Infertility: a health problem in the Muslim world

ABSTRACT

Infertility is one of the important health problems in the Muslim World. Islam has given a great attention to marriage and formation of the family. This has been mentioned in several verses of the Holy Quran, and Hadith. The total Muslim population in the world in the year 1988 was 1.14 billion, mostly residents in developing countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. According to the world survey in the year 1980, 24% of the population in developing countries are women in the reproductive age. If one considers that the incidence of infertility is 10% among married women in reproductive age, this means that almost 27 million of Muslim women will complain of infertility during their marital life. The following is a review of the problem of infertility in a Muslim country namely Egypt with 46 million Muslim as a model of the problem of infertility in Muslim world. During the period November 1980 - August 1989, 1488 infertile couples were fully investigated at Al-Azhar Endoscopy and Microsurgery Unit and the Egyptian I.V.F. and E.T. Center. The causes of infertility were male factors in 20.6%, female factors in 64%, both male and female factors in 12.2% and unknown factors in 3.3 percent of patients. Tubal factor was the commonest cause of female infertility [42%]. Pelvic tuberculosis and endometriosis accounted for 4.2 and 5.6 percent of cases respectively. Among those who needed induction monitoring of ovulation or medically assisted conception only 51% and 63% of patients respectively could afford to have the treatment which is only available on private basis