Lisa Jardine, the new head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, has called for fertility to be included in sex education lessons.
According to the Guardian, Jardine, who is professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, London University wants to raise awareness of infertility from a very early age. She believes that children should be taught about this growing problem, as well as learning about how to prevent pregnancy.
Professor Jardine believes that infertility is not discussed enough, which means that some children may not realise that they could face problems starting a family in the future. She said: "You've got to start it at school. If one in seven of us in the modern world is going to have problems with infertility then instead of all the teaching at school being about how to stop getting pregnant someone had better start teaching about how you do get pregnant, because there are going to be a lot of extremely disappointed people out there."
She also warned that fertility is becoming a growing problem for a number of reasons. She said: "I think male fertility is way down. There are probably all sorts of ecological and environmental reasons why we are less fertile." Studies have shown that female obesity is one of these reasons, as it dramatically lowers the chance of conceiving and increases the risk of developing complications during pregnancy. Indeed, a number of fertility experts believe that obesity will drive one in five couples to seek fertility treatment within a decade.
Recent figures from the HFEA indicate that more than 32,000 women undergo fertility treatment every year, which leads to more than 11,000 births. Last year, the British Fertility Society issued information to IVF clinics, which advised them only to start treatment on overweight women that had managed to cut down their body mass index(BMI) to below 35. The guidelines also suggested that women under 37 years old should cut their weight down even further to a BMI of less than 30. These guidelines were issued after it was discovered that a woman with a BMI above 35 was half as likely to get pregnant as a woman whose BMI was less than 30.
In addition to the above, Professor Jardine also wants there to be more widespread knowledge about fertility treatment in general. She said that many women do not realise that they will probably be unable to work and will need daily injections during the treatment. She said: "They will be given chemicals that disturb their hormonal balance, possibly permanently ... they have scans that are intrusive and surgical procedures that are thoroughly invasive, and, at the end, if lucky, get a baby."
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