Comparing Health-Seeking Behaviors for Infertility by Parity Status

Niki Weller, Indiana University

Health-seeking behaviors (HSB) are influenced by multiple social and personal factors and in the case of infertility, seeking treatment is likely to occur after the inability to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term persists for longer than one year. This is after prolonged exposure to the risk of pregnancy fails to provide a successful pregnancy, and, the desire for children remains. Most research on health-seeking behaviors for infertility focus on the nulliparous woman who is at risk of primary infertility. This research furthers this examination by comparing the rates of health-seeking behaviors for nulliparous women at risk of primary infertility to parous women at risk of secondary infertility. Applying socially constructed pathways of HSB, preliminary findings suggest that the rates of health-seeking behaviors do indeed vary by fertility status with observed differences in HSB dependent on fertility status.