Study shows women in Singapore are unaware they could be infertile

One in two women in Singapore don't know they're considered infertile if they've been trying for a baby for a year and are not pregnant. 

This was one of the key findings of a study conducted last year on 1,000 married women aged 25 to 40 from 10 Asian countries that included Singapore. 

The study also threw up other fertility issues that Singaporean women were unaware of. 

For example, two in five of them do not realise that a man can be infertile even though he has no problems having sex. 

Others didn't know that a woman in her 40s has greater difficulty getting pregnant compared to a woman ten years younger or that obesity reduces fertility. 

Some even said that their inability to conceive was due to 'bad luck' or 'God's will'. 

The National University Hospital's Professor PC Wong, a fertility expert who worked on the study, explains why such misconceptions exist. 

"I think a lot of it is due to public education. I think women probably have no access or opportunity to know about these facts. For example, fertility declines with age- they may have read or heard about it in school, but at that time, the piece of information is of no relevance to them because they weren't trying to conceive. What we need is continued educational opportunities. It's a global phenomenon, this lack of awareness on fertility issues."