Genesis Fertility Clinic Blog
January 15, 2012What happens to infertile couples?
I saw a patient today whose husband left her because their infertility is due to a problem with her. How often does a person leave their spouse because of infertility?
There have been a few large European studies that attempt to answer that question. You can read a recent article that includes a summary of past studies here.
The summary is that when couples are followed for up to 20 years after IVF treatment (successful or not) about 70% of them are still together. The chance they are still together is the same whether or not they have children. Also interesting is that about 90% of couples have a child either from the IVF cycle, spontaneous pregnancy or adoption. I think that is a very hopeful number.
So, although infertility and its treatment can be very stressful, most couples stay together. All of the published studies looked at Caucasian populations, mostly in Europe, and the chance a couple stays together varies with religion, ethnicity and geographic location. So it’s a bit hard to know whether these sorts of statistics apply to our diverse population in Vancouver.
Nevertheless, it’s nice to have good news about couples and infertility. Perhaps going through such a challenging journey like infertility can actually strengthen relationships, rather than the negative effect of pulling people apart.
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility
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