Women's Infertility Support Group / Spring 2016
This Leader-Led Resolve Support Group is open to all women with a diagnosis of infertility.
Topics include; IUI, IVF cycling, repeat miscarriage, third party reproduction and integrated healing approaches such as mindfulness meditation.
We will discuss the impact infertility has had on your relationships, work with challenging feelings, and how treatment impacts your mind and body.
Participants and leader act as resources to each other in the practical matters of navigating clinics and agencies.
I will lead participants through a variety of mindfulness-based techniques that can be used for coping with ongoing, day-to-day stress.
A strong emphasis on self-renewal, self-care and self-compassion will be at the heart of the group.
Group meetings will be conducted in a safe and confidential setting.
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Meets every other Wednesday morning
from 8:00AM to 9:15AM
Dates: April 13 & 27, May11 & 25, June 8 & 22
Location: 1730 South Amphlett Blvd.,
Suite 209
San Mateo, CA 94402
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Led by Diane Cote, LCSW
dianecotelcsw@gmail.com
Fee: $360 for 6-week commitment
payment required at first meeting.
415.366.8830
These Disturbing Images Reveal Brain Differences Between Men And Women
These Disturbing Images Reveal Brain Differences Between Men And Women
A new study offers “important clues.” by Carolyn Gregoire
Senior Health & Science Writer, The Huffington Post
We know that women outnumber men significantly when it comes to mental illness diagnosis — they’re twice as likely to be found to have depression and anxiety disorders — but the reasons why are less clear.
New research from the University of Montreal, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, points towards greater emotional reactivity in women as one possible explanation for gender differences in mental illness.
For the study, blood samples were taken from 46 healthy participants, 25 women and 21 men, to measure their hormone levels. The participants were also asked to say how feminine or masculine they think they are. Then they looked at a series of images and said whether they evoked positive, negative or neutral emotions, all while the researchers scanned their brains.
The researchers found that the women expressed stronger emotional feelings towards the negative images they were shown (as sampled below) than the men did, a difference apparently rooted in brain function, hormones and social norms.
INTERNATIONAL AFFECTIVE PICTURES SYSTEM
In both the men and women, two different brain areas were activated when they viewed the negative images: The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in reasoning and action, and the amygdala, which is involved in threat perception and fear processing.
In women, there was a relatively weak connection between the two brain regions. In men, the connection was stronger.”A stronger connection between these areas in men suggests they have a more analytical than emotional approach when dealing with negative emotions,” Dr. Stéphane Potvin, a professor of psychiatry and one of the study’s authors, said in a written statement. The strong connection may also be due to testosterone activity in the male brain. Higher levels of testosterone were linked with decreased sensitivity to the images.
“This suggests that men are more in an active mode when experiencing negative emotions, whereas women have a more purely affective brain response,” Potvin said.
But these differences aren’t just the result of biological factors. Self-reported levels of femininity or masculinity also played a role in the connection between the two brain areas, suggesting that gendered cultural norms can affect emotional responses.
Higher levels of “feminine traits” in both women and men were linked to a greater emotional reactivity to the negative images.
While the findings don’t necessarily tell the full story of why more women than men are diagnosed with mental illness, Potvin noted that they offer “important clues that will need to be tested in individuals who are at risk of suffering from anxiety or mood disorders.”
INTERNATIONAL AFFECTIVE PICTURES SYSTEM
INTERNATIONAL AFFECTIVE PICTURES SYSTEM
Source: These Disturbing Images Reveal Brain Differences Between Men And Women
Post Partum-Post Infertility Support Group
This group is for post partum mothers who have experienced infertility, prior to the birth of their baby. We will explore how the all-consuming goal of overcoming infertility has been replaced by the longed for baby. Connecting to new moms who have not had the infertility experience can sometimes feel hard.
After years of an idealized fantasy baby, the reality of the real baby can bring up feelings of overwhelm, guilt, ambivalence, and post partum symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. We will discuss identity shifts, career decisions and relationship changes with your partner, extended family, and social circle. We will use mindfulness-based practices to find a few moments of calm in your otherwise very busy day. The group atmosphere is safe, confidential and compassionate.
Babies up to 8 months are welcome.
Diane Coté, LCSW, has been in private practice for fifteen years and specializes in infertility counseling. Her personal journey with infertility provides a deep source of knowing in working with others.
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MEETS: WEDNESDAYS
11:00-Noon OPEN ENDED
1730 South Amphlett Blvd. Suite 209
San Mateo, CA. 94402 RSVP: 415-366-8830
dianecotelcsw@gmail.com
Please call or email if interested
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Group size is limited, and a prescreening is required. Fee: $360 for six weeks.
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A single woman’s dilemma over egg freezing
Interesting perspective on egg freezing…
Last fall, I went to an egg freezing cocktail hour. The downstairs bar of the glossy SoHo hotel was thronged with women in heels and sleek business attire. Club music thumped, cameras flashed, and I narrowly missed being hit by a videographer angling a tripod over the crowd. The evening was hosted by Eggbanxx, a startup that sells financing for egg freezing, framed as fertility insurance for the forward-thinking urban professional woman.
At the bar, where they were serving up free “Banxxtini” cocktails, I spoke with a 27-year-old who was “95 percent sure” she would freeze her eggs and a 36-year-old data scientist who claimed to be “skeptical.” Together, we filed into a screening room adjoining the bar, where three New York-area endocrinologists lectured us on a new technique that, they claimed, could freeze our reproductive chances in time. Female fertility declines sharply at 37, due to a decline in the quantity and quality of eggs. But when women use fresh eggs from a young donor in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle—a process in which fresh eggs are harvested from the donor, fertilized, and transferred to the uterus—live birth rates rise across ages to 56 percent.1 Now, thanks to a new freezing technology, women could become their own future egg donors, rather than relying on the fresh eggs of another, younger donor. “It’s good to be empowered as a woman,” beamed Janelle Luk, a doctor at Neway Fertility.
Nicole Noyes of the NYU Fertility Center, lean and intense, spoke energetically about egg freezing, a field in which she was an early leader. She began with a reassuring screenshot of her recent study finding no higher risk of birth defects among 900 children born from frozen eggs.2 Her clinic’s results seemed incredible: If a woman freezes her eggs at 35, Noyes told us, and uses them at, say, 43, she has a 50 percent chance at a live birth from one IVF cycle. Compare that to her unaided chances of conception (using IVF or naturally) at age 43: 5 percent each cycle. If she freezes her eggs later, at 38, her success rate for one IVF cycle dips to 37 percent. According to Noyes, success is determined by the age at which you froze the eggs. “31 is as long as I’d wait,” she told one questioner in a swarm of audience members, many still clutching purple cartons of popcorn, after the presentation. I had lost sight of the 27-year-old, but I spotted the data scientist hurrying up an aisle to sign up.
And so, to my surprise, I found myself considering egg freezing again, based on a biomedical marketing event dressed up as a girls’ night out in Sex and the City.
Learn More @ A single woman’s dilemma over egg freezing.
