Discuss infertility and describe some common infertility treatments.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

With the advent of oral contraceptives in the 1960's, women had more options open to them regarding family planning and many women opted to delay childbearing into their late 20's or early 30's, which may lead to difficulty in getting pregnant. Among the reproductive health problems, infertility, defined as women who were not able to conceive after 12 months of trying, is a condition that affects about 6.1 million Americans, or 10 percent of the reproductive age population. Men and women are equally affected. In the U.S., trends in fertility have been relatively stable over time with a slight decline from 2007 to 2010.

Depending on the reason for infertility, there are many treatment options available ranging from surgery to allow pregnancy to take place to hormone augmentation to allow the pregnancy to carry to full term. However for those with resistant problems, assisted reproductive technology (ART), which involves fertility treatments for which both egg and sperm are manipulated, can provide an effective treatment. ART procedures are very expensive and involve surgically removing eggs from a woman's ovaries, combining them with sperm in the laboratory, and returning them to the woman's body or donating them to another woman. The costs of ART are prohibitive for most couples. Just one cycle of treatment can cost $12,000 USD and the national estimate for diagnosing and treating couples with infertility issues is likely to be about $5 billion dollars a year. While this process is very expensive, there is a trend for insurance companies to pay for this treatment, which will increase its use and provide more comprehensive and accurate estimates of its cost.