Dignitaries present at the conference
The Vice President of the Fertility Society of Ghana, Dr. Promise Sofogah, has revealed that local data findings of infertility in many couples show that about 70% of the problem is from men.
Speaking at Malm-Hesse Medical Negligence Conference dubbed, “Third Party Reproduction in Ghana: Surrogacy and Gamete Donation – Benefits, Challenges and Ethics,” he said, “We have realised from our local data that with a lot of couples who come seeking treatment for infertility, a little around 70% of the time, the problem is from the men.”
He explained that infertility is caused by some factors that do not only affect women but men as well, with some in both couples and a few with unexplained reasons.
“Infertility is caused by some factors that only affect women, if you have hundred couples with infertility, about 30 of them, the problem is from the woman, another 30 of them is exclusively from the man, another 30 is from both genders, with 10 of them unexplained thus (the problem cannot be found with medical checks),” he pointed out.
He explained that infertility is when a couple have stayed together for a maximum of 12 months trying to conceive, and a maximum of six months for a woman who is above the age of 35 years trying to conceive.
He indicated that, as a woman grows, the level and quality of her eggs reduces, noting that women are born with a set number of eggs and begin to lose them when they reach puberty stage, thus through menstruation, emphasising that the quality of eggs reduces after 35 years.
He said “the older a woman gets, it gets more difficult for (her) to conceive naturally.”
He added that some women delay child birth until their eggs are finished, while some may have eggs but are low in quality to produce normal babies, which result in the use of donor eggs.
He advised the public to put an end to harassing women when it comes to infertility, stressing that men also suffer from infertility.
He noted that regulations governing surrogacy should be implemented to avoid abuse of the system, since financial incentives have been identified as a motivating factor for surrogacy.
Senior Associate of ECAM Law Consult, Christian Lebrecht Malm-Hesse Esq, mentioned that for the past 30 years there have not been any regulation for surrogacy, emphasising that every year there are couples seeking to have babies through Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
He indicated that the space needs to be regulated to remove charlatans, and called for proper documentation to improve surrogacy in the country.
Mr. Malm-Hesse stressed that discrimination is high, therefore, the country should be clear on the stance of LGBTQ+ and whether it can also benefit from surrogacy, stating that the advanced countries are clear on their stance.
He added that there is the need to implement laws for third party reproduction, which includes the number of donations from donors, as well as the age requirements of donors, highlighting that the age requirements in common law is 21 years, and the donor should have a child.
He also pointed out that surrogacy cannot be commercialised.
By Florence Asamoah Adom