COLUMBUS – Anxiety and depression are becoming more prevalent among couples trying to have children, and so are medications prescribed to treat those disorders, so researchers at Ohio State wanted to know if either the conditions or the treatments affected fertility. What they found out was: There are few clear answers.
A review of studies at OSU shows more studies are needed to shed light on whether mental illness itself has any effect on the reproduction process, as well as the medications prescribed to treat the ailments, according to researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
The review of 37 studies regarding the effects of mental illness and antidepressants on fertility, recently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found clinical studies did not show sufficient evidence to prove the use of antidepressants had detrimental effects on pregnancy rates.
The majority of the studies examined showed maternal psychiatric illness is associated with a low fertility success rate.
Some of the studies showed certain treatments improved male fertility while others caused a decline, said Dr. Tamar Gur, a psychiatrist and women’s health expert at Wexner Medical Center, who co-authored the research with Dr. Brett Worly, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and female sexual dysfunction expert at the hospital.
Some of the studies showed an increase in the quantity of sperm with certain medications a decrease in the number of sperm and viability with others.
According to the data, male depression didn’t affect sperm, but anxiety did, Gur said.
Gur says more research is needed on the negative effects of depression and anxiety, as well as its treatment, on the reproductive system.