April 20-26 was Canadian Fertility Awareness Week, a time that reminds us how common yet often unspoken fertility struggles can be. For many, this week isn’t about statistics or headlines …it’s about the quiet, personal stories that don’t always make it into everyday conversations.
To help break that silence, we shared a series of posts across our platforms throughout the week. Here’s a collage of the messages we created to spread awareness and offer support:
Fertility Awareness Week Reminders:
- 1 in 6 couples experience difficulty conceiving.
- Infertility is not rare, and it is not just about age.
- It can affect anyone, at any stage of life.
- Talking about it helps to normalize the experience and break the stigma.
What We’re Learning: The Real Impact of Infertility
An international study published in BMJ Open pulled together data from over 124,000 women across 32 different studies. It’s one of the most detailed looks we have at how infertility affects not just bodies, but minds and emotions too.
Here’s what stood out:
- Infertility was more common than many expect: 46% of women in the study experienced infertility, and over half faced primary infertility (never conceiving).
- Smoking showed a strong link to infertility risk — women who smoked had almost double the odds of struggling to conceive.
- The emotional weight is heavy: women with infertility were 60% more likely to experience significant psychological distress and 40% more likely to experience depression compared to those who hadn’t faced infertility.
This study made something very clear: infertility is not just a medical condition … It’s an emotional experience that deserves just as much care.
Conversations That Help (and Hurt) – New Study Insights
When you’re going through fertility challenges, support from friends, family, and even healthcare providers can be a lifeline … or it can be another source of pain.
A recent Canadian and U.S. study published in PLOS One asked women directly: What comments actually help? And what makes things harder?
The study surveyed women whose fertility treatments were cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when isolation made emotional support even more crucial.
Here’s what they said:
What Helped:
- Listening without judgment
- Instilling hope without minimizing their pain
- Hearing from people with lived experience
- Distraction (sometimes talking about something else was the greatest kindness)
- Validating emotions (“It’s okay to feel heartbroken” meant more than solutions)
- Offering tangible support (small gestures that said “I’m here”)
What Hurt:
- Toxic positivity (“Everything happens for a reason” felt dismissive)
- Unsolicited advice (especially pushing treatment plans or timelines)
- Invalidation of feelings (“It’s not a big deal” or “just relax” made things worse)
- Intrusive questioning (asking for updates or private details uninvited)
The take-home message is simple but powerful:
Good support isn’t about fixing or forcing hope. It’s about sitting beside someone in what they’re feeling — without trying to steer them out of it.
