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"infertility Who to blame? "

By: Saniya Sultan Ali

Why everyone blames me, what can I do? It’s not in my hands, what is my mistake in this? Don’t I have freedom to live happily? These were the signs of Mrs. Kabir when she came with the morning tea. After listening all these Mr. Kabeer her husband becomes wordless and the beautiful morning ends up with these conversation.

Mr. and Mrs. Kabeer love each other and they are on the same wavelength. Their life was passing with ease. They both are independent and working couple and they have a better understanding. I must say a very loving and a caring couple. But one day they come to know that they could not be able to give a birth to a child. Their all happiness turned to sorrows and their strong relation was abating day by day.

Every couple wants a healthy and happy life and plans for a child but unfortunately all couples are not able to accomplish this due to some abnormalities which results into infertility. Accepting its confirmation from doctor must be very hard for the concerned ones. In South Asian society women some how accept this harsh fact however; men would never accept that they are infertile. The experience of infertility and the resulting stress may impact a women’s physical, social and mental well-being, which manifests in sadness, depression, anger, confusion, disorganization, exhaustion, moodiness, obsessive thoughts and behaviors. According to WHO, between 8 to 12% of all couples or 50 to 80 million people worldwide experience some form of infertility during their reproductive lives. In Pakistan the ratio of primary infertility is about 4%.

In my nursing profession, I have observed that, many couples especially male delay medical advice because of the physical discomfort for the diagnostic procedures, denial, emotional stress and fright for consequences of the effective out come. Women identity intimidates due to infertility, their status and security has been lost. People stigmatized these women and they stay isolated. In some cases women are threatened for divorce or even for second marriage. Women are physically abused by her in-laws and husbands and end up in mental stressors, depression and anxiety. According to Sami and Ali (2006)

“Severe emotional harassment is experienced by a large number of such women in their marital homes in the form of ostracism from family celebrations, taunting and stigmatization, negative attitude as well as beating, withholding of food and health care. This results in immense psychological trauma leading to low self-esteem, security and self-confidence in such women.”

In my neighbor a 36yr old female was live in, after her marriage her mother in law used to daily question her about child, as days passed the attitude of her mother in law becomes worsened and 3 years passed but she has no child, the lady go to seek medical advice and went to the Hakim and homeopathy for checkups and all, and did each and every thing to have a baby but unfortunately she disappointed by all and unable to give a birth to a baby. The indifferent behavior of her mother in law increased day by day and her husband also behave rudely to her and blamed her for the infertility. Finally her mother in law decided that her son would marry other women who could give him a child and her husband married another lady but again they lingered for the baby. And one more time the female was made to go for the checkups and blames for baby.

On the other hand, especially in our society men do not accept that they could also have some problem which could be cause infertility to that extent that they even don’t go for the checkups. Only female is considered the sole responsible for this. Furthermore, we blames and consider it as the mistake of women and they don’t have right to raise their voice for this. Men tend to hold their wives responsible for infertility and many wives tend to blame themselves for Childlessness irrespective of who may be actually responsible. Furthermore, we are the ones who label the women with the ‘banj’ which means a woman who can never give birth to baby and therefore she is not allowed to live peace fully.

The question is that Are women only responsible for child or male also have some input? If male has some contribution/input to give a birth to child so why they hesitate to go to seek medical advice? Why only women have to bear the consequences? We as a society have to think and create awareness that the problem could occur in male or female and there are treatments to solve this problem but proper counseling and support of couple for each is vital and they both have to face the consequences together and seek medical advice. It is an important issue which should be addressed seriously in order to open avenues for couples looking for such answers.