Prevalence Rates for Infertility

I found in one of the major news headlines today a study regarding the prevalence of infertility. Most physicians will tell you that infertility affects 1 in 10 couples, yet this article seems to say otherwise. Granted, I haven't studied the methodology of how they defined "infertility" in this study or how they verified it was indeed infertility and not just poorly-timed "baby dancing", or whether their sample is representative of the US population (and didn't just entice only those with infertility to answer their survey more often then fertile couples), but this is interesting nonetheless. The study cites that 1 in 6 couples are dealing with infertility.

Prevalence of Infertility in US

I was commenting to Jon that 1 in 6 seems high, but then I have to consider how many people I actually do know that are struggling with trying to get pregnant (I know quite a few). I only learned that they were undergoing infertility treatments once I opened up about my own struggles. With the over-abundance of photos and announcements posted on Facebook pertaining to pregnancy, births, and babies I would be lead to believe that everyone else is getting pregnant rather easily except for me. The media's obsession with celebrity pregnancies and births only further exacerbate the cultural mind-set that infertility is rare.

More disturbing (and the reason for the infertility rates climb over the past 2 decades) is that women are delaying getting pregnant thinking that they are resilient to declining ovarian reserve, etc. only to be shocked to learn that it's even harder once you reach age 35 and older. 40-year old celebrities are getting pregnant and the media covers their pregnancy, yet very little is revealed of how much money and time it took to achieve this. The TV show Modern Family depicts a 40-year old women who had an "oopsies" pregnancy. They joke on the show of how the husband just has to "look at her" and she's pregnant. She even citied one time on the show that "getting pregnancy was the easy part, it's what happens afterwards which is the harder part". Both Jon and I blurted out at the same time, "no it's not!". The more we breed this cultural mind-set that pregnancy successes are easy to achieve the more infertile couples are lead to believe that getting pregnant at any age should be easy, and are shocked when they learn otherwise.

These are notions that most people won't give even a passing thought about because the majority of  will get pregnant without any struggles, but from my perspective these notions about pregnancy achievement needs to change and I feel it is my responsibility to point out the fallacies in our thinking.

Just a few thoughts for Sunday afternoon. Have a great weekend!