Woman's Fertile Period Research Articles

Knowledge, perceptions and myths regarding infertility among selected adult population in Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe reported prevalence of infertility in Pakistan is approximately 22% with 4% primary and 18% secondary infertility. Infertility is not only a medical but also a social problem in our society as cultural customs and perceived religious dictums may equate infertility with failure on a personal, interpersonal, or social level. It is imperative that people have adequate knowledge about infertility so couples can seek timely medical care and misconceptions can be rectified.We aim to assess the knowledge, perception and myths regarding infertility and suggest ways to improve it.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was carried out by interviewing a sample of 447 adults who were accompanying the patients at two tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. They were interviewed one-on-one with the help of a pretested questionnaire drafted by the team after a thorough literature review and in consultation with infertility specialists.ResultsThe correct knowledge of infertility was found to be limited amongst the participants. Only 25% correctly identified when infertility is pathological and only 46% knew about the fertile period in women's cycle. People are misinformed that use of IUCD (53%) and OCPs (61%) may cause infertility. Beliefs in evil forces and supernatural powers as a cause of infertility are still prevalent especially amongst people with lower level of education. Seeking alternative treatment for infertility remains a popular option for 28% of the participant as a primary preference and 75% as a secondary preference. IVF remains an unfamiliar (78%) and an unacceptable option (55%).ConclusionsKnowledge about infertility is limited in the population and a lot of misconceptions and myths are prevalent in the society. Alternative medicine is a popular option for seeking infertility treatment. The cultural and religious perspective about assisted reproductive technologies is unclear, which has resulted in its reduced acceptability.

Contraceptive behaviour of abortion seekers in Sri Lanka

Data collected from 306 abortion seekers were used to investigate their knowledge of contraception, the type of contraceptives used at the time of conception, and their intentions for future fertility and post-abortion contraception. Even though three-quarters of the clients were using a contraceptive method at the time of conception, 74 per cent of these were relying on safe period and/or withdrawal. Only half of the users of traditional methods possessed correct knowledge of a woman's fertile period. The unwanted conceptions among these respondents were primarily due to non-use or relying on less effective contraceptives, despite the fact that modern contraceptives are available throughout the country. The acceptance of post-abortion contraception was only 66 per cent, indicating lack of effective counselling. The practice of traditional contraception could lead to repeated abortions, and in that scenario women may consider induced abortion as a contraceptive method or back-up procedure for contraceptive failure.

Female body odour is a potential cue to ovulation.

Human body odours have been reported to influence female mate choice. Women prefer the odours of immunocompatible men and, during their fertile period, judge the body odours of men with symmetrical bodies--which is indicative of genetic quality--as sexy and pleasant. The reproductive success of men largely depends on mating with fertile women, but it is not known whether men can detect a woman's fertile period. We asked women who had regular menstrual cycles and who were not using hormonal contraceptives to wear a T-shirt for three consecutive nights during their late follicular (ovulatory) phase and another T-shirt during the luteal (non-ovulatory) phase of their menstrual cycle. Male raters judged the odours of T-shirts worn during the follicular phase as more pleasant and sexy than odours from T-shirts worn during the luteal phase. The odour differences between the follicular and luteal phases did not dissipate quickly over time as male raters were able to detect and judge follicular phase body odours as more pleasant and sexy than the odours from the luteal phase even after the T-shirts were kept at room temperature for one week. These findings suggest that ovulation may not be concealed and that men could use ovulation-linked odours in their mate selection.

Michael Tooley on Possible People and Promising

In Abortion and Infanticide, Michael Tooley argues that it is not wrong to destroy potential persons, such as fetuses and newly born infants. His argument presupposes the following: 1)that the destruction of potential persons is not directly wrong because potential persons do not have a right to life; 2)that destroying a potential person—a fetus or an infant—is morally the same as preventing the existence of an (as-yet-unconceived) possible person by, for example, using a contraceptive or refraining from, intercourse during a woman's fertile period; and 3)that it is not wrong to prevent the existence of additional persons who are likely to lead happy or satisfying lives. Here I am concerned with the third presupposition. On this presupposition, the prima facie permissibility of abortion and infanticide hinges on the “moral neutrality” of those of our reproductive decisions on which the existence of additional people depends.

Human capital and the time-profile of human fertility

This is a first attempt at an explicitly intertemporal, microeconomic theory of the distribution of births over a woman's fertile period. The main results are (a) that the optimal time-profile will satisfy the Hotelling rule for the depletion of a natural resource (in the present case of the woman's stock of human capital at marriage), and (b) that, under certain simplifying assumptions, women with ‘high’ initial endowments of human capital will have all their children in the first part of married life and then return to full-time employment, while women with ‘low’ initial endowments will spread childbearing more evenly over the fertile period.

The measurement of urinary steroid glucuronides as indices of the fertile period in women

The concentrations of various estrogen glucuronides and pregnanediol-3α-glucuronide have been measured in daily samples of early morning urine (EMU) and 24 h pooled collections throughout a total of 70 menstrual cycles (58 subjects). The immediate objective was to identify and assess the potential value of measuring hormone metabolites to locate the fertile period in women, with the ultimate aim of developing a non-invasive immunochemical test. The project was undertaken in five centres and the results showed that: (i) there was good agreement in the patterns and mean concentrations of metabolites between the centres; (ii) estrone-3-glucuronide should be the estrogen glucuronide selected for further study; (iii) the analysis of EMU provided information that was as useful as the corresponding measurements on pooled collections for 24 h; (iv) a rise in the concentration of estrone-3-glucuronide (50% over the mean of three preceding values) could be used to locate the staff of the fertile period in> 90%of the ovarian cycles (from day LH max — 3 to day LH max — 7); attempts to locate the end of the fertile period by a threshold value or a defined rise in the level of pregnanediol-3α-glucuronide were disappointing. A 50% rise over the mean of three preceding values in the derived concentration ratio of estrone-3-glucuronide/pregnanediol-3α-glucuronide could be used to indicate the start of the fertile period, and a 50% decrease plus two days the start of the infertile period in > 80% of the ovarian cycles. The limitations, implications and future developments are discussed.