Conception Infertility

Read on for:

• how you conceive naturally
• what you need to conceive naturally
• female conception infertility statistics: bringing your worry into perspective

Does this sound like you?
“Jaci and Simon, next door weren’t even trying, weren’t planning for it and now- Surprise! Jaci’s pregnant.” Or perhaps its your sister (or someone close), who got off the pill two months ago and- “now she’s going to have a baby.”

All around you babies are suddenly popping up like rabbits- your mother asking when you’ll give her grandchildren is driving you round the bend.
It’s not like you haven’t been trying. How long has it been now- 3 months, 6 months, a year, two? And now you’re wondering: “Is there something wrong with me?”

How You Conceive Naturally

Conception is more hit and miss than we realize. The delicate balance of nature required to bring about conception may lead you to wonder how any one manages to fall pregnant (fall pregnant is like it’s supposed to happen by accident!).

• It all begins with just the right amount of hormones (your body’s chemical messengers) being released in the brain.
• These trigger the growth and release of an egg from a mature egg sac (follicle) bursting through the surface of the ovary.
• The open and in tact fallopian tubes attached to your uterus must catch the released egg.
• Meanwhile the sperm swimming vigorously, cross the cervix (the doorway to your womb), through the uterus to meet the waiting egg.
• Fertilization of the egg takes place in the upper third of the tube near the ovary.
• On reaching the egg the sperm must successfully borrow into the egg, followed by the mixing of the genetic material from both parents.
• The now dividing egg is wafted unhindered through the tube, on its way to the uterus (womb).
• The action of female hormones released from the ovary should have thickened and softened the lining of the womb and prepared it for implantation.
• If all conditions are satisfied the rapidly dividing egg, now called an embryo digs into and lodges itself in the womb (implantation).
• With nothing significantly interfering with the process, you deliver your bundle of joy 9 months later.

What You Need to Conceive Naturally

For this whole process to proceed like clockwork the following must hold true:

• You must be healthy, not too thin or overweight and menstruate regularly enough to predict your ovulation date.
• Your husband must produce sperm that is the right shape, produce enough sperm and ejaculate sperm that are capable of swimming vigorously in the right direction.
• You and your husband must be able to enjoy sexual intimacy when you are at your most fertile, i.e., around ovulation.
• Your body must be producing enough of the necessary hormones to keep the pregnancy going until the baby is delivered.

Female Conception Infertility Statistics: bringing your worry into perspective

Even when everything is working as it should, would it surprise you to know that:

1. Your friend, or neighbor, falls among 20 women out of 100 (20%) who will conceive in any given month. The remaining 80 will have the same 20% chance (only 16 will fall pregnant) the next month with 66 women still not pregnant. If this continues:
   • roughly half the women will conceive after 3 months,
   • about 75 will be pregnant after 6 months,
   • after 12 months about 7 women will not be pregnant that year.
2. As at 2002, 2 million married women or married couples had not fallen pregnant after a year or more, with 6 million women between the ages of 15 – 44 struggling to deal with infertility in a population of 61.6 million women of reproductive age.
3. Women with impaired fecundity (women that have not chosen to be sterile but have a physical reason that makes it difficult to get pregnant or carry a baby to term) numbered 7.3 million or 11.8% of the female childbearing population.
4. Among married women, 4.3 million have impaired fecundity.
5. After actual pregnancy women between the ages 20 – 45 go most often to see their physician about infertility. This represents about 12% of the women of reproductive age (between ages 15 – 44) or 7.3 million women. This number includes women looking for medical help to prevent miscarriage.

Not getting pregnant immediately doesn’t mean you can’t have kids. Doctors and health care providers need a yardstick to help them determine when to sit back and allow nature to take its course, or when alarm bells should start ringing that your fertility might be in jeopardy.

Data Source

1. Chandra A, Martinez GM, Mosher WD, Abma JC, Jones J. Fertility, family planning, and reproductive health of U.S. women: Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 23(25). 2005.
2. The American Pregnancy Association.