The Psychology of Infertility

Abstract

Most American families now plan their fertility as meticulously as they do their education, choice of career, life style, and financial investments measuring all factors and waiting until the moment when starting a family is just right. For 75% of the 28 million couples of reproductive age in the United States, their meticulously planned fertility proceeds without difficulty or delay. However, fertility cannot be instituted at will for the remaining 7 million couples who are either absolutely infertile (3 million), subfertile (2.8 million), or who experience a long interval before conception (1.2 million). Stated in a different context, there are more than 3 times as many infertile couples as there are annual deaths (all causes) in the United States. While the diagnosis and therapy of infertility have improved greatly for some causes of infertility, still only 50% of these couples will become fertile with medical care. Not all the couples whose infertility cannot be resolved fail because medical therapy is unsuccessful. Many fail to achieve fertility because they lack the knowledge of available resources and encounter such barriers to care as lack of transportation, limited financial resources, and mistrust of the care they receive. Because of these barriers, many are as yet uncounted in the roll of those who are infertile. I believe there is a silent epidemic of infertility owing to these barriers and to the apparent freedom of sexual mores, with its increased sexual activity at an earlier age and the resultant risks with contraception or genital infection.

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children… she said to Jacob

“Give me children or I die!” Genesis 30:1