Aggregated News
Reproductive health experts are updating how they define “infertility” to be more inclusive.
The new definition, issued last week by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Practice Committee, has been expanded to include anyone needing medical interventions “in order to achieve a successful pregnancy either as an individual or with a partner.”
The updated definition will be published as a report in the society’s journal Fertility and Sterility in about a week or 10 days, Sean Tipton, ASRM’s chief advocacy and policy officer, said Monday.
In the new definition, “we made it explicit that lack of access to the kind of gametes you need is a condition deserving of treatment,” Tipton said, referring to how some people who are single or in same-sex couples would fall into that category.
“That is, the reason you may need medical assistance to build your family, it can be because your fallopian tubes don’t work, or it could be because your sperm don’t swim right. But it could also be because you’re single, or because you are in a relationship with a...