STERILITY
Sterility means the inability to become a parent. A woman who is sterile cannot become a mother. She is for some reason unable to have a baby.
A childless union is frequently the cause of much unhappiness. There is something lacking in the expression "a childless home." It seems a paradox, as home is inherently associated with children and happiness. It has been stated that one out of every eight marriages is barren. The average time which elapses after marriage and the birth of the first child is seventeen months. Physicians agree that if a woman goes over three years after marriage without having a baby her chances of having one are small. If children are desired, and they usually are by childless parents, every effort should be made within the first three years to ascertain the cause of the sterility, and if it can be rectified. The barrenness may be dependent upon some physical defect which will quickly respond to the proper medical treatment. It is well to remember, however, that the defect is not always the woman's. In every six childless marriages about one is due to sterility in the husband. The age of the greatest fertility in women is between twenty and twenty-four years. It is rare to find a barren woman between these years. Nature evidently intended that the duties of maternity should be assumed between the twenty and twenty-fourth year. If married before the age of twenty the statistics prove that barrenness exists in one woman in every twelve. If married after the twenty-fourth year the chances of having children decreases with the age of the woman.
If a mother goes for three consecutive years without becoming pregnant the chances are that she will have no more children. Consequently if other children are desired it is unsafe to rest upon the assumption that a woman will again be a mother simply because she has been one in the past. Many conditions could, and may, have occurred since the last pregnancy (and may be as a result of that pregnancy) to change her natural fertility into a condition of temporary sterility. An examination should therefore be made before too long an interval elapses and the facts learned. It will usually be found in such cases that a displacement or laceration, or at most, some cause easily remedied is immediately responsible for the apparent barrenness.