Few diseases have as strange and unhappy a legacy of myths as infertility. In every culture around the world those of us coping with reproductive difficulties have to stare down the barrel of misunderstanding and prejudice that is as old as recorded time. The spectrum of responses to involuntary childlessness is breathtaking. It ranges from a dismissive, “oh you’re just too stressed, relax. Try adoption. You’ll get pregnant right away,” to the searing indictment of dishonoring an entire clan.
There have been great strides in dismantling oppressive folklore as outspoken honesty among patients and advocates takes root. But the global community fighting these misconceptions continues to face enormous obstacles.
When I did work internationally working with patient groups back in the days when I led The American Fertility Association (I am the founder), I had the chance to interview and get to know many international fertility patient advocates. Here are some examples of these misconceptions (no pun intended).
According to the group Childless Women of Zimbabwe, a wife who does not bear child is often “labeled a witch.. or suspected of being possessed by evil spirits.” Her husband’s family will claim that she “must have been in prostitution.” What’s more, the organizations explains childless women are completely isolated since “even their own parents, sisters and brother cannot accept them. “ Should their husbands die, they become economically disenfranchised and left to fend for themselves.
In the United States, our culture is different, but we still deal with incredible shame when we can’t get pregnant. Even here, as we are working to demolish the old infertility folklore with facts, inevitably new myths, especially around In Vitro Fertilization, have sprung up!
The ART-intoxicated media pay far less attention to other less spectacular, low-tech treatments. Consequently, there’s a common belief that IVF is the only option available to people trying to conceive a baby. And IVF is often perceived as so mysterious and overwhelming that many people don’t seek help at all. The truth is that most people with reproductive difficulties can overcome the obstacles to conception with less “elaborate” treatments than IVF. And IVF is not as “elaborate” as many think at all!
One of my favorite myths have to do with the children of IVF. Guess what? IVF Babies are completely natural babies! IVF involves the same biological union of egg and sperm that occurs without intervention within the body. The process of conception is assisted, not reinvented! There is nothing artificial and nothing is “manufactured”. IVF babies are completely and 100% made of all natural ingredients!
Technology is not a panacea: Since IVF made headlines more than three decades ago, the technology has been refined and pregnancies attributable to the procedure have increased with every passing year. But every couple contemplating its use should be prepared to repeat an IVF cycle more than once. They should know up front the probabilities of a positive outcome given their specific underlying diagnosis, maternal and paternal age and health among other factors.
There are countless homegrown explanations for infertility, stress, ancestral spirits, witch craft, and the usual bad karma. But in reality there are always a host of perfectly comprehensible factors that usually have solutions to why we are not conceiving a baby. There is genetics. There are some common behaviors, illnesses (from sexually transmitted diseases and pelvic inflammatory disease to mumps in men and endometriosis in women) and environmental contaminants that are linked to reproductive difficulties.
Put another way, there are simple things men and women are do to proactively preserve fertility and treat infertility when it happens. I don’t' believe in bad Karma, only potential parents.