Lifestyle diseases and later marriages drive rise in infertility, but more seek help sooner

Fourfold increase in couples asking for help as smoking and obesity also adversely affect sperm quality

Obesity, diabetes and marrying later in life mean more couples are having problems conceiving a child, medics say.

Those factors have contributed to an overall drop in fertility rates, while greater career opportunities for women and changing attitudes about family size are leading to smaller family sizes.

Fertility clinics and hospitals spoke about the challenges after problems were identified in the Department of Health annual statistics report last month.

One major centre said it saw a fourfold increase in the number of couples asking for in-vitro fertilisation treatment between 2009 and last year, prompting it to open another branch in Dubai.

A study in 2016 by Aster DM Healthcare found one in five couples in the UAE face fertility issues, predicting that Dubai couples seeking treatment annually will almost double, from an estimated 5,975 in 2015 to 9,139 by 2030.

Obesity and smoking adversely affect sperm quality, while women planning to have children later in life – often because of career opportunities or later marriages also reduces their chances of conceiving.

Dr Walid Sayed, medical director and reproductive medicine consultant at HealthPlus Fertility, said that, without intervention and better awareness about the issue, the number of couples being unable to conceive will only increase.

“More and more people are unable to conceive spontaneously because of unhealthy lifestyles, unhealthy eating habits, obesity, diabetes, smoking and a lack of physical activity,” Dr Sayed said.

He said that in 2009, his centre carried out 800 cycles of IVF. By this year it had increased to 3,000.

“We see couples from as far Kalba, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and all parts of the UAE,” Dr Sayed said.

To meet this growing demand, his clinic will open another branch in Dubai this year, and expects demand for IVF to increase further.

“Without proper intervention and awareness, more and more couples will be unable to conceive and we can measure this by the increase of the number of infertile couples that we are seeing at our clinic,” Dr Sayed said.

The Dubai Annual Health Statistical Report for 2016, published by the Dubai Health Authority, said the total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman would have during her reproductive years, was 5.2 per woman for Emiratis and 1.7 for expatriate women.

National figures from the Department of Health show the total fertility rate has declined from 4.4 to 1.8 for each woman between 1990 and 2013.

Dr Human Fatemi, a specialist in reproductive medicine at IVI Middle East Fertility Clinic, which has 71 branches worldwide, said medical breakthroughs were helping couples who could not conceive naturally.

“Infertility is becoming increasingly common not just in Dubai and the UAE but the rest of the region as well, and prompting couples to seek medical assistance to help them with their reproductive concerns is becoming more and more imperative,” Dr Fatemi said.

“Thanks to the great progress made in technologies and research globally, assisted conception procedures are more sophisticated and advanced.

“The success rate in the region as well as globally is high and we expect it to further improve as the world continuously works on finding breakthrough treatments to address a myriad of fertility problems.”

Declining birth rates “might be attributed to urbanisation, delayed marriage, changing attitudes about family size, and increased education and work opportunities for women”, Dr Fatemi said.

He said “vitamin D deficiency, obesity and marriage between first cousins, delay in conceiving, stress at workplace, lifestyle diseases, cost of living and many other social factors” also contribute to falling fertility. But more are seeking help. “Years ago, when couples found out they had fertility problems, they just kept it to themselves,” Dr Fatemi said.

“In our opinion, couples with infertility should see a doctor sooner rather than later – after a year of trying to conceive without success if the woman is under 35, after six months if she is over 35, and after three months if she is over 40.”

IVF is costly and often not covered by medical insurance.

Some clinics can charge as much as Dh45,000 for a single cycle of IVF treatment, and several cycles are often taken to increase the chances of conceiving.

More and more people are unable to conceive spontaneously because of unhealthy lifestyles DR WALID SAYED Medical director at HealthPlus Fertility