It is estimated that about 20% of marriages in West Gemany today are involuntarily childless. At the beginning of the 1970s the percentage was assumed to be lower (10%–15%), but it is not clear whether the number of cases of infertility has actually increased or whether, as a result of recent advances in medicine and the apparently unlimited treatment possibilities, more childless couples are
... [Show full abstract] consulting their doctors sooner than they used to.