The extend and impact of involuntary childlessness is felt mostly on pronatalist cultures

The extend and impact of involuntary childlessness is felt mostly on pronatalist cultures. India is a pronatal society, a type of social functioning that guarantees respect and social dignity by conception and childbearing. These types of societies also have negate childless couples in social and emotional manners. Even though this condition is not immediately life threatening, it creates a sense of negativity, loss of autonomy , functioning and mental health in the long term. The impact is seen across various domains of the individual.
The lack of uniform definitions about infertility has been one the main difficulties faced by researchers. (Schmidt & Munster, 1995; Kols & Nguyen, 1997). WHO 2002 explains infertilty as the trouble faced by an individual for achieving pregnancy by a person of having a fulfilled relationship for a period of two years without the utilization of contraceptives. There is an absence of a settled meaning of barrenness, other than the reasonable translation taken after by the WHO. Infertility can be said as a group of heterogeneous conditions contributing to one’s inability to have a child,Marchbanks et al’,1989.
Jejeebhoy ,1998 has pointed out two main points that makes it difficult to define infertility, 1) a time period to be used for establishing infertility and 2) how to categorize women who have had one live birth but have not been to subsequently conceive.
For instance, the WHO definition, drawn up by the Scientific Group on the Epidemiology of Infertility (WHO,1991) has utilized a multi-year reference period: if the couple has never imagined regardless of dwelling together and introduction to pregnancy (not utilizing contraception) for a time of two years; essential barrenness is likewise alluded to as essential sterility; Infertility can be auxiliary, if a couple is not able to conceive after a failed attempt, in spite of living together and presentation to pregnancy (without contraception, breastfeeding or baby blues amenorrhoea) for a time of two years; this is otherwise called secondary sterility.
Childlessness is defined as the proportion of couples who have not had a live birth by the time of interview, despite at least five years of cohabitation and exposure to pregnancy and in the absence of contraception, breastfeeding or postpartum amenorrhoea. Unlike a couple with primary infertility, a childless couple also includes those who have successfully conceived but have failed to deliver a live birth. Similarly, secondary sterility in these studies refers to couples having difficulty bearing a second or higher order birth, despite usually five years of exposure, as in the definition above. The five year reference period is typically used, but not necessarily, in demographic surveys.