Difference Between

Fertility vs Infertility

Fertility is a word that refers to the ability of soil to give a high quantity of produce. A piece of land is said to be fertile if the farmer is able to harvest a rich crop without using too much of fertilizers. Infertility is just the opposite of fertility and refers to the inability of land or soil to have a good produce because of deficiency of some essential minerals. However, when applied to women, the word infertility is the one that is more used than fertility. This is because most women give birth without any difficulty. It is women who experience difficulty in conceiving and giving birth to babies that are referred to as infertile. Infertility is a negative, and even a pejorative word in some cultures.

Woman who are of normal childbearing age but cannot become pregnant because of one or the other reason are referred to as infertile by medical world. Interestingly, even men are infertile as they are those who cannot successfully impregnate a normal, healthy woman even after trying for more than a year. However, it is women who carry the stigma of being infertile and men are spared of this stigma. Even those women who conceive but somehow cannot complete the term of pregnancy to give birth to a baby are called infertile.

Fertility is not dependent upon a single factor, and so infertility also has a number of reasons because to conceive and give birth successfully is a chain of events, one dependent on the success of another. Let us see this chain of events. The ovaries of a woman release eggs during menstrual cycle that travel down to her fallopian tubes. Man’s sperms reach these tubes and unite with eggs to fertilize them and then fertilized egg must get itself implanted to the uterus of the woman and get nourishment to develop and grow into a fetus that becomes ready for birth in around 9 months.

Problems can lie with man, woman, or both. They can even be environmental, or genetic. A number of conditions need to be met before a woman can successfully conceive and finally give birth to a baby. The woman may not be having healthy ovaries or her ovaries may not be producing healthy eggs. Her fallopian tubes may have a blockage or she may have a problem with her uterine wall that does not allow implant of a fertilized egg. She may be suffering from uterine fibroids or ovarian cysts. Her ovaries may have stopped ovulating before normal menopause. There are certain lifestyle factors also that lead to infertility such as smoking, drinking, stress, age, medication, obesity or underweight, pollution, toxins etc.

Most of the problems of infertility are treatable and there is no need to day for a woman to carry the stigma of being infertile.