Infertility Case Study

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INTRODUCTION
“We live in a society where children are seen as price trophies, where women who are unable to give birth are seen as incomplete individuals and the social stigma attached to them is cruel and dehumanizing.”
-Merci Fabros in Raposan (2002)

Infertility is a life experience that is shared by many women all over the world. Society deems it as tragedy, a curse, and crisis due to its many threats and underlying consequences that affects the quality of life of women and her family (Van den Akker, 2012; Covington & Burns, 2006). In a world where seven billion people live, eight to twelve percent experience and suffer from infertility and many more are not accounted for (Kols & Nguyen, 1997). Unwanted childlessness is seen in all societies …show more content…

It was observed that “with artificial insemination, sperm banks, in vitro fertilization and fertility pills, infertility is becoming less of a problem (Tripon, 2002: 226). Fertility clinics began to appear. There are three local hospitals located in Metro Manila are offering IVF procedures namely St. Luke’s Hospital- Global City, Manila Doctors Hospital and Asian Hospital and Medical Center. Health institutions that have experts on fertility related problems are growing in number. These businesses are booming because many customers are flocking to them and asking for medical assistance with reproduction. Though this is the scene in Metro Manila, there are no clinics in Ilocos Norte specifically for fertility problems, but there are a few Ob-Gynecologist clinics. But then again, though it is available, it is still very expensive and it is not accessible to everyone, especially to poor, farmers living in Ilocos Norte.
Hope for Starting Families campaign is a Philippines based non-government organization dedicated to help infertile couples in the Philippines. The organization presents the possible explanations for infertility and they also present the possible steps you could take. They have campaigns such as Fertility Awareness which aims to educate the Filipinos on what infertility is and its …show more content…

A study done by Gastardo-Conaco and colleagues (1986) in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte showed that the data taken from Hawaii by Arnold and Fawcett (1975) is consistent with the data in the Philippines. Gastardo-Conaco and colleagues (1986) studied the values attached to children by the parents. They discovered the top three psychological advantages of having children namely happiness, compassion and love, play, fun and distraction (Gastardo-Conaco et al, 1986). Also, the belief of Ilocanos that a girl only becomes fully woman when she bears her own child is relatively high compared to others studied in the research, such as Caucasians (Gastardo-Conaco et al,