Women who want to become mothers but can’t are twice as likely to become alcoholics, a new study has found.
Danish researchers found that women who tried to become mothers but failed were at greater risk of being hospitalised for alcohol abuse than those with children.
Women who remained childless due to infertility were also more likely to suffer from serious psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia.
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The scientists claim their “shocking” findings add weight to the argument that IVF should receive more public funding.
Birgitte Baldur-Felskov and her colleagues at the Danish Cancer Society Research examined the hospital records of nearly 100,000 women who had experienced fertility issues.
They split the women into two groups, those who had gone on to have a child, and those who remained childless.
The women who remained childless were twice as likely to be hospitalised for alcoholism, and 47 percent more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia or a serious eating disorder.
Though the findings are shocking, Baldur-Felskov says the real impact of infertility is likely to be much greater as this study only examined psychological disorders severe enough to result in hospitalisation.
“This is only the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “We were only able to analyse the risk of severe psychiatric disorders resulting in hospitalisation.
“There would be many other women who were affected but treated as outpatients, and perhaps even more not treated at all.”
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The findings were presented at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Istanbul.
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