Laughing Post Embryo Transfer Increases Chance of Pregnancy

The thing I love most about this study is that it’s called “The Effect of Medical Clowning on Pregnancy Rates…” If you’re wondering what medical clowning is, it’s exactly as it sounds. Medical clowns are being used in healthcare settings with the idea that humour can be used to alleviate stress, address loneliness, and decrease fear and helplessness in patients.

Embryo transfers are stressful. There’s a lot of seriousness around transfer day and lots of anxiety and stress symptoms. Without knowing it, you most likely feel some tension in your body throughout your IVF experience.

Laughing enhances your breathing, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, increases endorphins, stimulates circulation, supports muscle relaxation, reduces stress hormones and increase immunity. It has also been found to reduce pain and of course increase your mood.

In the study, the women in the ‘medical clowning’ group had 2.67 times better chance of falling pregnant than the ‘non medical clowning’ group. This was despite the fact that the ‘medical clowning’ group had more years of infertility than the ‘non medical clowning’ group.

As far as I know, no IVF clinics are utilising this specific research consistently. Which is a shame because it would be easy and cost effective. There are of course other ways to laugh post embryo transfer and I recommend you find a way to do this.

I would recommend finding a funny movie to watch after you embryo transfer to add to your chances. It certainly can’t hurt.

Shevach Friedler  et al., 2011, The effect of medical clowning on pregnancy rates after in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, Fertility and Sterility, vol. 95, no. 6, pp. 2127-2130