Infertility and depression

This is a preliminary report of an ongoing study of the relationship between unexplained infertility and depressive illness conducted by a team of two specialists: a gynecologist and a psychiatrist. Over a 3-year period, 16 cases of unexplained infertility and depressive illness were treated by the team. Nine of the cases received psychiatric treatment, consisting of pharmacotherapy with Amitriptyline and a limited number of psychotherapy sessions. The other seven cases terminated with the psychiatrist after the psychiatric evaluation. Three of the cases that received the psychiatric treatment became pregnant. Follow-up at the end of the 3-year period revealed that none of the 13 others (psychiatrically treated and untreated) had become pregnant. These preliminary data suggest that in cases of depression preceding the onset of unexplained infertility psychiatric treatment as described above increases reproductive capacity.