When should you seek counselling during fertility treatment

Dealing with infertility can be emotionally challenging and can put pressure on your relationship. Counselling during IVF treatment is not for everyone, but can help to deal with mixed emotions.

Here are some situations when we find counselling useful for patients:

Ending fertility treatment

If fertility treatment hasn’t been a success and you and your partner are finding it difficult to decide to continue fertility treatment, counselling can be helpful. Your specialist will help you in this circumstance too. It can be a difficult time for couples and having counselling together will allow for a full consideration of other options. For these situations, it’s important you see a counsellor experienced in fertility.

Mental health concerns

Counselling is useful for you and/or your partner if either or both of you have mental health concerns. For example past depression and anxiety can mean that the stress of infertility unmasks a lot of concerns. Counselling can also help reduce the risk of postpartum mood disturbance for women.

Donor or surrogacy

Counselling is required when using donor or surrogacy options. Both the donor and recipients must have counselling when donation is being considered. Similarly, for surrogacy arrangements the commissioning couple and the gestational carrier and her partner must have counselling.

These are just some examples of when couples have counselling. However, if you are struggling with mixed emotions, speak to your specialist who can offer recommendations.