For a More Perfect Union

One U.S. couple in seven is childless, yet in most cases they want children. Why can't they have them? Last week a recently opened clinic in Cleveland, one of 38 in the U.S., was trying to find the answer.

At the Maternal Health Association's new "Fertility Clinic"--a project of Cleveland's famed Brush Foundation which brings together previously scattered services--an internist, endocrinologist, urologist, gynecologist, nutritionist and psychiatrist have joined in a many-sided attack on the problem. To the young married couples who come to the clinic, they give thorough physical and mental examinations, prescribe special diets and hygiene rules. Sometimes they use surgery and drugs. Hormones may help, but endocrinologists have found no support for the idea that the "male hormone" (testosterone) increases fertility.

Among the causes of male "sterility" (i.e., subnormal sperm production): mumps (after puberty), gonorrhea, malaria, hot baths, exposure to X rays and other atomic radiation. The chief cause of female sterility is blocked tubes. But contrary to popular notion, absolute sterility is rare. Failure to conceive is often due to fatigue, overweight, nervous strain, emotional tension between husband & wife, or simply too infrequent sexual relations. On more than one occasion, the Cleveland doctors have even discovered patients who were more innocent than Adam & Eve.

The Cleveland findings so far confirm the impression that infertility is more common among well-educated and high-income groups. Doctors admit that this phenomenon baffles them. Their guess: lack of outdoor exercise and greater emotional strain may have something to do with it.

Modern medical science has found no easy cure for failure to conceive. But on the basis of their experience, Cleveland's specialists expect that within a year one-third of the wives now attending the Fertility Clinic will be pregnant.

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