Is infertility on the rise, or does it just feel like it?

[ShadowPuppets]

Posting in chat, not AIBU and especially not the Infertility board because I’m not trying to be a twat, I’m genuinely wondering.

I was talking to my mum today and mentioned a good friend of mine who has sadly had an MC. My mum (who is lovely, but one of those women who falls pregnant in the perfectly socially acceptable way - with minimal fuss, when you want a baby, never before and never after) said ‘I do wonder why there’s so much of this nowadays - never used to happen when I was trying for babies’.

Mum conceived her kids on cycle 1 (me) and cycle 2 (my sister) but swears she never heard of people trying for 6m+ back in the day. Whereas all the people I know have tried for months before getting a BFP…

For context, she’s talking about late 80s - early 90s and I don’t think she means it maliciously but her take is - when she was having babies, people generally fell pregnant within a couple of cycles. There were miscarriages but generally people fell pregnant again quite quickly, and those who didn’t were in a small percentage - maybe 10% of their friends who never got pregnant and never had kids.

I feel a bit defensive of this because I’m a 33 year old woman with 2 kids but DH and I probably have about 8 couples as friends out of maybe 20 who are struggling to conceive or going through IVF or struggling with recurrent miscarriage.

I guess what I’m asking is, is infertility and miscarriage more of an issue nowadays, or is it just that people are talking about it more? I’d like to go back to my mum with the latter but I don’t know if that’s true.

35 is old in fertility terms. Imagine it as a line drawn from 14 (when girls have usually started their first period) to 44 (natural successful pregnancy after this is rare). 35 is quite far along that line. Optimum fertility is between 16 and 25.

And no before anyone starts, I’m not advocating teenage pregnancy and I know your aunt Mildred had her last at 49 with no problems 🙄

In a nutshell.

Yes infertility is rising but also people talk about it more.

Reasons it is rising include e.g. pollution impacts on bodies. Then there is the later start to TTC.

Miscarriage wasn't really talked about then

People start trying much older. You say your friends are all under 35 but I look at the previous generation to me.

My Mother had her first child at 24 as dud MIL, that could be an entire decade younger than your friends, it’s a lot of years in fertility terms.

Age and obesity.

Stress and lifestyle will also play into all the other issues mentioned here. For women when you’re stressed and releasing cortisol it essentially sends messages that your body isn’t safe to host a pregnancy, so can make it hard to conceive. It also affects male fertility, which is still not really talked about.

Women TTC are often a good deal older now than they would have been in say the 60s and 70s. I had my first at 28 and was down in my notes as an ‘elderly’ primigravida! That was in 1977. Nobody would turn a hair at a 28 year old now.

My elder sister had her first several years previously and was TTC for a year, so it wasn’t necessarily easy. She was maybe 23. I also knew a couple in the late 70s who had ‘nothing happen’ for at least 8 years, but then had 2 one after the other.

Maybe women are waiting longer (late 30s) when fertility wanes anyway, so that they need additional help?

Your mum is talking cobblers. In years gone by it just wasn't talked about at all. Nobody would talk about miscarriage or infertility problems, it was pretty much taboo. Keep calm and carry on, stiff upper lip, don't wear your heart on your sleeve, all that.

My parents were married 20 years before I turned up, and I was born in the 1960's.

Maybe she got lucky and also it was less discussed. I'm aware that my mum had two late miscarriages, my aunt had miscarriages, my friends mum did. I know another aunt struggled to conceive her one child. This is in the 80s. However I think people started getting pregnant younger, probably still managed to have more than one child and might have been healthier in some ways but I don't think infertility/miscarriage was uncommon.

Also male sperm quality is deteriorating.

But it's easier to blame the females as with most things, cannot criticise the mighty swords now can we?

Yes, globally sperm counts are falling.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/

Men used to be more fit and healthy than they are now. I’m surprised some of them can do the deed.

I think it is related to people starting a family at a later age. Whilst there have always been some women who got pregnant easily into their 40s; when I look at family members in my grandmother’s generation (Irish, no access to any contraception) most started having babies as soon as they were married; late teens/early 20s but then the age at which they stopped varied quite a lot - sometimes into their early 40s but very often it was mid 30s.
It could be they stopped having sex (a reasonable assumption given all those children!) but I do wonder if it was in fact just when they became naturally infertile.

Surely one of the biggest contributing factors is that women simply didn't know they were pregnant until much later than they do now.

All the "pregnancy scares" and "late periods" of 20+ years ago would now almost all be known to be chemical pregnancies or very early miscarriages.

It wasn't possible until fairly recently to find out you were pregnant before your period is even due. In living memory you had to wait until you'd missed 2 or even 3 periods before a doctor or midwife was interested. So complete ignorance of losses or fertility problems must have very widespread.

Add to that the problems of hormones in the water and in milk, and air pollution, and leaving it much later on average to even start trying...

Apparently fertility is declining globally.

The thing is, if you're getting insight on back in the day from your mum, you're talking to someone who was successful. It's not a good test.

But I do think there are stats somewhere about lower sperm count in men yes.

I’m one of 4, all conceived straight away, my mum said exactly the same as yours. Parents both in their early 30s.

I had 5 mcs before DD who only stuck with a massive cocktail of meds and an incredible NHS consultant who stuck with us throughout.

According to my mum it’s a miracle she or anyone in her age range managed to conceive and birth healthy babies given how hard my generation make it look 😂

And yet… Her mum lost triplets before she was born and a single pregnancy after, my dad’s parents couldn’t conceive so adopted him, her friend lost twins, we knew several couples who adopted due to infertility, we have family who adopted, two family friends had ectopics, a cousin lost her baby to SIDS.

It’s talked about more now. Everything is! But the list above is what I recall off the top of my head from what I heard as a child and I’m sure there may have been others. Know enough people and you’ll know people who’ve experienced the full range of horror when it comes to having babies.

I’ve told her that and she’s been amazingly supportive of my struggles but she’s got this persistent idea that no one really had issues despite remembering all the stuff about people we knew.

early pregnancy tests that you could do at home were definitely available in 1980 although you needed to be overdue for your period. We didn’t know every time we failed to implant a fertilised egg that’s true but it’s very common and usually not significant so I’m not convinced it’s helpful to know in most cases.

My DD is about to start fertility treatment due to PCOS, my niece also had the same, my stepdaughter has just been diagnosed and my friend’s daughter just had a hysterectomy at 35 for severe endometriosis. I honestly did not know anyone in my circle of friends and family who had anything like this, or who didn’t have children when they wanted them. It did make me think when my stepdaughter rang at the weekend that it feels much more commonplace now and to wonder if it’s environmental or diet or something.

This was exactly my thinking but I didn’t have the anedata to back it up - thank you 😊

That’s so interesting.

I think there are numerous reasons.

Ttc later in life.

Lifestyle is different, most people have had more than one sexual partner and if a woman has had undiagnosed chlamydia it can affect the reproductive organs.

Sperm quality, a friends dh stopped taking hot baths and whether coincidence or not they finally conceived.

Also infertility is talked about more now so we hear of more people with it.

I knew an old lady who had two miscarriages in the 1940’s and had puerperal fever. Her doctor advised her not to get pregnant again so she didn’t.
I think women had to come to terms with infertility more quickly before medical intervention could aid pregnancy. It must have been very tough though. And of course ‘women’s problems’ wouldn’t be discussed in front men.

In planetary and ecological terms, it is probably just as well.

I feel a bit defensive of this because I’m a 33 year old woman with 2 kids but DH and I probably have about 8 couples as friends out of maybe 20 who are struggling to conceive or going through IVF or struggling with recurrent miscarriage.

I think it's all a bit random, none of my close friends have had an issue conceiving or carrying a pregnancy. That's maybe 15 couples. Yet one of my close friends, nearly every one in her friendship group from her school has had issues with miscarriage, conception and premature birth.