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Conception facts

• Around 16 per cent of couples have some difficulty conceiving.

• About 20 per cent of couples conceive within a month, rising to 70 per cent within six months.

• Only around 84 per cent of normal fertile couples conceive within a year of regular unprotected intercourse.

• In those couples who have not conceived after a year, around half of those continuing to try to conceive succeed within a further twelve months.

• Therefore, after two years of unprotected intercourse, around 92 per cent of couples have conceived.

half of those continuing to try to conceive will succeed within a further twelve months. So do not be alarmed if you do not get pregnant within the first few months of trying for a baby. Infertility is usually defined as an inability to conceive after a minimum of twelve months of unprotected intercourse. Doctors do not usually investigate for a fertility problem unless you had been trying unsuccessfully for at least a year. This is because many ‘normal’ couples take at least this long to conceive.

• Primary infertility is a term used to describe couples who are having difficulty in conceiving and who have not previously had a pregnancy.

• Secondary infertility is used to describe couples who have previously had a pregnancy but subsequently found they have difficulty conceiving. This applies even if the first pregnancy was not successful. For example, a woman who has had several miscarriages and then has difficulty conceiving again has secondary infertility.

So even if you have had a pregnancy in the past, you may still have difficulty conceiving. When this happens, you should consider whether there have been any changes since your pregnancy. For example:

• has one of you developed a medical problem since the previous pregnancy? This could be something such as an operation for appendicitis in the woman or treatment for testicular cancer in the man

• have you formed a new relationship and so have a different partner since your previous pregnancy?

• has it been a long time since the previous pregnancy such that you are now a lot older than you were when you last conceived? Doctors know that fertility declines in a woman as she gets older, particularly after the age of 35 years.