Background Infertility is a very distressing condition. It is often associated with long-term stress, which can emerge as anxiety and depression. Aim To understand the effect of socio-demographic variables, reproductive trajectories, and lifestyle variables on stress, depression, and anxiety independently and to understand the relationship of psychological variables with each other among infertile and fertile women. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited 500 women which included 250 primary infertile cases and 250 age-matched fertile controls of the age group 22–35 years. A pretested modified interview schedule was administered which included demographic variables, lifestyle variables, and reproductive trajectories. In addition, psychological tools like PSS, GAD-7, and PHQ-9 were used to collect the data pertaining to Stress, anxiety, and depression, respectively. Data analysis was performed with the statistical software version SPSS, IBM version 24. Results Infertile women are more prone to various psychological disorder (stress, anxiety and depression). None of the demographic and lifestyle variables were associated with stress, anxiety, and depression among infertile women. Only reproductive trajectories were found to be causing stress, anxiety, and depression respectively among infertile women. In addition, stress is leading to both anxiety and depression among infertile women but only to depression in fertile women. Conclusion Infertile women should be counselled by medical experts regarding reproductive trajectories. Infertile couples should be guided and counselled to incorporate mental health screening and treatment in their routine check-up.

Aim The COVID‐19 pandemic adversely affected the essential care of newborns. In a tertiary care hospital in India, all COVID‐19 suspect post‐natal mothers awaiting COVID results were transferred to a ward shared with symptomatic COVID suspect female patients from other clinical specialities, due to shortage of space and functional health workforce. Babies born to COVID‐19 suspect mothers were moved to a separate ward with a caretaker until their mothers tested negative. Due to shortage of beds and delay in receiving COVID results, mothers and babies were often discharged separately 2–3 days apart to their home. This deprived babies of their mother's milk and bonding. We, therefore, undertook a quality improvement (QI) initiative aiming to improve rooming‐in of eligible COVID‐19 suspect mother–newborn dyads from 0% to more than 90% over a period of 6 weeks. Methods A QI team was formed which ran multiple Plan‐Do‐Study‐Act cycles. The results were reviewed at regular intervals and interventions were adopted, adapted or abandoned. These included advocacy, rearrangement of wards, counselling of mothers and caretakers regarding infection prevention practices and coordination between labour room, post‐natal ward and nursery staff. Results An improvement in rooming‐in from 0% to more than 90% was achieved. Conclusion QI methodology is a systematic approach in addressing and solving unexpected unforeseen problems effectively.

The study aimed to understand the effect of primary infertility on the psychological well-being of women. In addition, the study has assessed the impact of socio-demographic variables, reproductive trajectories and lifestyle variables on psychological well-being independently and in light of their dynamic interaction among North Indian women. This study was conducted among 250 infertile women with primary infertility attending the Gynaecology OPD and 250 age-matched fertile women from Delhi. Pretested quantitative interview schedule and WHO-5 perceived well-being scale were used for data collection. The results depicted that infertile women were found to have higher prevalence of poor psychological well-being than fertile women. Of all the variables, education, duration of infertility, physical activity, exercise, sleep pattern and family structure were significantly associated with the psychological well-being of infertile women. Infertility is a major cause of the decline in psychological well-being in infertile women. In most hospitals and infertility clinics, women are treated for infertility, but their psychological well-being is often ignored. To improve the psychological well-being of women dealing with primary infertility, infertility education and awareness, physical activity and family counselling must be integrated into the infertility treatment.

For women who are trying to conceive, it is critical to assess their general knowledge regarding fertility and fertility-awareness practices to identify the fertile window and their agency to achieve pregnancy. The couple’s ability to deal with the infertility issue may be influenced by their beliefs and attitudes concerning infertility, which are based on social and cultural influences as well as their inner aspirations. As a result, it’s critical to examine infertile and fertile woman’s general knowledge of reproduction and infertility risk factors. It’s also crucial to learn about women’s attitudes toward infertility (social beliefs), as well as the repercussions of infertility and the practises they employ to avoid it. The present study includes 250 fertile and 250 infertile women. Data collection for infertile women was done from the Gynecology Outpatient Department (OPD). Participants from both groups i.e., infertile and fertile women have little knowledge about infertility but, infertile women have significantly higher knowledge than fertile women. Knowledge of the fertile period, as well as several potential causes of infertility, were found to be significantly higher in women with infertility problem rather than fertile women, indicating that the knowledge they have acquired is not attributable to education system, but rather to their experience gained during visits to medical practitioners. In addition to differences with respect to knowledge, infertile and fertile women differed in terms of both attitude (societal beliefs and social consequences of infertility) and practices. Better knowledge regarding infertility is likely to bring positive notes among women with infertility problems. Which will further improve the attitude and practices of society towards infertile women. Therefore, its crucial to introduce reproductive health education at high school or undergraduate level, to assist women in avoiding infertility and to help infertile women develop healthier attitudes regarding infertility treatment and coping techniques.