Infertility Statistics
Couples who are going through infertility problems often feel alone in their struggle. They see other people with their babies and wonder why it’s not them. They forget that there are other people in the world that are going through the same things they are going through.
There are about 7.3 million women in this country alone between the ages of 15 and 44 who have an impaired ability to have children. Many of these women don’t even know that they have a problem until they try to start a family
Some women have gotten pregnant with issues like polycystic ovarian syndrome and the diagnosis didn’t come until after they had kids. But, most often this is not the case. There are many other couples who have gone through fertility treatments. Often when seeing the happy couples with their babies, infertile couples do not contemplate whether that parent had to receive some sort of infertility treatment in order to conceive.
In 2002 11.9% or 7.3 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 years of age have received some sort of infertility services. 6.1% have received professional advice. 5.5% of women have received some sort of medical help to prevent a miscarriage. 4.8% have undergone a fertility test. 3.8% of women have received ovulation drugs. And 1.1% of women have received artificial insemination. 11.8% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 years of age have impaired fecundity which means they not only have problems getting pregnant, they have problems carrying a baby to term.
It is commonly known that as women age their ability to become pregnant decreases with the loss of their eggs. In fact, the percent of childless women who have ever received any infertility service between the ages of 35 and 39 years of age is 15.2%. Childless women who have received any infertility service between the ages of 30 and 34 years of ages was 17.3% and women between the ages of 15 and 29 was only 2.9%.
The percent of married childless women between the ages of 15 and 44 years of age are infertile by these ages. 27.4% of women are infertile by the ages of 40 and 44. 22.6% of women are infertile by 35 and 39 years of age. 16.9% of women are infertile by the ages of 30 and 34. And 11% of married women are infertile by the ages of 15 and 29.
But just because there are problems getting or maintaining a pregnancy, that does not mean that it is impossible. At age 31, the percentage of live births after undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) which is a very affective fertility treatment was about 38%. By age 39, the percentage of live births was around 22%. But after age 43, the percentage of live births drops to less than 10%. Women have also used an egg donor.
Even though IVF success was less than 10% at age 40 using the mother’s own eggs, women who used an egg donor from a much younger women had a success rate of about 45%. It is an even better rate than women using their own eggs in their early 30s.
