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
. 2022 Feb 5:14:271-288.
doi: 10.1016/j.rbms.2021.12.003. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Reproductive travel to, from and within sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review

Tessa Moll  1 , Trudie Gerrits  2 , Karin Hammarberg  3   4 , Lenore Manderson  1   5 , Andrea Whittaker  5
Affiliations

Reproductive travel to, from and within sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review

Tessa Moll et al. Reprod Biomed Soc Online. .

Abstract

Scholarly interest in reproductive travel has increased in recent years, but travel within, to and from the African continent has received much less attention. We reviewed the literature on cross-border reproductive travel to and from countries of sub-Saharan Africa in order to understand the local forms of this trade. Access to fertility care remains deeply stratified, which is an ongoing concern in a region with some of the highest rates of infertility. We found a wide variety of reasons for reproductive travel, including a lack of trusted local clinics. Destinations were chosen for reasons including historical movements for medical treatment broadly, diasporic circulations, pragmatic language reasons, and ties of former colonial relations. We describe the unique tempos of treatment in the region, ranging from some intended parents staying in receiving countries for some years to the short-term contingent support networks that reprotravellers develop during their treatment and travel. Unique to the region is the movement of medical professionals, such as the 'fly-in, fly-out' clinic staff to deliver fertility care. Future research should include practices and movements to presently neglected 'reprohubs', particularly Kenya and Nigeria; the impact of pandemic-related lockdowns and border closures on the movements of intended parents, reproductive assistors and reproductive material; and the impact of low-cost protocols on treatment access within the region. This scoping review provides insight into the relevant work on cross-border reproductive care in sub-Saharan Africa, where a unique combination of access factors, affordability, and sociocultural and geopolitical issues fashion individuals' and couples' cross-border reproductive travel within, to and from Africa.

Keywords: Assisted reproductive technology; Cross-border reproductive care; Reproductive travel; Sub-Saharan Africa.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Identification of studies related to reprotravel to, from and within sub-Saharan Africa.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bergmann S. Fertility tourism: circumventive routes that enable access to reproductive technologies and substances. Signs. 2011;36(2):280–289. - PubMed
    1. Bergmann S. Reproductive agency and projects: Germans searching for egg donation in Spain and the Czech Republic. Reprod. BioMed. Online. 2011;23(5):600–608. - PubMed
    1. Bochow A. In: Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Third Phase: Global Encounters and Emerging Moral Worlds. Hampshire K., Simpson B., editors. Berghahn Books; New York and Oxford: 2015. Ethics, identities and agency ART, elites and HIV/Aids in Botswana; pp. 135–151.
    1. Bonnet D., Duchesne V. Migrer pour procreer: Histoires de couples Africains. Cahiers du Genre. 2014;56:41–58.
    1. Chiware T.M., Vermeulen N., Blondeel K., Farquharson R., Kiarie J., Lundin K., et al. IVF and other ART in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic landscape analysis. Hum. Reprod. Update. 2021;27(2):213–228. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources