Gaps in Fertility Knowledge of Women of Childbearing Age

Orlando, FL—Fertility knowledge among American women of childbearing age is generally on target, but most women surveyed in the 2011 fertility survey underestimate the magnitude of fertility decline with increasing age.

These were some of the findings from the Fertility IQ 2011 Survey, presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Med icine by Fulton F. Velez, MD, and colleagues at EMD Serono. This national survey was an online self-administered questionnaire completed by 1010 women aged 25 to 35 years who had not given birth and who were currently using birth control or not actively trying to conceive.

The mean age of the respondents was 29.1 years; 59% completed college education; 66% were non-Hispanic Caucasians, 17% Hispanic, 11% African American, and 4% Asian. “We found that women are generally well informed about general aspects of infertility and reproductive health, such as mentioning age as the strong - est risk factor for infertility. However, when we look more closely at their knowledge about the specific impact of age on infertility, we found that women overestimate the chances of pregnancy at the different ages and underestimate the time to pregnancy,” said Dr Velez, Associate Director of Health Outcomes and Market Access, EMD Serono.

“When women were asked about the time to conception of a 20-year-old versus a 30-year-old versus a 40-yearold, they were saying it was a few months, but from what we know from the literature, it’s actually several months or more. The same was true for the likelihood of achieving pregnancy; most women believe that the likelihood of becoming pregnant at different ages is a lot higher than it actually is.”

On average, the women had a fertility IQ of 3.3 on a scale of 1 to 10. Among the respondents, 78% of the women answered correctly that fertility drops off more than a decade prior to menopause, 70% identified a correct trend for the average time to conception after unprotected sex, and 89% identified a correct trend for the likelihood of conception after 1 month among different age-groups.

Nine of every 10 respondents, however, overestimated the likelihood of pregnancy among women of various ages who have unprotected sex and most underestimated the time to conception among women having unprotected sex. For example, only 10% answered correctly that the chance of a 40-year-old woman achieving pregnancy after 1 month of regular unprotected intercourse is less than 10%.

Most of the women correctly disagreed with false statements regarding fertility, such as that oral contraceptives protect future fertility (78%) and that a low difficulty in achieving pregnancy is predicted by a healthy appearance in women (72%) or in men (69%).

Furthermore, 27% agreed and 52% neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement that “movie actresses over the age of 35 do not seem to have problems becoming pregnant using assisted reproductive technologies using their own eggs,” and 17% agreed and 47% neither agreed nor disagreed that “movie actresses over the age of 35 do not seem to have problems becoming pregnant naturally.”

These results indicate important gaps in women’s knowledge about fertility and the need for education, said Dr Velez. “More can be done to educate women around age as a risk factor, and how they can preserve their fertility at increasing age, such as preserving their eggs if they haven’t found a partner to start a family with by a certain age.”