As Canadian Infertility Awareness Week begins, one Vancouver physician says a surprising number of women have never discussed the issue with their doctors.<\/p>\n
Dr. Caitlin Dunne at Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Vancouver, says seven in 10 women report having never discussed infertility with a doctor \u2014 and she wants them to know it\u2019s not their fault.<\/p>\n
Infertility and miscarriages can bring about feelings of shame and stigma surrounding the patient with ovaries, Dunne says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen really, actually, 30 to 50 per cent of the time and fertility is a sperm problem,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that we need both men and women in our society to be talking about and pressing much more openly so we can peel back that stigma and really get at the core ways that we can help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunne says fertility clinics are seeing patients choose to build families in unique ways, and there\u2019s no \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs fertility doctors and health-care professionals, we certainly don\u2019t jump to [in-vitro fertilization (IVF)] right away\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIVF is a very effective treatment\u2026 But there are other things before that. Some of which are very natural and don\u2019t involve medications or treatments at all. So I think if you\u2019re thinking of seeking fertility treatment, but in your mind you\u2019re scared of that because you think it means IVF, and needles, and hormones, and drugs, I would just say, \u2018don\u2019t be intimidated.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The best place to start, Dunne says, is a conversation with your family doctor, gynecologist, or health-care provider.<\/p>\n
She says she hopes the awareness week helps spark many conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cInfertility is a disease and it\u2019s worthy of treatment, and there\u2019s no shame or stigma in that,\u201d said Dunne, adding that there are several things people can do to support family members, friends, or advocate for support from employers or government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they have to face this disease, they don\u2019t have to do it so quietly or while feeling alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
In July last year, the B.C. government launched a publicly funded IVF program, providing one free round for those who are eligible.<\/p>\n
The province\u2019s annual budget, released in February, promised a renewed $34 million to provide access to IVF for \u201calmost 1,800\u201d British Columbians.<\/p>\n
\u2014With files from Sonia Aslam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Canadian Infertility Awareness Week begins, one Vancouver physician says a surprising number of women have never discussed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-619322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-vancouver"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}