Emotions and infertility: depression can interfere with conception. Research shows that by using mind-body techniques, women can boost their odds of getting pregnant - Health

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Answering yes to three or more of these questions suggests that your desire to have a baby may be overwhelming your life. You might want to consider doing something to help yourself, such as joining a support group for infertile women, adopting some of the mind-body techniques mentioned in this story or seeing a therapist.

If you have serious depressive symptoms--thoughts of hurting yourself, trouble getting out of bed in the morning, not enjoying your life--see a doctor immediately. Depression is a serious illness that can be treated successfully with medication and/or therapy.

TREAT YOUR DEPRESSION, improve your odds

Many of the women who participate in Alice Domar's mind-body infertility group get pregnant. According to a 2000 study in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Domar found that 55 percent of the previously infertile women who net regularly in a mind-body program conceived within six months after the program, compared with only 20 percent in a control group that used no mind-body techniques and did not meet.

During the program, Domar and her colleagues teach the women about mindfulness, meditation, yoga, humor, relationship building, spirituality and other mind-body tools, including the following, which Domar says are particularly helpful for alleviating depression. You can try any of these on your own:

* Journaling In her programs, Domar asks infertile women to write about the most traumatic part of their infertility experience for 20 minutes a day, four days in a row. Women often feel worse after the first or second day and then better after the third or fourth day. If they don't feel better after the fifth day, she recommends they see a counselor for one-on-one therapy.

* Cognitive restructuring Participants learn to restructure their destructive, self-blaming thoughts by analyzing them and challenging them with a reality check Tammy Seres used cognitive restructuring after she miscarried one of her twins. Seres put her most overwhelming thought--have I caused this?--to the cognitive-restructuring test. She asked herself: Was this thought logical? Was it true? After listening to her doctor's reassurances and after reminding herself that she had taken the utmost care of herself during her pregnancy, Seres was able to restructure her thoughts from "I blame myself" to "This was beyond my control. It was just bad luck."

* Relaxation/deep breathing Women calm themselves and experience deep feelings of peace through several types of relaxation and deep-breathing exercises. For example, they use breath focus (in which they breathe deeply for 20-30 minutes) or a mini relaxation (inhaling deeply to a slow count of four, holding for a few seconds, then exhaling slowly to the count of four) to return to a state of calmness during stressful moments throughout the day.

* Self-nurture Infertile women are often so concerned about getting pregnant that they forget to care for themselves. Self-nurture reminds them to love and care for their minds and bodies with enjoyable, stress-free activities such as taking relaxing walks, lying on a hammock, listening to classical music or reading a novel.