INFERTILITY: A MALE OR FEMALE CRUX

 Most people will have a strong desire to conceive a child at some point during their lifetime. Understanding what defines normal fertility is crucial to helping a person, or couple, know when it is time to seek help. Most couples (approximately 85%) will achieve pregnancy within one year of trying, with the greatest likelihood of conception occurring during the earlier months. Only an additional 7% of couples will conceive in the second year. As a result, infertility has come to be defined as the inability to conceive within 12 months. This diagnosis is therefore shared by 15% of couples attempting to conceive. It is generally recommended to seek the help of a reproductive endocrinologist if conception has not occurred within 12 months.

The World Health Organization (W.H.O) defines Infertility as a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. An estimated 100 thousand cases of infertility are recorded in Nigeria each year.

Male infertility is responsible for 20–30% of infertility cases, while 20–35% are due to female infertility, and 25–40% are due to combined problems in both parts. In 10–20% of cases, no cause is found.

The most common cause of female infertility is ovulatory problems, which generally manifest themselves by sparse or absent menstrual periods. Male infertility is most commonly due to deficiencies in the semen, and semen quality is used as a surrogate measure of male fecundity.

Currently, female fertility normally peaks at age 24 and diminishes after 30, with pregnancy occurring rarely after age 50. A female is most fertile within 24 hours of ovulation. Male fertility peaks usually at age 25 and declines after age 40.

The consequences of infertility are manifold and can include societal repercussions and personal suffering. In many cultures, the inability to conceive bears a stigma. In closed social groups, a degree of rejection (or a sense of being rejected by the couple) may cause considerable anxiety and disappointment. Some respond by actively avoiding the issue altogether; middle-class men are the most likely to respond in this way.

For most individuals, for most of history, childlessness has been regarded as a great personal tragedy, involving much emotional pain and grief, especially when it resulted from a failure to conceive or from the death of a child. Before conception was well understood, infertility was usually blamed on the woman and this in itself added to the high level of negative emotions and social effects of childlessness. “Some wealthy families also adopted children, as a means of providing heirs in cases of infertility.

In Nigeria today, the majority of the infertility cases are mostly blamed on the woman with the men vaguely blamed. This has made many men marry more wives in search of a child or have extramarital affairs leading to broken homes and marital problems. In cases where the man has the problem, he may either seek help and work together with his partner or just marry another woman with the hopes that a miracle will happen. But if the woman has the problem, it is usually not that easy to dump her husband for a new man or switch between men so she is left with the choice of going for fertility treatment with hopes of a miracle combined with the pressure from husband, family, and society to conceive a child. Strong marriages where the couples involved truly love one another fight and support each other during their infertility struggles but unfortunately, the brunt of infertility is generally and arguably felt more by the women than in men.

 

Written by;

AGABI ANDREW EROMOSELE
Code No: OS/20A/0004
Course: Agriculture
Institution: University of Benin
State of Origin: Edo