Infertility

Ann Marie Barako, Department of Biology
Amy Krantz, Department of Biology
Matthew Robinson, Department of Mathematics

Westfield State College
Westfield, Massachusetts 01086

AnnBar78@yahoo.com
AimKray@yahoo.com

11/06/1999

Introduction

Infertility is defined as an inability to conceive after one year of regular, unprotected intercourse. The male partner, female partner or both may account for the condition. It is an impairment; it is not necessarily sterility, which means that reproduction is physically impossible. Infertility treatments are a $1 billion a year industry (Rosenwaks, 1993).

We chose to research the subject of infertility because we have heard, through the media, many reports on the increase in infertility. The questions that we were seeking answers to were:

After researching the topic for weeks, we found many reports supporting our hypothesis; infertility is on the rise. The following are titles of the reports that appeared to be supporting our hypothesis: "Alcohol & Marijuana Together Cause Drastic Reductions In Fertility" (Abel, 1985), "Declining male fertility and environmental factors"(Giwercman,1998), and "Environmental Causes of Infertility"(Sinclair, 1994). Each of these articles stated that infertility was on a rise. One article claimed that "impaired fecundity has been rising in the United States over the past decade" (Chandra and Stephen, 1998).

At first we were pleased that all our reports reflected the same opinion, but then we became suspicious because there were no data to back up any of the reports. When we finally discovered actual data we were in for a surprise. The data disproved our hypothesis. We found that infertility was actually decreasing in four out of five age groups. The only female age group where infertility exhibited a rise was between the ages of 15 and 19.

Methods

We starting researching this topic on the world wide web. Through the Westfield State College library we utilized data basis such as Medline, Ebsco Host, Yahoo, Snap, FirstSearch, Expanded Academic ASAP, and INFOTRAC. The resources we located on these databases supported our original hypothesis, but gave us no empirical data. We sought out a reference librarian who gave us a place to look for statistics but unfortunately, the statistics were largely fertility statistics. We thought that we could extract infertilitystatistics from this, but this was not feasible: not every woman is trying to conceive a baby. Once again we sought out a reference librarian and he directed us to some useful statistics. The only valuable statistics available in the Westfield State College library were those of 1995. For previous years we were advised to go to Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where we searched through government documents. We found scattered statistics from the years 1965, 1976, and 1982. The data obtained at this library did not support our hypothesis.

Results and Discussion

Figure 1 shows that infertility is on a rise among women ages 15-19. From 1965-1982 the infertility rate is constant at 2.1%. Between 1982 and 1995 there was a dramatic increase to 4.5%. The graph appears to show an increase in infertility rate, but we believe this may be a sampling error. Since the information we used was in the form of percentages, the information was not accurately depicted on the graph. The reason is, the sampling of the women in this age group is much smaller than the other samples from the older age groups. If our sampling error hypothesis is correct, each woman in the small sample who claimed to be infertile had a greater impact on the percentage than did the woman who claimed infertility in the large sample.



Figure 1. Infertility in women ages 15-19.



Figure 2 shows the infertility rates in women ages 20-24. From 1965 to 1982 there is a rapid increase in infertility rates. From 1982 to 1995 there is a rapid decline. One reason for the rapid increase from 1965 to 1982 could be the massive use of pesticides like chlordane and DDT. They were both used heavily during the late 1950s and the early 1960s. DDT was banned in 1972 because it was found to be carcinogenic (Environment Writer, 1992). Chlordane was used to kill insects until it was banned in 1980. In 1980, chlordane, which is similar to DDT, was banned in the United States after tests showed that chlordane was causing the liver to remove estrogen at too quickly a rate. This decreased the level of estrogen in the women’s body to unusually low levels, which decreased the success of fertility (Welch, 1971). This graph could support the conclusion that pesticides play a direct role in infertility because the infertility rates were higher during the 50s and 60s when pesticides were being used and it declined when they were no longer used in this country.



Figure 2. Infertility in women ages 20-24.



The second reason for the increase in fertility is the shift in health care. Orthodox health care professionals are practicing more complementary medicine than in the past. People are spending more on alternative medicine than on conventional medicine. In 1993, one out of every three Americans used alternative medicine spending a total of 14 billion dollars. Conventional doctors are now changing their views about alternative medicine. Two decades ago the American Medical Association found alternative medicine to be unethical. In 1995, the association decided to include alternative medicine as a part of their training. Now 34 out of 125 schools of medicine are offering classes on alternative medicine. Some alternative medicines now practiced are as follows: acupuncture, homeopathy, and chiropractic. All of these forms of treatment help decrease stress, which lowers infertility (Colt, 1996).

Figure 3 shows infertility in women ages 25 to 29 is similar to Figure 2. The details that are different are the amplitude of the curve and the percentage of infertility is higher overall. All factors contributing to the shape of the curve are similar to the previous graph of women ages 20 to 24.



Figure 3. Infertility in women ages 25-29.



Figures 4,5, and 6 show the infertility rates for women from the ages of 30-44 are all very similar. In all the graphs there is a decline from 1965 to 1995. Between 1976 and 1982 there is a slightly more rapid decline. A possible reason for this decline is the vast improvement of health care. Figures 2,3,4,5,6 all show decreasing infertility rates in the late 1980s. This seems to correlate with the health insurance coverage increase starting in the 1980s. Since 1987, the number of people covered by private or government health insurance has increased (Figure 10).



Figure 4. Infertility in women ages 30-34.





Figure 5. Infertility in women ages 35-39.





Figure 6. Infertility in women ages 40-44.





Figure 7. Health Insurance Coverage.



Older women who are infertile will want to try more and more methods to conceive a child because menopause in is in their not-so-distant future. They would pay a great deal of money for these technological advances such as in-vitro fertilization because they want a child so badly. Counseling and alternative medicines are more widely used between couples to reduce the amount of stress which plays a factor in infertility.

Smoking and drug awareness have increased immensely in the past decade. There are less women smoking in the 1990's than decades ago. There is a decline seen from 1976 in women smokers (Figure 8). Perhaps, the surgeon general warnings, billboards, and magazine advertisements have contributed to the decline of infertility. Smokers are 3-4 times more likely than non-smokers to take greater than a year to conceive a child (Baird, 1985). Because the definition of infertility is the inability to conceive a child within a year, smokers will be more likely to be classified as infertile. With more women becoming aware of the hazards of smoking, there are less women smokers (Lifestyles and Health, 1995).



Figure 8. Use of Cigarettes in women of all ages.



Figure 9 shows that alcohol has been on a dramatic decrease since 1980 (Lifestyles and Health, 1995). A 50% reduction in conception was found in experiments of test animals given alcohol in 24 hours prior to mating (Cicero,1994). This gives evidence that alcohol does play a factor in infertility.



Figure 9. Use of alcohol in women of all ages.





Figure 10. Infertility in women of all ages.



Conclusion

Our initial interest in this project was to find out why infertility was on the rise. As we dug deep into this topic, many questions arose. "Why is there no data?" was perhaps our biggest and most daunting question. Since we had no numbers to back up our original research, we became skeptical of our hypothesis. Finally when we unearthed all the scattered data we had access to, we realized that our hypothesis was erroneous. In actuality, infertility has decreased over time. The most dramatic conclusion we have drawn from this research project is that the media does not always reflect the truth. We entered into this project with confidence. We thought we knew what the outcome was going to be, but it turns out our thoughts were nothing but false pretenses. The information we based our hypothesis on was that of the news media. We believed the news and articles we read; this was our downfall. The bottom line is, don’t believe anything you hear until you see the facts!

Works Cited