244 Where There Is No Doctor 2011
MEN AND WOMEN WHO ARE NOT ABLE
TO HAVE CHILDREN (INFERTILITY)
Sometimes a man and woman try to have children but the woman does not become
pregnant. Either the man or woman may be infertile (unable to bring about pregnancy).
Often nothing can be done to make a person fertile, but sometimes something can be
done, depending on the cause.
COMMON CAUSES OF INFERTILITY:
1. Sterility. The person’s body is such that he or she can never have children. Some
men and women are born sterile.
2. Weaknesses or a nutritional lack. In some women severe anemia, poor nutrition,
or lack of iodine may lower the chance of becoming pregnant. Or it may cause
the unformed baby (embryo) to die, perhaps before the mother even knows she is
pregnant (see Miscarriage, p. 281). A woman who is not able to become pregnant, or
has had only miscarriages, should get enough nutritious food, use iodized salt, and
if she is severely anemic, take iron pills (p. 247). These may increase her chance of
becoming pregnant and having a healthy baby.
3. Chronic infection, especially pelvic inflammatory disease (see p. 243) due to
gonorrhea or chlamydia, is a common cause of infertility in women. Treatment may
help—if the disease has not gone too far. Prevention and early treatment of gonorrhea
and chlamydia mean fewer sterile women.
4. Men are sometimes unable to make women pregnant because they have fewer
sperm than is normal. It may help for the man to wait, without having sex, for several
days before the woman enters her ‘fertile days’ each month, midway between her last
menstrual period and the next (see Counting Days Method and Mucus Method, p. 291
and 292). This way he will give her his full amount of sperm when they have sex on
days when she is able to become pregnant.
WARNING: Hormones and other medicines commonly given to men or women who
cannot have babies almost never do any good, especially in men. Home remedies and
magic cures are not likely to help either. Be careful not to waste your money on things
that will not help.
For a man or a woman who is not able to have a baby, there are still many ways to
raise or support children and to lead a happy life:
• Perhaps you can arrange to care for or adopt children
who are orphans or need a home. Many couples come to
love such children just as if they were their own.
• Perhaps you can become a health worker or help your
community in other ways. The love you would give to your
children, you can give to others, and all will benefit.
• You may live in a village where people look with shame
on a woman who cannot have children. Perhaps you
and others can form a group to help care for people
with special needs or to make other contributions to the
community, and to show that having babies is not the only
thing that makes a woman worthwhile.