{"id":6340,"date":"2005-06-22T23:04:01","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T23:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/fertility-timebomb.html"},"modified":"2005-06-22T23:04:01","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T23:04:01","slug":"fertility-timebomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/fertility-timebomb.html","title":{"rendered":"Fertility Timebomb?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Britain<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Britain is facing an infertility crisis, with the number of couples who experience problems conceiving expected to double within the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

A leading fertility expert warned yesterday that, by 2015, one in three couples may need IVF treatment or similar fertility procedures. The low success rates of such treatments means soaring numbers will be left childless. Professor Bill Ledger predicted a looming "infertility timebomb", with thousands of couples forced to go through physically and mentally draining treatment, at a cost of millions of pounds to the NHS each year.<\/p>\n

He blamed the soaring rates of fertility problems on modern lifestyle factors such as obesity, women delaying starting a family, falling sperm counts among men and rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, particularly chlamydia. Smoking is also a main factor in infertility in men and women. Professor Ledger, of the University of Sheffield, called for the Government to recognise infertility as a "disease".<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

P.D.James: prophet?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Britain? Britain is facing an infertility crisis, with the number of couples who experience problems conceiving expected to double within the next 10 years. A leading fertility expert warned yesterday that, by 2015, one in three couples may need IVF treatment or similar fertility procedures. The low success rates of such treatments means soaring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFertility Timebomb? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/06\/fertility-timebomb.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fertility Timebomb? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Britain? Britain is facing an infertility crisis, with the number of couples who experience problems conceiving expected to double within the next 10 years. A leading fertility expert warned yesterday that, by 2015, one in three couples may need IVF treatment or similar fertility procedures. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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