It's National Infertility Awareness Week: States Graded on Fertility Service Access

Infertility can mean three things for a woman: the inability to become pregnant; the inability to maintain a pregnancy; and the inability to carry a pregnancy to a live birth. National Infertility Awareness Week plans to inform more people about this.

In the United States, 6.7 million women aged 15-44 have trouble getting pregnant or carrying a baby to term, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From an international standpoint, that number balloons to 48.5 million couples, according to the World Health Organization. These sets of data are based on information and statistics from 2010.

It's the 25^th anniversary for the National Infertility Association (also known as RESOLVE), which is a non-profit organization that promotes reproductive health as well as equal access to all family building options for those who experience infertility or other reproductive disorders. Infertility also affects men, but it's much more common among women.

The non-profit released its annual Fertility Scorecard yesterday to kick off the national awareness week. The scorecard is a map that ranks each state by how easy it is for citizens to gain access to fertility support resources and treatments in their area. Over 7.4 million women across the United States have sought access to infertility services in 2010, and that number is likely increasing.

"We developed the scorecard not to publicly call out specific states for their lack of access, but to bring attention to what still needs to be done in terms of improving access to care and support in every state," said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE, in this Fox News article.

States are graded on an A through F scale in terms of access to facilities. Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts all received A's. New Hampshire, Wyoming, and Alaska all received failing grades for their access to fertility services. Most states fell in the B and C range, but a lot received D's: West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska.

Perhaps it would be more helpful if we were provided infertility numbers for specific states, because Alaska receiving an F isn't too alarming since they have a very small population. But many of the states that received a "D" should be concerned based on their populations.

You can find out more about National Infertility Awareness week on the RESOLVE website.