What to Say and Not to Say: Supporting a Friend or Family Member with Infertility

By Dr. Christine Skiadas and Sharon Steinberg, RN, MS, CS

The CDC reports that 6.7 million American women between the ages of 15-44 find it difficult or impossible to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term. Whether it’s your sister, your best friend, a co-worker or a reality star, you can probably name someone who has struggled to get pregnant.

It can be difficult to know what to say or what to ask someone who struggles with infertility if you haven’t experience it yourself. Family members and friends can unintentionally hurt the feelings of couples dealing with infertility problems. It seems natural to ask couples when they plan to have children, but if you ask and don’t get a straight answer, drop the subject. If a friend confides in you about fertility issues, try to listen without judgment.

Here are a few things you shouldn’t say or ask someone struggling to get pregnant:

1. It’s just stress.    

Stress might not help conception, but infertility is a medical condition. Stress doesn’t cause tubes to be blocked, sperm counts to be low or ovarian reserves to be diminished. 

2.  Is it you or your partner that has the problem?

Although the source of infertility may determine what treatments to use, this is private information and generally not helpful to the couple or their attempts to build a family together.

3.  Maybe you should stop doing [insert exercise, drinking milk, eating soy, drinking coffee, working, etc.]

Infertility patients ask themselves these questions all of the time and work with their physicians to identify factors that may help their individual circumstances. Not only can it be hard to identify these factors, taking away some of them, like exercise or work, may increase stress and diminish self-worth.

4. Have you considered adoption or egg donation?

Couples may think about adoption but may not be ready to consider alternatives to conceiving with their own eggs and sperm. Egg donation brought up at an inappropriate time may be devastating to the female partner if she isn’t comfortable with the idea or hasn’t explored all options for using her own eggs. If you don’t have complete knowledge of where someone may be in the decision-making process, avoid bringing up alternative options for parenting.

5. Are you sure you really want to put yourselves through all of this?

My patients tell me that this question is one of the hardest to answer. I have yet to meet a single patient hoping that IVF is needed to get pregnant. By definition, people undergoing treatment for infertility are not getting pregnant the way that they wanted to, and we need to be sensitive to the fact that they are making the best decisions that they can.

There are many ways to support a couple struggling with infertility. Having a few key people to confide in may be invaluable to infertile couples. A patient once told me the most supportive thing a friend said to her was, “whether it is through pregnancy or adoption, I know that you will be a great mom someday.”

Here are a few other suggestions for how to help.

• Listen. Share your concern and support, but wait for them to tell you what is going on.
• Respect their need for privacy.
• Reassure your friend/family member that you love them no matter what.
• Make time for activities with friends that don’t involve children.
• Don’t take it personally if the couple decides to skip family events. The holidays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are often hard for couples with infertility.
• Support whatever decisions a couple makes regarding treatment.

The Center for Fertility and Reproductive Health at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates prides itself on providing comprehensive fertility care, including advanced Reproductive Surgery and IVF with a seamless transition to OB care and other specialty services. Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates offers fertility and reproductive health services at its Burlington, Kenmore, Quincy and Wellesley, as well as at the Weymouth Atrius Health Women's Center. To learn more about our team, please visit www.harvardvanguard.org/fertility.