walkitout: (Default)
Nella Acceber ([personal profile] walkitout) wrote2011-07-21 08:15 pm

Infertility Rates

According to this:

http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/1506.abstract

"The current evidence indicates a 9% prevalence of infertility (of 12 months) with 56% of couples seeking medical care. These estimates are lower than those typically cited and are remarkably similar between more and less developed countries."

I mention this because this turned up on google news:

http://www.healthnews.com/en/articles/1GvdGTZq91cRuhBiAs0d$p/Coatless-Sperm-May-Be-Major-Culprit-for-Male-Infertility/

Containing this sentence:

"Infertility affects about 13 to 14 percent of couples worldwide."

Which I thought sounded ... off, on the high side. It's not obvious how comparable the two statistics are, because some studies look infertility as an attribute of a woman (who is not getting pregnant) and others look at it as an attribute of a couple. I could imagine the rate at which couples are infertile exceeds the rate at which women are infertile -- but I don't really think the studies are doing a great job of ascertaining either one specifically.