Sir: Infertility isn’t a life-threatening problem, but it can have a serious impact on your life. In some cases, infertility may be temporary — in fact, 60 percent of couples who experience infertility end up getting pregnant at some point either with or without treatment. Couples having fertility problems have a variety of treatment options that they can try. In Pakistan the rate of infertility is about 8%. Couples diagnosed with infertility often struggle with multiple layers of fallout, including invasive medical interventions, emotional and psychological issues and financial hardships. In confronting infertility, couples seeking treatment often end up feeling medicalized and depersonalized as they march through carefully monitored medical procedures driven by teams of doctors and staff. And couples who seek treatment sometimes get flack about their family-building choice, being told to “just adopt” or “just relax and you’ll get pregnant.” Some of the available options may include medicines, surgical procedures, egg or sperm donors, or even adoption. Unfortunately many of these routes can be expensive and/or quite invasive. The consequences of infertility are often closely tied to an individual’s access to treatment and the ultimate outcome of obtaining a successful pregnancy. As you can imagine, that can cause quite a serious impact on someone’s life. It is recommended that anyone interested in becoming pregnant should seek medical attention first (pre-conception counselling) to discuss some of these issues, become educated on the process and gain a good support system to give yourself the best resources possible. GOHAR ISHRAT Karachi Published in Daily Times, April 28th 2018.