Health: French infertility is getting worse

We speak of infertility when a couple fails to start a pregnancy after at least one year of regular intercourse without contraception. And Inserm now notes that one in four couples is in this situation. Infertility increases by 0.3% per year.

The age of the future parents is partly to do with it. In particular, the average age of motherhood continues to increase. French women give birth to their first child between 30 and 31 years old on average today compared to 25 years old at the end of the 1970s. However, in women, fertility decreases from the age of 30 and then very sharply after 37 years. a decrease in the number and quality of oocytes.

But there is another observation: a man today produces half the number of sperm than his father, and this is not only due to age. Studies point to several factors: tobacco, endocrine disruptors (these molecules that affect reproduction and that can be found in certain cosmetics, detergents, pesticides or plastic packaging).

Another lead to explain the drop in the quality of sperm, sometimes it is a higher temperature of one to two degrees in the testicles, either because of tight clothes, or because of some workstations, close to heat sources (furnaces or welding stations in industry, for example). Being overweight, and a sedentary lifestyle, can also play a role.

The techniques of medically assisted procreation do not completely succeed in solving these difficulties. It is estimated that each attempt at assisted reproduction has only a one in four chance of success. Surprisingly, 70% of women for whom ovulation-promoting treatments have not worked do not move on to in vitro fertilization afterwards. Why ? Is it out of discouragement? for lack of information? How do couples experience these childbearing aid journeys? The Ministry of Health has just set up a working group to try to answer these questions, and improve the management of infertility in France.