There are many reasons why a woman will undergo medical intervention such as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant.
It could be to have a child or to donate her eggs for someone else or to treat or prevent a disease.
Whatever the reasons, women use the same reproductive regimen to get pregnant. However, their experience of in vitro fertilization is entirely different from each other based on their reasons for getting pregnant.
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A study from Yale researchers compares the physical, emotional and cognitive experiences that women undergoing IVF – based on two reasons: to get pregnant or to donate eggs for money.
Using cluster analysis, the researchers surveyed 50 IVF patients and 62 egg donors from the United States.
They discovered based on patients description of the experiences, that there were two kinds of experiences – “less intense” and “more intense.”
Patients who wanted to get pregnant described the experiences as all-consuming and painful while egg donors who underwent the exact same regimen described their experience as less intense.
The findings suggest that the intensity of one’s bodily experience depends on one’s reason for doing it.
The medical community should take into consideration the end goal as a potential factor in how women will experience the intervention as revealed by the cluster analysis which demonstrates that bodily experience is a combination of physical, emotional and cognitive processes.
The research also shows that people undergoing IVF for the first time and egg donors for the first time experience heighten levels of stress and anxiety about the procedure.
However, those undergoing IVF more than once have a different experience.
In the larger sense, this shows that a person’s motivation plays a big role in determining how they will react to any kind of intervention they choose to undergo.
Source: Social Science & Medicine
