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Old-fashioned, common-sense advice to just relax may actually work to help some women get pregnant, doctors reported on Monday.

For years women seeking to get pregnant have been advised by friends and family to stop stressing about it — an idea that not all obstetricians and gynecologists have embraced.

But research presented at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Atlanta suggests there may be something to it.

Alice Domar, who runs a fertility center in Boston and also works at Harvard Medical School, found that women who took part in a stress management program while having a second round of assisted fertility treatment had a 160 percent greater pregnancy rate than women getting IVF alone.

“Reproductive health experts have long wondered about the impact that stress may have on fertility, thus impeding a woman’s ability to conceive,” Domar said in a statement.

“This study shows that stress management may improve pregnancy rates, minimizing the stress of fertility management itself, improving the success rates of IVF procedures, and ultimately, helping to alleviate the emotional burden for women who are facing challenges trying to conceive.”

She and colleagues randomly assigned 97 patients at the clinic to take part in a 10-session mind/body program while undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatments.

The program had no effect on how many women conceived during the first try, Domar told the meeting, with 43 percent of the women getting pregnant.

But for women who failed the first time and were having a second try, 52 percent who took part in the mind/body program became pregnant, compared to only 20 percent of those who did not.

“It’s clear based on this carefully designed study, that a holistic approach to infertility care leads to better outcomes for patients,” said Dr. R. Dale McClure, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

But a second study found that while complementary and alternative medical therapy was popular among couples getting infertility treatments, it did not make women any more likely to get pregnant.

A team at the University of California, San Francisco questioned 431 couples undergoing infertility therapy and found that 28 percent had tried some kind of alternative medicine, mostly acupuncture or herbs, but they were not any more likely to achieve pregnancy.

About 20 percent of U.S. teens exchange prescription drugs such as antibiotics and allergy medications with friends, a practice that can be dangerous and potentially deadly, warns a new study.

For example, a teen who’s taking the acne medication Accutane — which has been linked to birth defects — may give some to a friend who is pregnant but doesn’t yet realize it, the researchers said.

They interviewed 592 adolescents, aged 12 to 17, and asked them if they’d ever “borrowed” or “loaned” a prescription drug. If so, the teens were asked what kind(s) of drugs were exchanged, if they gave or received any warnings or instructions with the medications, and about outcomes.

Besides finding that about a fifth of those surveyed had swapped a prescription medication with a friend, the study also found that almost a third of teens who took a “borrowed” prescription didn’t tell their doctor. That type of situation can lead to unforeseen drug interactions, according to lead author Richard Goldsworthy, director for research and development at Academic Edge, Inc. and colleagues.

“Other researchers have studied people selling prescription drugs, but we looked at people with good intentions, trying, for instance, to help a friend who lacked money or transportation for a doctor’s visit,” co-author Chris Mayhorn, an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, said in a news release from the Center for the Advancement of Health.

The study appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

The findings are important “for physicians, prevention coalitions, school counselors, parents and the youth themselves,” Melissa Haddow, director of the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, said in the news release.

Previous studies found that almost 40 percent of U.S. adults “loan” or “borrow” prescription drugs.

Ozone concentrations below the current U.S. clean-air standard may still temporarily impair lung function, even in healthy young people, a small study suggests.

Ozone has been linked to inflammation in the lungs, and to breathing problems. Researchers found that when 31 young adults exercised at various levels of ozone exposure over several hours, participants’ average lung function began to deteriorate when ozone concentrations stood at 70 parts per billion (ppb).

That is below the current U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS), which states that people should be exposed to ozone levels of no more than 75 ppb, averaged over 8 hours.

The findings essentially suggest that if healthy young adults exercise outside at ozone levels of 70 ppb for several hours — taking a long hike, for instance — about half will suffer respiratory symptoms like coughing or pain during deep breathing, explained lead researcher Dr. Edward S. Schelegle, of the University of California, Davis.

Typically, summer ozone levels hover between 50 and 60 ppb in the U.S., according to a 10-year study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The findings, reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, are based on exercise tests of 31 non-smokers between the ages of 18 and 25.

Schelegle and his colleagues had the men and women work out moderately on a stationary bike or treadmill on five separate days. On each day, participants exercised in six 50-minute bouts over 6.6 hours; over the course of each day, they breathed either filtered air, or air containing ozone concentrations of 60, 70, 80 or 87 ppb.

The researchers found that on average, exercisers’ lung function deteriorated after several hours of exposure to ozone levels of 70 ppb. There was, however, significant variation from person to person; 19 percent showed a fairly strong sensitivity to ozone concentrations of 70 ppb, while some showed far lesser reactions.

Some others were particularly sensitive; 16 percent showed significantly decreased lung function when ozone levels stood at 60 ppb.

“One thing that is often lost…” Schelegle told Reuters Health in an email, “is that the magnitude of response to ozone varies greatly from one person to the next, and that it is important for even healthy people to be conscious of their respiratory symptoms when exercising for prolonged periods in areas where ozone levels may be elevated, even if the levels are below the current NAAQ Standard.”

This may be especially important for people with asthma or other lung conditions, he noted.

As for whether the clean-air standard for ozone should be lowered, Schelegle said that the data from this study and other recent ones need to be analyzed before any recommendations can be made.

In an editorial published with the study, Dr. James S. Brown of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which sets the NAAQ Standard, agrees on the importance of ongoing research.

“Only with continued research efforts,” he writes, “will we be able to better characterize the susceptibility in some healthy individuals, as well as asthmatic individuals, to the effects of short-term (ozone) exposures.”