Soaring Infertility, Causes and Solutions

The Almighty Allah has bestowed human beings with innumerable blessings and children are one of blessings from the Almighty Allah. Every couple want of becoming parents after marriage for various constructive reasons.
Infertility is the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility does not mean sterility, Here conceiving is a challenge but never an impossibility due to developments in medical field.
For the past one decade, the infertility rate in Kashmir valley has soared very high. As per medical experts particularly gynecologists’ and infertility specialists, the rate has soared about 20 percent in the Kashmir valley. Infertility has been a growing concern among women in Kashmir and the facilities for its treatment are minimal. Couples suffering from infertile problems are full of stress, pain, worry, anxieties and tensions. The tall claiming modern Muslim societies in Kashmir valley have been developed in such a way that couples are being looked down upon, taunted at the back, instead of consoling and supporting. Societies taunting for childless couples are adding pepper and salt to their already developed wounds and enhancing their high intensity pain on deep wounds. The couples at the same time are seeking either graves to get buried themselves or isolation from societies due to mental trauma and harassment. Couples with infertility are like old Chinar trees that are very hollow from inside and green outside. It is pertinent to mention here that, a couple after six years of marriage got conceived naturally but due to the Almighty Allah’s will, the foetus got aborted naturally and later the society started calling the couple ‘ it is a hoax of pregnancy just to believe the society that couple is fertile and to avoid a stain of infertile couple”. What will couple feel after listening to it. The words will cut the heart and liver to infertile couple and their wounds with harsh words can never ever be healed in future. There are number of causes of infertility among couples of Kashmir valley. Uterine fibroids, amenorrhea, Menopause, an ovulation due to PCOS, blocked fallopian tubes, hormonal imbalances etc among women are some causes of infertility among women. In males, low sperm count (oligospermia), defective spermatozoa, immotile sperms, hormonal imbalances, etc are the reasons of infertility among males. Fertility declines drastically with age and ageing affects both sperm and egg quality, making it difficult to achieve a pregnancy. Stress, anxieties, depression, conflicts also affect menstrual cycle of women and results irregular menstrual cycle and some times amenorrhea for many months among women that result infertility problem. A couple suffering from infertility has to consult gynecologists’ and infertility specialists for infertility treatment and if couple’s conceiving problem persists for 4 or 5 years despite having no variation in any of the test like sperm mortality, and sperm count of male and ovulation, HSG of female, Then, the couple must go for In Vitro Fertilisation within the boundaries of the religion islam without waiting for further years that will later add more problems to the couple.
In Vitro Fertilization is an Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) commonly referred to as IVF.
IVF method is the technique that involves stimulating the ovary of woman by injection of hormone/gonadotropin to produce a number of eggs.The eggs are extracted after full development and maturation from the woman. The semen containing sperms is taken from the husband and is mixed with the eggs. The fertilized eggs divide by mitosis to form embryos and after few days, the best one or two embryos selected are carefully and gently transferred into the womb of the mother under proper ultrasound guidance. The pregnancy test is performed after few weeks of embryo or embryos’ implantation. Permissible and impermissible IVF in Islam: If the sperm is taken from the husband and egg from the wife and fertilized in a test tube and later transferred into the same wife from which egg is taken, that IVF is permissible under islam as it doesn’t interfere with nature, but only provides a helping hand to it. Similarly if the husband’s sperm is taken and injected into the wife’s uterus to fertilize the egg internally, it is also permissible and halal in Islam. However, if sperm or egg is taken from the donor other than the husband or wife respectively, fertilized and implanted, that IVF is unislamic and is not permissible but is haram. Surrogacy is also unislamic prohibited by the religion Islam. The IVF procedure is costly and the success rate of IVF is generally fourty percent. So, majority of patients require a second and even some third attempt with IVF to finally get pregnant. It is also worth to mention here that, more than ninety percent of infertility couples are staying away from IVF procedure due to their unawareness about Islamic knowledge and education besides having apprehensions of taunting by so called modern societies and instead going for IVF, they are running to traditional peer Babas’ and quacks etc who drain their money and wealth and consume them physically, mentally and psychologically. It is irony on part of societies, that whosoever does the procedure of IVF within the boundaries of Islam is considered illegal by societies and societies started calling it unislamic without having proper and thorough Islamic knowledge. Let’s pray to the Almighty Allah to bestow all infertile couples with the blessing of children and end their sorrows and sufferings so that all infertile couples may not face marginalization and harassments by so called modern muslim societies.
(The author is a teacher at Boys Higher Secondary School Beerwa of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Views are exclusively his own)
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