Why is infertility on the rise

Visit a professional doctor that offers fertility services, whether it is testing or treatment plans. For more information on these services, please visit our fertility services page. Portal provides patients across the central Pennsylvania region with secure access to their health information.

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When it comes to health care for you and your family, UPMC is here. It's easy to find the right doctor, health screenings and programs, classes and more. Your health information, right at your fingertips. Read the Latest. What causes infertility? Infertility is a complicated issue and a lot of things are involved in being able to conceive. What should we do? Infertility is fairly common, and it can even mean getting pregnant but having stillbirths or miscarriages.

Infertility is the inability to get pregnant even after having frequent and unprotected sex for one year. Infertility can affect both men and women and is usually self-diagnosable by an inability to get pregnant. Doctors can run many different kinds of tests to help determine what might be causing fertility problems for an individual or couple. Transvaginal ultrasounds can help detect possible uterine abnormalities, blood tests can look for abnormal hormone levels, and semen analysis can detect semen abnormalities in men that might be playing a role in infertility.

Infertility treatments are always improving, and many people are eventually able to successfully conceive. Many couples who want to start a family and are unable to conceive will experience psychological and interpersonal distress that could negatively impact their quality of life. Female infertility is often due to problems with ovulation that may be caused by ovulation disorders like polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS , primary ovarian insufficiency POI , or hyperprolactinemia.

Female infertility can also be caused by uterine or cervical abnormalities, fallopian tube damage, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, early menopause, pelvic scar tissue, and even cancer treatment or severe psychological distress. Emerging research suggests some of the chemicals we use in everyday life disrupt fertility, male fertility in particular. A disturbing new book outlines the research showing links between these chemicals and a dramatic decline in sperm counts.

Its author, Professor Shanna Swan, predicts most couples will have to resort to IVF by if this decline continues. Swan is a high-profile professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where she has studied fertility trends for some 30 years.

Her book examines what might be causing this decline and other related fertility issues. The worst offenders are endocrine-disrupting chemicals EDCs.

Oestrogen and testosterone are the two main hormones that influence our reproductive systems. EDCs can interfere with or mimic these hormones, fooling the body into thinking it has sufficient levels of them to stop its own production.

This then impacts reproductive development, fertility, and health. She is also organising the first international endocrine disruptor conference to take place in Ireland from June 15 to She cites a report on the effects of endocrine disruptors on human health issued by the WHO and UN in as a pivotal publication in this field. However, only a fraction has been investigated in tests capable of identifying overt endocrine effects in intact organisms.

The vast majority of these chemicals in current commercial use have not been tested at all. The charity is currently part of the Break Free from Plastic taskforce set up by Chem Trust, a European organisation aiming to prevent man-made chemicals from causing long-term damage to wildlife or humans. Yet these chemicals are found in a vast array of everyday items. Electrical goods and household materials often contain flame retardants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers PBDEs and non-stick cookware, paper and textile protectors can contain chemicals called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances PFASs.

In other words, we need to stop using each other and our unborn children as lab rats for EDC exposures. The health and the future of the human race really do depend on it. Shanna H.

Swan, Ph. She is the co-author, with Shanna H. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options.