From Page to Practice: Where’s My Bump? Just Responses to Working Women’s Infertility Crisis
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Introduction
While stereotyped as hyper-fertile African American women are affected by the opposite characteristic: we are more likely studies say, than white counterparts between the ages of 25 and 44 to be and remain infertile.
If you did not know this, do not be ashamed. Most physicians don’t know it either. A recent Centers for Disease Control report says 6.1 million U.S. women between the ages 15 and 44 had trouble conceiving; 2.1 million married couples experienced infertility, and 9.2 million women had made use of infertility services.
In a study of US physicians’ perceptions of fertility, only 16% of the responding physicians correctly identified African Americans as the racial group most at risk for fertility, 82% thought white women were most at risk. While stereotyped as hyper-fertile most studies say that African American women are more likely than white counterparts between the ages of 25 and 44 to be and remain infertile.
The Research
Most fertility research involves wealthier white women, because they are the biggest consumers of fertility clinics whose patients or patients’ data are available for research studies. The story of African American women’s fertility, emerging from the most recent empirical research available seems to be this. (more…)