African endocrine infertility: A review

Abstract

Infertility is a major medico-social problem in some parts of Africa, where 20-40% of the women may complete their reproductive life without bearing a childj 1,2|. The problem consumes a large proportion of the family resources. It is also well established that in most countries of the region, involuntary infertility is a social stigma, mainly borne by the woman who will be subjected to a variety of family and social pressures and conflicts. Furthermore, these women arc often accorded much lower social status than their fertile counter-parts in the society. The cultural, psychological, economic, social, environmental, and medical factors associated with the problem have been extensively studied and reported by the WHO, Belsey, Arya, Osoba, Chaffield amongst others! 1-5). Very little, however, is known about the actiological role of hormonal disorders which account for a large part of male and female infertility in developed countries(6). We shall present in this study, endocrine evaluation involving nearly 4000 subjects.