Systemic change will require reframing infertility from private struggle to public health issue

The journey to parenthood—once a deeply personal and often private aspiration—is being reexamined under new light. Rising infertility rates, coupled with a healthcare system ill-equipped to meet the burgeoning demand, highlight the incredible expense and brokenness of the current system. 

With millions of people trying to build families caught in a difficult situation and now speaking up, the question is being raised: how can we reframe fertility from a series of individual battles to a recognized public health concern requiring systemic solutions?

Ill-Suited for Today's Needs: "There's a unique tension in this industry between the way it was built and the way it needs to grow to accommodate a continually increasing infertility rate," says Traci Keen, Co-Founder of women’s health and fertility innovator Onto Health. "I always say that infertility is kind of like taxes. It's going in a single direction, unfortunately."

Geographic barriers: "We know that globally it's 1 in 6 individuals, but in the US now it's 1 in 5 individuals will face infertility," Keen says. Historically built in "predominantly high net worth areas," fertility care access remains a barrier to a large number of people. "Even secondary, tertiary cities have incredibly limited access to fertility care," Keen explains. 

The recent closure of the only clinic between Denver and the Canadian border in Fort Collins is a stark example: "That now means that the entire northern portion of the country no longer has access to an embryology lab," she adds. 

A Growing Crisis: The problem isn't just a lack of clinics; it's a lack of informed support at earlier stages. "Most generalist doctors are not informed about fertility issues," Keen states, "which makes it longer for people to get good information about themselves, about their options." The information gap often pushes individuals into "late-stage or less likely to have a good outcome infertility."

Keen says Onto Health, which is working to build better "synaptic connections" and technological pathways in fertility care, sees the fallout of these systemic gaps daily. There is greater demand for fertility treatments from LGBTQ couples and single people wanting to parent alone, alongside the general rising trend of delayed onset of parenthood. 

Building a New "Fertility Care" Infrastructure: The solution, Keen argues, requires a fundamental rethinking and rebuilding of the fertility care ecosystem. This means addressing both the technological bottlenecks and the educational deserts.

One crucial pillar is innovation in the lab itself. "Embryology labs are expensive to build," Keen explains. She sees hope in companies like "Conceivable Life Sciences creating robotic embryology labs that are driven by AI machine learning." Such advancements promise to "expand capacity and drive down costs, increasing outcomes because it's more scientific, more precise." This, she believes, is essential to handle the "over 2 million cycles untreated annually, currently, in the United States."

The second, equally vital pillar is proactive, preventative care integrated into general medicine. "You have to build more synaptic connections with generalists," Keen insists. "How can you incorporate fertility into women's wellness, men's wellness exams on an annual basis so that there are earlier interventions?”

Systemic Change: Reimagining this infrastructure requires a shift in perspective, recognizing that solutions often lie in applying proven principles from other fields. "The answers are often simpler," Keen reflects. "We are masters of turning basic algebra into calculus and overcomplicating things. Whether on the technology side or in nutrition there are solutions out there that we can draw from to make it more systemic."