Preseed.com Blog

A recent CDC article on infertility has some very important Public Health information. The article revealed that in 2002 7.3 million (or 12% of reproductive aged) US women had had impaired fertility, meaning they had trouble conceiving or bringing a pregnancy to term.  Additionally, an estimated 4 million men reported they had sought help for fertility issues in their life time. Take home = lots of people don’t get pregnant when they want to!

A very important cause of infertility was due to tubal damage (as much as 18%)  which can often be a consequence of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease .  Chlamydia, with over 1 million cases a year, can cause this.  Take home = early detection and treatment, even of “low grade” STDs is important . If you aren’t conceiving get those tubes checked earlier rather than later to make sure they are open.

In 2002, 1 million women had sought medical help to get pregnant. Of these, 59%  underwent some testing, 46% received drug therapy, 13% underwent IUI, 8% had surgery for blocked tubes, and 3% used in vitro (ART).  Take home = even though we talk a lot about Assisted Reproduction, only 1% of all babies result from this, with an average per cycle 29% live birth rate (overall for the US), with an average cost of $12,000/cycle.  

Even though the vast majority of couples with problems conceiving (97%) do not undergo in vitro fertilization, there is NO accurate information on the overall success rate or health complications from non-ART treatments for infertility, such as IUI or medication use (such as clomid).  Can you imagine if the efficacy studies and research emphasis of our cancer or heart disease therapies  were limited to treatments that only 3% of patients would use? This is poor medicine and public policy.  The CDC estimates we spend $5B a year on diagnosing and treating infertility. The media, the specialists, and our society as a whole, needs to stop looking to ART (in vitro) as the blanket “cure” for infertility -especially given only a third of cycles  result in live births-and look for new empowered ways for couples to optimize fertility or manage infertility when ART is not the right option for them.

Here is the link for this great tax payer funded work!

Dr. E

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