Is infertility a common problem? Yes. About 10 percent of women (6.1 million) in the United States ages 15-44 have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In the United States, among heterosexual women aged 15 to 49 years with no prior births, about 1 in 5 (19%) are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying (infertility). Also, about 1 in 4 (26%) women in this group have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term (impaired fecundity).
Infertility is defined as trying to get pregnant with frequent, unprotected sex for at least a year with no success. Infertility results from female factors about one-third of the time and both female and male factors about one-third of the time.
The Odds of Getting Pregnant
For most couples trying to conceive, the odds that a woman will become pregnant are 15% to 25% in any particular month.
Causes of infertility in cis women
not ovulating (not releasing eggs from your ovaries) your fallopian tubes are blocked so sperm can't get to your egg. poor egg quality. the shape of your uterus makes it hard for a fertilized egg to implant.
It refers to when a couple have been unable to conceive after 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse. About one in 6 Australian couples of reproductive age experiences fertility problems.
Couples are having children later
That number increases to 22% when the woman is 30 to 39. The main reason fertility decreases with age is because the quality of a woman's eggs declines as she gets older. And, as women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, older women have fewer eggs.
The main symptom of infertility is not getting pregnant. There may be no other obvious symptoms. Sometimes, women with infertility may have irregular or absent menstrual periods. In some cases, men with infertility may have some signs of hormonal problems, such as changes in hair growth or sexual function.
In 85% to 90% of cases, infertility is treated with conventional medical therapies, such as medication or surgery. If fertility treatments are unsuccessful, it is possible to use eggs or sperm donated by a third party or to have another woman carry a fetus. Select a category of treatment to learn more.
By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline becomes more rapid once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely for most women.
Studies suggest that after 1 year of having unprotected sex, 12% to 15% of couples are unable to conceive, and after 2 years, 10% of couples still have not had a live-born baby. (In couples younger than age 30 who are generally healthy, 40% to 60% are able to conceive in the first 3 months of trying.5)
The average age of first-time mothers is 29.6 years, up more than a year from the previous decade. One of the biggest influences on that figure is the decline in teenage pregnancy. In 2010, 3.8 per cent of pregnancies were from teenagers. In 2020, it was less than half that.
Fertility rate calculations are typically simplified by two standard assumptions. First, it assumes that each woman's fertility follows general age-specific fertility trends throughout her childbearing years (peaking in her early 30's).
Greater Melbourne's total fertility rate had one of the largest declines, falling from 1.58 in 2019 to 1.46 in 2021. This decline is related to COVID-19 impacting on people's decisions to have children.
Overall, one-third of infertility cases are caused by male reproductive issues, one-third by female reproductive issues, and one-third by both male and female reproductive issues or by unknown factors.
The country's fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, sunk to 0.81 in 2021 – 0.03% lower than the previous year, according to government-run Statistics Korea.
Understanding your menstrual cycle
You're most fertile at the time of ovulation (when an egg is released from your ovaries), which usually occurs 12 to 14 days before your next period starts. This is the time of the month when you're most likely to get pregnant.
However, there are many possible reasons why you aren't conceiving, including ovulation irregularities, structural problems in the reproductive system, low sperm count, underlying medical problems, or simply not trying enough.
Does stress cause infertility? While it's unlikely that stress alone can cause infertility, stress interferes with a woman's ability to get pregnant. Research has shown that women with a history of depression are twice as likely to experience infertility. Anxiety also can prolong the time needed to achieve pregnancy.
Over the past three decades, birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s.
Although men never stop producing sperm throughout their lives, sperm production does begin decreasing after age 35. Motility, volume and genetic quality of sperm of older men are less likely to achieve a successful pregnancy even in younger women.