Trauma, Infertility and the Patient Journey
A fertility care measures hormones, counts follicles and tracks cycles. It rarely asks what a patient has lived through. Yet a growing body of research links earlier trauma to reproductive health, and what happened long before treatment can shape how a person’s body and mind react. For some patients, infertility becomes one more layer of trauma on top of what they already carry.
What does that look like from the inside? What changes when care teams start asking about the whole story, not just the test results?
This fireside chat brings the clinical, anthropological and trauma perspectives into one honest conversation about what patients carry into fertility care, and how care teams can notice it and respond with more awareness.
During the session we’ll explore how you can:
✔ Recognize when infertility or treatment is taking an emotional toll, and when extra support may help.
✔ Gain a clearer understanding of how past traumas may be affecting your fertility and treatment and what care is available.
✔ Get a better sense of what can help you feel safe, respected and involved in decisions during care.
✔ Greater clarity on the emotional, peer and professional support available, and when to seek it.
The speakers
Dr. Diana Kayal is a Dubai-based reproductive medicine and IVF specialist with more than 30 years of experience. She brings the clinical view of how a patient’s history can affect reproductive health and treatment, drawn from direct patient care and from helping establish clinics and treatment protocols.
Anna Figiel, PhD, is a medical anthropologist, academic lecturer and co-founder of Irresist, a MedTech venture focused on the fertility patient journey. Her work bridges biomedicine and the social sciences, exploring how people experience infertility, navigate healthcare and make decisions about treatment, often long before they enter a clinic.
Moderated by Lubna Forzley, a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner, who will help connect the clinical, anthropological and trauma perspectives while keeping the conversation patient-centred.
Whether you are going through fertility treatment, supporting someone who is, or working in fertility care, this conversation is for you.
Save your spot and be part of a more honest conversation about the whole story patients bring into fertility care.