Biography
Biography: Ekin Dila TOP
Abstract
Pregnancy and parenting is considered as one of the substantial developmental steps of life in many cultures and the lack of fertility frequently creates a social stigma. The object of this research is to study the effects of cultural values on infertile women. This research having cross sectional and descriptive features has been held with 315 infertile women in a Family Planning and Infertility Application and Research Center of a University Hospital. The data has been gathered by using Individual Description Form that is prepared in accordance with the model named “Cultural Diversities and Universiality†of Leninger. The age average of the women is 32.84±5.29, 31.1% of them are primary school graduate, 54.6% of them are housewives, 15.9% of them made kin marriage, they have undergone the infertility treatment for 4.27±3.53 years, and 87% of them have decided the treatment with their partners. The women specify that 24.4% of them cannot talk about infertility with their friends, 68.8% of them with their own relatives, and 61% of them with their partners’ relatives, and that 15.6% of them draw reaction of their partners’ families. The women express that they get quite sad when they find out one of their kin is pregnant (51.3%) and they are primarily told to be treated (52%), and 56.8% of them state that the treatment should remain between partners and doctor, and in this period only their own families mostly support (26.3%). 30.2% of them define having no children as deficiency and not becoming a family, 50.5% of them live the fear of not having children, 49.6% of them feel pressure on themselves about infertility, and they describe the reason of this pressure as the compulsory disclosure of having no children to their relatives (22.3%), 42.9% of them have used a conventional method (abdomen vacuuming) to have children, 67.9% of them do not want to adopt and 21.3% of them think that having no children can affect their marriage. It is determined that one of the most important reasons for infertile women to have children is “becoming mother†(41%). It is concluded that the cultural values in our society have negative effects on the infertile women, and it effects the emotional, social and family relations of women.