The impact of sociocultural and psychological stress on the outcome of assisted reproductive technology in remarried families.

Objective: In China, there is a unique type of second marriage (SM) family where the woman is remarried, and the man is experiencing his first marriage. Additionally, the woman is older than the man. Therefore, these families experience many challenges: psychological, emotional, and societal pressure. Such family is a typical sample for studying sociocultural and psychological stress influencing on outcome of assisted reproductive technology (ART). This study aimed to investigate the impact of social psychological stress on the live birth outcomes AR.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort, second marriage (SM) families who visited the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University reproductive center between January 2012 to December 2022 were screened, and 561s marriage families (the SM group) with 5600 first marriage (FM) families (the FM group) were included undergoing their first ART cycles. The primary outcome of this study was the live birth rate (LBR).

Results: The live birth rate (LBR) of SM group (30.7%) is lower than that of the FM group (43.6%) ( < 0.01). After adjustment by logistic regression, the second marriage group (OR = 1.269, 95%CI 1.031-1.562,  = 0.025) were independent factors associated with the outcome of live birth. After propensity score matching (PSM), the live birth rate of SM group (28.7%) is lower than the FM group (35.9%) (0 = 0.011).

Conclusion: The SM family experience higher levels of social and psychological pressure, which lead to lower level of LBR than FM family.