Basics of Infertility
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Date
2018
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جامعة الشيخ عبدالله البدري
Abstract
Infertility definitions
Clinical definitions:
• Infertility is “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.”…
(WHO-ICMART glossary1).
• “Infertility is the inability of a sexually active, non-contracepting couple to achieve
pregnancy in one year. The male partner can be evaluated for infertility or subfertility
using a variety of clinical interventions, and also from a laboratory evaluation of semen.”
Demographic definitions of infertility:
• An inability of those of reproductive age (15-49 years) to become or remain pregnant
within five years of exposure to pregnancy.
• An inability to become pregnant with a live birth, within five years of exposure based
upon a consistent union status, lack of contraceptive use, non-lactating and maintaining a
desire for a child.
Epidemiological definition of infertility:
(For monitoring and surveillance) Women of reproductive age (15–49 years) at risk of
becoming pregnant (not pregnant, sexually active, not using contraception and not
lactating) who report trying unsuccessfully for a pregnancy for two years or more.
Infertility as a disability
Disability: Infertility generates disability (an impairment of function), and thus access to
health care falls under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. An
estimated 34 million women, predominantly from developing countries, have infertility
which resulted from maternal sepsis and unsafe abortion (long term maternal morbidity
resulting in a disability). Infertility in women was ranked the 5th highest serious global
disability (among populations under the age of 60).
Primary infertility:
When a woman is unable to ever bear a child, either due to the inability to become
pregnant or the inability to carry a pregnancy to a live birth she would be classified as
having primary infertility. Thus women whose pregnancy spontaneously miscarries, or
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whose pregnancy results in a still born child, without ever having had a live birth would
present with primarily infertility.
Secondary infertility
When a woman is unable to bear a child, either due to the inability to become pregnant or
the inability to carry a pregnancy to a live birth following either a previous pregnancy or
a previous ability to carry a pregnancy to a live birth, she would be classified as having
secondary infertility. Thus those who repeatedly spontaneously miscarry or whose
pregnancy results in a stillbirth, or following a previous pregnancy or a previous ability to
do so, are then not unable to carry a pregnancy to a live birth would present with
secondarily infertile