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Frequently Asked Questions About Infertility
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Q: What Is Infertility?
A: Infertility is a medically recognized disease that impairs the body’s ability to conceive. The most common causes are low (or no) sperm counts in men and ovulation disorders, fibroids and pelvic inflammatory disease in women.
Q: How many people are infertile?
A: Infertility affects 6.1 million people in the U.S., about 10 percent of the reproductive- age population, and affects men and women equally.
Q: How do you know if you are infertile?
A: Couples who cannot achieve pregnancy after a year of unprotected intercourse should see a doctor, who will examine and interview both partners. If no cause can be determined, the doctor may recommend an analysis of body temperature and ovulation, x-ray of the fallopian tubes and uterus, and laparoscopy for women; and semen analysis for men. About 25 percent of infertile couples have more than one factor contributing to their infertility.
Q: What is the most common treatment?
A: Most infertility cases (85-90%) are treated with medicines to control or regulate ovulation, surgery, or ovulation medicines in conjunction with artificial insemination (placing sperm into the vagina, uterus or fallopian tubes through artificial means).
Q: What is Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART)?
A: ART includes all fertility treatments in which both eggs and sperm are handled. In general, ART procedures involve surgically removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries, combining them with sperm in a laboratory and transferring the fertilized eggs (embryos) back to the woman’s body or donating them to another woman. ART does not refer to treatments in which only sperm are handled or those in which a woman takes medications solely to stimulate egg production without intent of egg retrieval.
Q: What is in vitro fertilization (IVF)?
A: In vitro fertilization (IVF), an ART, is used in less than five percent of treatments, when women have blocked or absent fallopian tubes or men have low sperm counts. Eggs are surgically removed from the ovary and mixed with sperm outside of the body. Resulting fertilized eggs (embryos) are then placed into the woman’s uterus to develop naturally.
Q: What are the success rates for different Assisted Reproductive Technologies?
A: According to The Division of Reproductive Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control’s Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 115,392 ART cycles (treatment initiations) were performed by 391 reporting U.S. fertility clinics in 2002; with an additional 146 cycles performed using a new treatment procedure that was being evaluated. The 115,392 cycles performed resulted in 33,141 live births (deliveries of one or more living infants) and 45,751 babies.
Sources
American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), Patient’s Fact Sheet, Infertility, http://www.asrm.com, May 2001. 1995 statistics. Accessed: 1/15/05
American Infertility Association. First Steps to a Family: Time for Treatment. www.theafa.org. Accessed: 1/15/05.
The Division of Reproductive Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2002 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates National Summary and Fertility Clinics Report. Atlanta, GA; December 2004. www.cdc.gov.reproducitvehealth/ART02/index.html. Accessed: 2/01/2005.