Effect of Breathing Exercises on Embryo Transfer Outcomes

Overview

Breathing exercises are being used in many different clinical issues in the area of medicine. Also in gynecological practice, especially during labor, breathing exercises are encouraged by health professionals to aid the patients. These may have benefits of process of labor as it promises attenuating the anxiety and also relaxing the pelvic muscles. IVF, which may be one of most challenging times of couples, particularly women, is reported to be related with increased anxiety. Breathing exercises may potentially help women overcome anxiety before embryo transfer, a critical step in IVF. Being an easy and non-expensive approach, breathing exercises can be recommended in every IVF clinic. Thus, the investigators wanted to observe the effects of breathing exercises on embryo transfer results.

The connection between breathing, especially abnormal breathing patterns, and emotions has always attracted attention and has been studied in various ways. There are publications reporting that this situation becomes even more evident when symptoms are associated with anxiety. Emotions are clearly expressed through breathing changes in rhythm, depth, location or regularity. It has been reported that the rhythm related to breathing is lost when there is a period of uncertainty for the person, especially in the near future. From this relationship, the possible positive effects of optimizing movements, breathing patterns and rhythms on emotional states can be expected. Breathing exercises and their effects have been investigated in many different patient groups in the field of medicine and their positive effects have been found. This interest has also been observed in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. In a study published in 2023 examining the effects of breathing exercises on patients interned for birth, it was reported that breathing exercises increased the rate of normal birth and reduced the rate of caeserean section after labor, and also decreased the time spent for normal birth. Having a child is very important for couples. Therefore, not having a child is often observed as a distressing and worrying experience for couples. This situation can be expected to be even more pronounced, especially in couples who cannot achieve pregnancy after different treatments and trials and who reach the in vitro fertilization process. There are also studies in the literature on the effect of the emotional state of couples, especially women, on the in vitro fertilization process . Different approaches have been put forward for the increased anxiety seen in these studies, and it has been shown that yoga and some other holistic medical practices can reduce the anxiety levels of women undergoing the in vitro fertilization process . However, to our knowledge, no study has drawn attention in which the possible benefits of breathing therapy have been examined in patients undergoing embryo transfer. The investigators aimed to investigate the effectiveness of breathing therapy, which is easy to apply and does not require any cost, in women who are potentially nervous or anxious due to embryo transfer.