Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Oct;10(3):213-6.

An overview of the epidemiology of primary infertility in iran

Mohammad Kazem  1 , Ardalan Ali
Affiliations

An overview of the epidemiology of primary infertility in iran

Mohammad Kazem et al. J Reprod Infertil. 2009 Oct.

Abstract

Introduction: This article compares the prevalence of primary infertility in Iran estimates provided by different studies. No other study had provided a review about the researches related to epidemiology of infertility in the country.

Materials and methods: A literature review was undertaken using the scientific resources on the internet and the list of national projects obtained from Deputy of Research and Technology, of Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOH & ME) and relevant research centers. These resources were attentively reviewed to find about national studies on the epidemiology of primary infertility in Iran during the last decade. Based on their design quality, the National Infertility Study (NIS) (2004-2005), National Health Survey (NHS) (2001) and Tehran Study (1997) were considered for the research.

Results: Current primary infertility estimated by National Health Survey (NHS) was 2.8% and by National Infertility Survey (NIS) 3.4%. Tehran study and NIS estimated the prevalence of lifetime primary infertility to be 21.9% and 24.9%, respectively. The minimum prevalence of lifetime primary infertility was found to be 15.8% for the marriage age of 19-27 by Tehran study and 17.2% for the marriage age of 21-26 by NIS.

Conclusion: On the average, 21-22% of women experience primary infertility during their marital life. The best age of marriage for women in Iran seems to be 20-27 years. At this age group, the lowest number of women (16-18%) would experience primary infertility.

Keywords: Infertility; Iran; Primary infertility.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The prevalence of primary infertility by age at the first marriage; estimated by National Infertility and Tehran Studies.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The conditional probability of pregnancy without intervention, assuming pregnancy reduction rates of 40%, 50% and 60% per year.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Vayena E, Rowe PJ, Griffin PD. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2002. Current practices and controversies in assisted reproduction: Report of a meeting on “Medical, Ethical and Social Aspects of Assisted Reproduction” held at WHO; p. 369.
    1. Schmidt L, Munster K, Helm P. Infertility and the seeking of infertility treatment in a representative population. Br J Obstet Gynaecol. 1995;102(12):978–84. - PubMed
    1. Noorbala AA, Mohammad K. [Health survey in Iran] Tehran: Deputy of research, Ministry of Health & Medical Education; 2001. Persian.
    1. Barouti E, Ramezani Tehrani F, Heydari Seradj M, Khalajabadi Farahani F, Mohammad K. [Primary infertility based on marriage age in Tehran] Hakim. 1999;2:88–93. Persian.
    1. Vahidi S, Ardalan A, Mohammad K. Prevalence of primary infertility in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2004-5. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2009;21(3):287–93. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources