CAUSES OF CHILDLESSNESS

CAUSES OF CHILDLESSNESS

Miscarriages although she may conceive readily enough, a woman may lose her child early in pregnancy. Some women repeatedly experience such findings or spontaneous abortions. Anyone or more of several reasons count for this: emotional disturbance, general poor health, malnutrition, acute illness including infection, glandular disorder. Often, health conditions are comparatively easy to cure.

Miscarriages may be avoided by refraining from sexual intercourse during the days on which the woman's menstrual periods would IH l "I' if she were not pregnant. Sometimes a week's rest in bed at these periods, especially during the early months of pregnancy, may save the b.ihy. Rest during the week or so corresponding to the time in pregnancy of the previous miscarriage often is helpful. There is no need to be discouraged by a miscarriage, especially if at your first pregnancy. It has been estimated that one of every six married women in the United States under the age of 3S has had at it one miscarriage, and the figure might well be much higher if it were possible to determine how many "late" menstrual periods were ,actually early miscarriages.

Reduced Fertility w people are really sterile, without reproductive power at all. Many who consider themselves sterile have reduced fertility, but can reproduce and often do so at some point-to their own surprise. Infertility, or reduced fertility, has many possible causes. Often, emotional factors are involved. You may know at least one couple who adopted a child when one of their own seemed impossible, and shortly .if forward conceived a child. 

Why this happens is not thoroughly under- stood: It may be the result of reduced tension when, after many efforts, hope is given up and a child is adopted; it may be that the act of mothering has a beneficial effect on a woman's glandular system. Physicians usually can determine a man's or woman's fertility level. A man may produce few or many sperm; they may have long or short life-spans: they may be highly motile or not motile enough to make the journey to the egg. A woman's secretions may be injurious to sperm; her fallopian tubes may be narrow; or her uterus may be incapable of forming tissues needed for the egg after fertilization.

Many other factors influence fertility.

Fortunately, most of them can be corrected today, though it often takes time and the skills of specialists to achieve correction. If you are childless and want a baby, give yourself the best possible chance of conceiving one. This means having intercourse at a time when II is most likely to lead to conception. Study the rhythm method of birth control described earlier-and uses it in reverse. Some couples who consider themselves infertile happen never actually to have had intercourse, II the appropriate time.