Five Facts You Never Knew About Infertility

Infertility is not a sweet word by any standard. Neither is its sister word, sterility. In fact, the only time I ever heard sterility used with something positive was where it was used in relation to mosquitoes.

Remember those tiny insects always committing crimes against humanity? Scientists are trying to exterminate them by sterilizing all their males. Without baby mosquitoes being hatched, soon the adult ones will die without a replacement. Then the world will become a better place.

This fact should be obvious to everyone, shouldn’t it? I mean, it takes two to tangle. If tangling fails to work, the fault can come from either of the two, can’t it? In fact, statistics show that women and men account for the same percentage of infertility, each contributing 40 percent. Of the remaining 20 percent, 10 percent is caused jointly by women and men, and the other 10 percent is caused by unknown factors.

See, it’s not always the woman’s fault. Yet, in many communities especially in Africa, women are shamed and tormented for infertility when the cause may even be from the man.

Many men think as long as they can achieve a good erection, they are in order. This is not true. During sex, other things need to be in place for the man to be able to make a woman pregnant. When a man ejaculates – or releases – into the woman, he puts semen into her vagina. Semen contains sperms which are the real deal. You know, they are the ones who will eventually nominate one of them to go and fertilize the woman’s egg. Not quite simple, though. The sperms are not that nice to one another. There are usually millions of them competing for that grand price. It’s a survival-of-the-fittest kind of thing where the strongest, healthiest and fastest sperm cell makes it to the woman’s egg.

That’s where it gets tricky. Many men think as long as they can have an erection and release into the woman, they’ve sent millions of sperm cells into the ring to dig it out with one another and produce the last man standing who will then fertilize the egg. It’s not always that way, though. Sometimes the fluid that comes out of the man’s penis during sex may not have enough number of sperm cells. There may be only few physically normal sperm cells, or only a few that can swim fast enough to make it to the egg before they die. All these things will be checked by the doctor before the man can say for sure whether he is not the cause.

Many men think as long as they can achieve a good erection, they are in order. This is not true. During sex, other things need to be in place for the man to be able to make a woman pregnant. When a man ejaculates – or releases – into the woman, he puts semen into her vagina. Semen contains sperms which are the real deal. You know, they are the ones who will eventually nominate one of them to go and fertilize the woman’s egg. Not quite simple, though. The sperms are not that nice to one another. There are usually millions of them competing for that grand price. It’s a survival-of-the-fittest kind of thing where the strongest, healthiest and fastest sperm cell makes it to the woman’s egg.

That’s where it gets tricky. Many men think as long as they can have an erection and release into the woman, they’ve sent millions of sperm cells into the ring to dig it out with one another and produce the last man standing who will then fertilize the egg. It’s not always that way, though. Sometimes the fluid that comes out of the man’s penis during sex may not have enough number of sperm cells. There may be only few physically normal sperm cells, or only a few that can swim fast enough to make it to the egg before they die. All these things will be checked by the doctor before the man can say for sure whether he is not the cause.

You read that right. Infertility is defined medically as the inability to achieve pregnancy after at least one year of adequate, unprotected sexual intercourse. Many people assume they know what adequate sex is. Medically, adequate sex is defined as having unprotected vaginal sex between 3 to 5 days every week. Remember, you’re going to be having it like that for a whole year. Of course, you won’t be using condoms or any other methods of contraception during this whole year. If you still fail to conceive, that’s when doctors can describe you as being infertile.

Now you know that you can’t start having sex for only six months and run to the hospital or your village people and be shouting everywhere that you’re infertile. Before you do that, check very well to see if you’re having adequate sex.

One of the reasons people fear infertility is that they think it may not be something doctors can treat. This is not true. Usually, there are several factors that can cause infertility. When you see your doctors, they will ask you a number of questions in order to probe which factor or combination of factors may be causing your infertility. After that, they will ask you to do some tests to check your body. All these steps will help them to know what is causing your condition. Treatment options exist for many of the causes of infertility.

The problem people sometimes have is that they stroll into the hospital and expect the doctors to give them one magic tablet that will fix everything. There is no such thing. Doctors rely on what they know about how your body works normally to achieve pregnancy. Tests exist that can be used to show if all the parts of your body involved in becoming pregnant are working well. The treatment they will give you depends on which part of the process is not working well.

However, remember that about 10 percent of cases of infertility are caused by unknown factors. This means that doctors will do all their tests and find nothing wrong with the man and woman. Yet, they may still be unable to achieve pregnancy. You can blame your village people for that if you want, but doctors believe with more advancement in medical science, tests may become available that can help with those unexplained cases. Perhaps, at that time, their treatment will also be discovered.

Most times, observers only know whether or not a couple has children. They don’t know if the woman has been having miscarriages. Medically, doctors classify infertility into two types – primary or secondary. Primary infertility implies that the couple has never achieved pregnancy even once in all their lives. This means the woman has never had a miscarriage or delivered a baby that was born dead, whether in the course of her marriage or at any other time in her life. It also means that the man has never made any woman pregnant at any time of his life.

On the other hand, secondary infertility implies that the person concerned has achieved pregnancy before regardless of its outcome. For example, a couple who had a child and are then having difficulty achieving pregnancy would be described as being secondarily infertile. Also, if they’re achieving pregnancies but only losing them and being unable to have babies, they’re not considered infertile. The cause of the losses of pregnancy will be investigated and treated accordingly, after which they should be able to have a successful pregnancy.

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