The Emotional and Social Concerns of Infertility
The emotional factor involved by infertility may be very strong in some situations and it demands a lot of focusing from the couple:
- - Denial and disbelief followed by grief and anger
- - Guilt and blame. The infertility of one partner may produce disturbance in a couple's life.
- - Loss of control.
- - The sensation of isolation generated by the desire of secrecy on the matter. Help can be found in friends and family as well as in group and professional support.
- - Depression caused by the menstruation due the failure of expectances connected to it.
- - Stress can increase when multiple testing is required by the treatment and scheduled sex.
Ethical issues are also involved by infertility and its treatment:
- - Some treatments are too expensive for some couples.
- - The question whether insurance companies should cover the infertility medical treatment.
- - The legal status of fertilized embryos that are not transferred in vivo.
- - Pro-life opposition to the destruction of embryos not transferred in vivo
- - Infertility caused by DNA defects on the Y chromosome is inherited by the son from his father. If natural selection is the primary error correction mechanism that prevents random mutations on the Y chromosome, then fertility treatments for men with abnormal sperm (in particular ICSI) only defer the underlying problem to the next male generation.
- - Ethical analysis over the multiple births caused by IVF and other fertility treatments and their links to the premature births and health problems related to it.
- - Religious opinion on some treatments for infertility
What treatments are available?
There are many infertility treatments that involve more or less resources. Some of them are home treatments while others may become very expensive, long lasting and stressful.
It is important to set your limits before proceeding with any medical treatment for infertility, talk to your partners or even with specialists about the financial, physical and emotional factors that those treatments will involve.
New studies show that stress during treatment can play an important role in the result of fertility. Some couples achieve pregnancy faster than others who are affected by stress disorders.
Infertility is not only a medical problem but a social one too. Seeing other people with children or being asked about your plans of having children may become an unpleasant situation. This stress may appear even from inside the family when relatives are expecting to give birth or when parents are concerning about the lineage continuance and ask for grandchildren.