Psychology

Infertility has been a major problem in married couples who are not in a position of bearing child. Infertility affects both men and women and a couple should consider itself infertile when they fail to conceive after trying for a period exceeding one year. Some causes of infertility in men can be associated with testes injury, sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, sperms that are irregularly shaped, chronic diseases like diabetes, low autoimmune response body system that results to deactivation of sperms, low sperm count, abuse of drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or bhang and imbalance of pituitary (Drinnin, 1999). An infertile man is in a position of producing sperms but the sperms cannot fertilize the female ovaries thus he cannot make the other partner pregnant. The problem of male infertility can be solved through use of artificial insemination where sperm from a man with low sperm count is taken and frozen then it is injected into the uterus for fertilization. Procedure of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be used to reduce male infertility.

Female infertility is another challenge facing couples who are married. This problem is caused by irregular ovulation that results to complete ovulation failure, endometriosis, malfunctioning of reproductive tract caused by sexually transmitted diseases and low levels of estrogen and progesterone caused by age. Failure to ovulate which is the major cause of female infertility is caused by stress, irregular hormone release and chronic diseases. Use of fertility drugs such as clomiphene can be used to enhance fertility in females (Rathus, Nevid, 1992). Another procedure is by use of in vitro fertilization where a mature ovum is removed and put along with sperm in a laboratory. A solution to female infertility is by practice of surrogate motherhood.