Male depression may cause infertility: study

A study published Thursday in the journal Fertility and Sterility showed that among couples receiving infertility treatment, depression in the male partner was linked to lower pregnancy chances.

The study also linked a class of antidepressants known as non-selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (non-SSRIs) to a higher risk of early pregnancy loss among females being treated for infertility, but SSRIs, another class of antidepressants, were not linked to pregnancy loss.

Neither depression in the female partner nor use of any other class of antidepressant were linked to lower pregnancy rates.

"Our study provides infertility patients and their physicians with new information to consider when making treatment decisions," said the study's author Esther Eisenberg, at the Fertility and Infertility Branch at National Institute of Health's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which funded the study.

The study found that women using non-SSRIs were roughly 3.5 times as likely to have a first trimester pregnancy loss, compared with those not using antidepressants.

Couples in which the male partner had a major depression were 60 percent less likely to conceive and have a live birth than those in which the male partner did not have a major depression.