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Failing Fatherhood

How Men Handle Infertility

By Gwen Morrison

It is estimated that five to six million U.S. couples suffer from infertility. While many infertility resources focus on supporting the emotions of women, the emotions of the male partner are often overlooked. Are men's emotions regarding infertility different from women's emotions? Most experts answer with a resounding "Yes!"

"It appears that men are not as willing or as able as their female partners to talk about their experience," says Dr. William D. Petok, a licensed psychologist who also teaches in the resident training program at Sinai Hospital's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Baltimore, Md. "Perhaps this is because we traditionally think of children as a woman's province. Over the ages, conception has been thought of as the woman's responsibility."

"It's important to acknowledge that differences exist among men in their emotional reactions to infertility," says Dr. David L. Keefe, chief of the division of reproductive medicine at Women and Infants Hospital of Brown University in Providence, R.I. and Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston, Mass. "These differences may be as great as differences between men and women."

To understand men's reactions to infertility, Dr. Keefe explains that one must pay attention to individual coping styles. "Still, generalizations can be made about men's emotional reactions to infertility," he says. "Initially, men tend to deal with infertility by striving to 'tuff it out,' whereas women tend to 'talk it out.' Because men's water cooler chats rarely touch on baby showers, men have an easier time denying the importance of children to their lives."

Infertility is a particularly difficult subject for men because it touches on one of the most personal aspect of their lives. "When a man learns his sperm may be the cause, it can shake his assumptions about his manhood," says Dr. Keefe. "Men, more than women, can attach great significance to the numbers describing their reproductive function. They may have bought into the notion that size doesn't matter, but hey, aren't so sure about concentration and motility."

Dr. Petok attributes the apparent disparity in male and female responses to infertility to the fact that men are not reminded on a monthly basis of their fertility or lack thereof. This may explain why it appears that men may be less sensitive and distressed by their childlessness.

"Why do men seem to lack significant emotion about their diagnosis of male infertility?" says Dr. Petok. "Our culture shields men from developing expectations of their role as a parent. This may account for many men's seeming detachment when they discover that childlessness may be in their future. Additionally, our culture expects men to be strong in the face of adversity and deems emotional responses to events as weak. For men, strength almost requires emotional detachment."

Want to see more?

• Male Factor Infertility
• Antisperm Antibodies
• Eight Ways to Help Improve Male Fertility
• Fuzzy Blue Hippo: A Letter to My Unborn Child
• Talk about it!