Although most psychosocial research into infertility is centred round the unhappiness it causes women, men suffer just as much, a scientist will tell the 23rd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday 4 July).
Ms Laura Peronace, from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Wales, UK, will say that, as compared to the use of formal counselling, the development of appropriate support networks for infertile patients is more likely to be used by couples and therefore lessen their unhappiness.
Ms Peronace and her team set out to see whether men with male factor infertility, for example through sperm deficiencies, suffer more than men where the couple's infertility comes from the woman. "There is a common belief that being unable to father a child is shameful and emasculating", she says, "and it is thought that if the man is the source of the couple's failure to conceive he is likely to suffer more emotionally than if the problem lies with the woman." However, she says, most studies have focused on men shortly after their infertility was diagnosed, and few have looked at their well-being during the course of treatment.