It had been a decade since aOfficial World Fertility Survey it was not being conducted; however the one that WHO recently disclosed showed a far from positive picture: 17.5% of the adult population (1 person out of 6) is affected by infertility.
An alarming fact which does not spare the richest and most advantaged areas of the planet and which draws attention to the need for new and more facilitated forms of public access to Medically Assisted Procreation (MAP).
What is meant by infertility
“The report reveals an important truth: infertility does not discriminate against anyone”, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general. “The huge proportion of those affected shows the need to expand access to fertility therapies and to ensure that this issue is no longer sidelined in health research and policy so that safe, effective and affordable ways are available to obtain parenthood for those who seek it.“
L’infertilityon a scientific level, it is described as the condition whereby, following regular unprotected sexual intercourse, repeated for at least 12 months, it is not possible to achieve a state of pregnancy.
The problem, which can derive from female or male pathologies (but also from both or neither), has direct consequences on the emotionality and well-being of the couple, with physical and psychological repercussions.
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Such an acute and generalized phenomenon requires public intervention which, on the one hand, raises awareness of prevention and early diagnosis and, on the other, facilitates access to treatments, encouraging research and the application of modern assisted reproduction techniques (still today largely managed by private institutes, with consequent prohibitive costs that effectively discriminate against the right to parenthood).
Infertility: what has changed in a decade
Second the latest WHO report the situation has therefore worsened in the space of just a decade. The pandemic certainly had its own responsibility, however, the investigations carried out on sexuality have highlighted a process also triggered by generational delay and worsening economic conditions.
Women and men, without distinction, they approach parenthood later than the previous generation: stabilizing one’s personal and professional position around the age of 35/40 is, for example, one of the latent causes of the problem.
Furthermore, stressful lifestyles are responsible for premature physical ageing, from which phenomena of pre-menopause and male reproductive difficulty.
Therefore, global awareness campaigns are needed, equal to those which, in the past, were organized in favor of contraception.