Infertility & Impaired Fecundity, Page 2

Who receives services?

  • Those using infertility services are more likely to be Caucasian, college educated, older than 30, have higher incomes, and have never given birth or been married. (Barth, Brooks, Iyer, 1995)
  • Of those adoptive families who have experienced infertility, approximately half of those with fertility problems undergo medical treatment for an average of three years prior to adopting. (Barth, Brooks, Iyer, 1995)
  • The 1995 National Survey of Family Growth found that 2 percent of all U.S. women of reproductive age - 1.2 million women - had received medical advice or treatment for infertility within the previous year and that another 13 percent had received such services at some point earlier in their lives. (Freundlich, 1998)

Why pursue services?

Families who give birth as a result of donor insemination chose the procedure primarily because of their dissatisfaction with the adoption process on three counts:

Click Here to Get Started
  • long waiting lists
  • grueling and demeaning selection process
  • worries about adoption laws and the security of adoptions. (Barth, Brooks, Iyer, 1995)

Like treatment for infertility, the adoption process is viewed by many infertile couples as time-consuming, intrusive, and beyond the control of the couple. (Bachrach, London, Maza, 1991)

Bibliography

Bachrach, C.A., London, K.A., and Maza, P. (1991). On path to adoption: adoption seeking in the U.S., 1988. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53(3), 705-718.

Barth, R.P., Brooks, D., and Iyer, S. (1995). Adoptions in California: current demographic profiles and projections through the end of the century. Executive Summary. Berkeley, California: Child Welfare Research Center.

Fertility, Family Planning, and Women's Health: New Data From the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. (1997). Washington, DC: National Center for Health Statistics, Center for Disease Control.

Freundlich, M. (1998). Supply and demand: the forces shaping the future of infant adoption. Adoption Quarterly, 2(1), 13-42.

Mosher, W.D. and Bachrach, C.A. (1996). Understanding U.S. fertility: continuity and change in the national survey of family growth, 1988-1995. Family Planning Perspectives, 28(1).

Previous Page

Credits: Child Welfare Information Gateway (http://www.childwelfare.gov)

Click Here to Learn More