead to various other ailments.
When the expecting mother is less stressed and happier, her blood flow improves; her gestational diabetes and hypertension are kept under control, improving her memory and immune function.
The importance of happiness during pregnancy should not be underestimated. Here are some benefits of laughter and happiness during pregnancy:
· Gestational Diabetes –If the expecting mother suffers from gestational diabetes, it increases the risk of the baby becoming big. It can be a large or overweight baby, which can complicate the entire delivery process. Not to forget, the impact on the mother’s back and body until delivery.
· Gestational Hypertension - Gestational hypertension on the other hand can lead to preterm delivery, which can affect the baby in multiple ways, depending on how early the baby was born and which organs were yet to develop. Gestational hypertension if left unchecked, can even lead to preeclampsia or stillbirth.
· Immunity– A pregnant woman’s immunity is compromised during pregnancy. She is more prone to contract infections, which can make her weak and sometimes reach and affect the baby as well. Happiness can improve blood circulation, there by improving one’s immunity. A stronger immunity is beneficial for both the expecting mother and the foetus.
· Inflammations– Stress can cause inflammation in various parts of the body. Our bodies have the tendency to retain the stress, and trauma and hide it away in some part of the body. It leads to inflammation in certain areas, which slowly develops into chronic pain, if not addressed immediately. Laugher on the other hand can reduce stress and stress-induced inflammations.
Now, the tricky part is to make the pregnant woman happy and have a hearty laugh on not just laughter day but throughout her pregnancy as well. While friends and family can pitch in to help reduce her stress and keep talking to her, she might need more.
Hospital clowning is gaining a lot of recognition in the recent past, for its positive impact on the health and the mindset of patients– including chronic. A study in Israel found that laughter increased the chances of a successful IVF implantation.
However, these studies are not conclusive as the impact of mental stress on infertility is not clear and there is no concrete way to know if hospital clowning was responsible for reducing the woman’s stress during her IVF implantation.
Many other factors such as the woman’s general stress level, her age, health, number of IVF attempts, etc. play a major role in the out come of fertility treatment. Stress is not good news for health, pregnant or not. So, it is important to find ways to make a pregnant woman laugh and be happy in general.
It can be quite difficult to not stress over even the tiniest details when you are undergoing fertility treatment. Today, many hospitals use hospital clowning, laughter therapies and other similar therapies to help reduce stress and make the patient laugh. Watching or reading anything funny can help you laugh. Even if this is only temporary, it can benefit the patient and the treatment to a good extent.
This laughter day, let’s make a conscious effort to reduce stress and laugh from time to time. Just let go and laugh more. It can benefit you and others around you in more ways than you can imagine!
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