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In Mozambique, involuntary childlessness triggers immediate treatment seeking, especially on the woman's side. Treatment processes involve the activation and/or creation of situational social networks that provide emotional, instrumental, and informational support. These are formed through careful processes of disclosure management, and are embedded in social relations and local moral configurations of family making, reproduction, and healing. In this article I explore social networks involving friends, family, religion, and emerging biosocial relations, some or all of which are involved in Mozambican women's and couples' therapeutic navigations in the quest for fertility.

When combined, primary and secondary infertility affects up to 21 percent of Indonesian couples. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with married heterosexual couples, I explore how intra-family adoption represents a culturally and religiously acceptable pathway to family formation for couples without access to assisted reproductive technologies. I examine how kinship is central to the negotiation of adoption, and to maintaining ethnic and religious continuity within adoptive families. I reveal how adoption can enable infertile women and birth mothers to achieve or escape the dominant expectations of heteronormativity, and discuss intra-family adoption by infertile couples in relation to reproductive stratification and leveling.

Objective: To explore the sociocultural factors influencing depression in Chinese infertile women in Hunan Province., Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out. A total of 211 Chinese infertile women completed demographic details, a disease-related information questionnaire, a self-rating depression scale (SDS) and a social support rating scale (SSRS)., Results: One hundred and seven (50.71%) of the participants were classified as depressed according to the self-rating depression scale. The average SDS index score was 50.06 ± 10.59. Using analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation and a multivariable regression analysis, the results showed family type, feelings of discrimination, social support, feelings of shame and reproductive pressures were influential factors in depression among Chinese infertile women., Conclusion: Sociocultural factors influence depression levels in Chinese female infertile patients. The unique aspects of Chinese culture may have a negative mental impact on the patients, and cultural factors should be taken into consideration in the development of coping strategies for Chinese infertile women.

In this article I demonstrate what can be learned from the indigenous healing knowledge and practices of traditional Sasak midwives on Lombok island in eastern Indonesia. I focus on the treatment of infertility, contrasting the differential experiences of Sasak women when they consult traditional midwives and biomedical doctors. Women's and midwives' perspectives provide critical insight into how cultural safety is both constituted and compromised in the context of reproductive health care. Core components of cultural safety embedded in the practices of traditional midwives include the treatment of women as embodied subjects rather than objectified bodies, and privileging physical contact as a healing modality. Cultural safety also encompasses respect for women's privacy and bodily dignity, as well as two-way and narrative communication styles. Local understandings of cultural safety have great potential to improve the routine practices of doctors, particularly in relation to doctor-patient communication and protocols for conducting pelvic exams.

This study aimed to explore attitudes towards family formation in single or cohabiting childless women of advanced age. The design comprised semi-structured qualitative interviews of 20 women aged 34-39 years attending the Fertility Assessment and Counselling Clinic, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. A sample of 10 single women and 10 cohabiting women was chosen with equal distribution of postgraduate education length. Data were analysed using content analysis following the method of Graneheim and Lundman and consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ). The general attitude towards family formation was characterized by a fear of the consequences of choosing motherhood on one hand, and a 'ticking biological clock' and a wish to establish a nuclear family on the other. The women idealized the perception of perfect mothering in terms of uncompromising expectations of child rearing and showed an increasing awareness of solo motherhood as a possible solution to advanced age, the wish of a child and single status compared to earlier studies. Our study contributes to knowledge and understanding of personal considerations related to childbearing in nullipara women in their mid- to late 30s and may be useful in a fertility assessment and counselling setting.

Infertility is a devastating problem around the world, particularly in the high fertility context of sub-Saharan Africa. Regardless of its medical origins, infertility causes African women personal grief and economic deprivation.This research was conducted among the Ijo who are organized into exogamous patrilineal descent groups. Women who marry into a patrilineage are perceived as bearers of sons who will eventually take their place in the lineage's genealogy. Women only figure in the lineage structure as mothers.In addition to extensive ethnographic research in this community, the paper is based on a combination of surveys of 246 women and interviews of 25 fertile and 25 infertile women.Women who have never given birth were characterized as “useless”. Some managed to accumulate wealth or attained education but most feared a marginal old age. Respect was given to women who have had even one child, even if that child died. The biological process of gestation confers an adult status on women allowing them to undergo initiation and to function as mature individuals. In the life course the most prominent periods of suffering are the transition from the stages of ereso (girl) to erera (mature woman), and in the period of old age.

The present study investigates cultural differences in the effects of infertility on emotional distress. The study compares emotional distress among infertile people in three samples: Turkish migrants (n = 58), Turkish people living in Western Turkey (n = 46), and Dutch people (n = 199). Participants answered structured questionnaires on self-image, blame-guilt, sexual problems, depression, anxiety, and anger-hostility. Separate analyses were conducted for men and women. In general, the levels of emotional distress were higher for infertile Turkish migrant women and infertile Turkish women than they were for infertile Dutch women. Turkish migrant women reported more self-image problems and fewer feelings of blame-guilt than did Turkish women. Among men, Turkish migrant men showed the highest overall levels of emotional distress, and Dutch men showed the lowest. Our results indicate that the experience of infertility among Turkish migrants is more similar to those of Turkish people than it is to that of Dutch people, especially among women. The importance of having children in the different cultures may offer a possible explanation for these findings.

A number of studies have explored motives for parenthood in the Western industrialized world. These studies have documented that children are mostly desired for reasons relating to happiness and personal well-being. To date, limited data pertaining to parenthood motives in African countries exist. Insight into the value of children can, however, be derived from studies on infertility, as the negative repercussions of involuntary childlessness reflect the value of children to parents and the community. According to these studies children secure conjugal ties, offer social security, assist with labour, confer social status, secure rights of property and inheritance, provide continuity through re-incarnation and maintaining the family lineage, and satisfy emotional needs. Parenthood therefore appears to have more and, arguably, deeper roots in African communities when compared to industrialized countries.