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.

My grandma (in her 80s) had 4 miscarriages after 12 weeks, including 2 at about 16 weeks. My mum (in her 60s) had 2 miscarriages, and Clomid to have my brother. My MIL (in her 70s) had "countless" miscarriages, 2 stillbirths and 2 terminations for medical reasons.

I had 4 DC in 7 years with only 6 months of "trying" in total, and no losses. There's an element of luck and a lot we still don't know (and thar which we do know isn't clear cut) about fertility, hormones etc. I think we talk about it more now, which is great but can also increase anxiety. I do think things like routinely taking folic acid when trying for a baby are really good news.

My mum had miscarriages and two children, my husband’s mum also had the same. One set of grandparents had only one child and desperately wanted more but they couldn’t, the other set had three, with the last one born when my grandmother was 46!

I think you’re conflating infertility with miscarriage. Infertility usually described those unable to get pregnant. Miscarriages are different as you can get pregnant but not keep it. You’re mostly talking about miscarriages which were not routinely talked about (I only knew about my parents etc when I had one). Also the pregnancy tests are more accurate and people test earlier. This would have not been picked up before.

People are more open now about infertility, miscarriages etc.
I know a lot of older couples who have adopted due to infertility, who have no children because 'it didn't happen', my grandma had a full term still birth, she never held him, saw him and never talks about him.
My mam said she has had multiple miscarriages looking back but when she was younger she thought it was a very heavy late periods with clots and before you could go to the doctors for a pregnancy test you had to miss x2 periods.
A lot of people married young and babies younger than they did now.
My Nanna said she was an old bride at 27!!

Now people are peeing on sticks left right and centre.
I know people who have grown up children, married for years, never used contraception since they got married and waited years to fall pregnant.
I started ttc at 27 and didn't get pregnant until the week I became 30. Lots of chemical pregnancies, nothing else identified from tests, IVF failed (my daughter was a natural conception), now I'm 34 and been ttc for the past year and a half, again not even a hint of pregnancy.

The sperm count has dropped dramatically in the past 50 years. Dramatically

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/15/humans-could-face-reproductive-crisis-as-sperm-count-declines-study-finds

Incidentally. my DS17 is very much into his 'testosterone levels' and eats to ensure his is optimal and avoids plastics and even airpods because he is that into it, and we were talking the other day about it and he said he has friends who have been together for a while and are using no contraception and have no had a pregnancy. Friends - plural. These are young people.

I wonder if alcohol consumption for women might be more of a factor now than it would have been in the past.

A friend of mine did the same. Hormones etc in the water she said.

That was lucky! I have a friend who got pregnant at 18, was persuaded to terminate them very sadly went through an early menopause a few years later. It’s devastating for her seeing the bloke who got her pregnant then persuaded her to terminate swanning about with his kids. Ok he wasn’t to know, but she still feels very cheated and I don’t blame her.

Sperm count has decreased substantially in the last 70 years.

I don’t know; is it selective perception?

my father was an only child ( born 1920, so no contraception to speak of). His mother had two sisters, both married, no children. He had one cousin on the paternal side, though his father was one of five.

my mother was an only child, no maternal cousins ( though her uncle was killed in the trenches before marriage). My grandfather may or may not have had a brother ( some very murky family history there) I think he may have had a cousin who was ‘ a bit simple’. The cousin was certainly part of the farm set up, he didn’t marry though.

I’m an only child, my mother miscarried when I was two, and then decided that was it. I don’t have children from choice.

Is it just my unusually faulty genes? Or was there far more miscarriage, failure to conceive , - but of course most of those families have died out.

I honestly think it's online sharing. I can't think of anyone in real life who I've talked to about when I conceived (it was first or second month of trying with all 3 of my pregnancies actually) and with exception of a couple close friends, I don't think I shared with anyone openly about my MC either. But certainly I have talked about it a lot online. And I think with everyone doing that and the more open media interest in fertility/baby loss makes it seem like there is more of it. Realistically, there probably is a bit more as statistically people are having babies later in life.

I’m in my mid forties and it took my mum 2 years to have my brother and another 6 years to have me. She was 22 when she had my brother.

My MIL took 13 years to have her first then 6 years for her second then her third was conceived two months later!

I know three women who have had ectopic pregnancies. They were late 20s and this was in the 80s. I remember my mum saying something similar to the op's Mum too , but maybe her female friends just didn't discuss miscarriages or anything like this that much and it all seemed easier back then ? Some say the pill messes up fertility too, but no idea what the stats are or if anyone's ever done any studies into it since the pill became widely available etc

I would assume that people are starting later perhaps, or maybe we talk more about these sorts of things so losses aren't the taboos they once were?

We are more open about it these days, although I think women starting ttc much later in life as well as more unhealthy lifestyles and more obesity is probably a big factor as well.

I will say this after 4 rounds of IVF, I was genuinely surprised at how many young, slim healthy looking heterosexual couples in their 20s were in the waiting rooms. I was expecting a slightly different demographic tbh.