Secondary Infertility and Birth Mothers

Abstract

Relinquishing a child has had lifelong consequences for women and for adoptees. This article explores a little-discussed aspect—secondary infertility, birth mothers who did not have other children. To my knowledge, this is the first study to research the incidence of secondary infertility and its impact on the women concerned. I discovered that between 13–20% of birth mothers do not go on to have other children. For a few, this is a conscious decision; however, for the majority there was either no known reason for infertility or their life circumstances foisted it on them, i.e., lack of suitable partner. Relinquishing their child has meant losing their only opportunity to parent a birth child, and that has bought tremendous anguish. Women considering relinquishing a child need to be made aware that secondary infertility is a real and present possibility.

Notes

¹I use the term secondary infertility as a useful descriptive term; however, I acknowledge that some women may be fertile but have chosen, for various reasons, not to have another child.

Note: There is some debate in the community as to the most appropriate term to describe a mother who has relinquished a child to adoption. I have chosen to use birth mother, as it is the term most commonly used in my home state—Western Australia.

Note. ^aOf the 302 adoption searches, approximately fifty-four found people were birth fathers and thirty-one were siblings. This may occur when a birth parent is deceased and an approach is made to the children. The remaining six were other, e.g., an aunt or uncle. As the database does not identify whether the siblings are on the birth mother or father's side, I could not add then them to these totals.