Researcher Looks at Infertility’s Impact on Women

For a woman who is unable to bear children, the pain of infertility extends far into her everyday life and can impact her relationships with family and friends for years. Marni Rosner , who earned a doctorate in social work at the University of Pennsylvania in May, studied how infertility impacts female identity in her dissertation, " Recovery From Traumatic Loss: A Study of Women Living Without Children After Infertility." "I was curious as to how women living without children after infertility rebuilt their identity and life after this traumatic loss," Rosner says. "There was little research that focused specifically on the long-term adjustment of women who experienced infertility and had not gone on to become parents either through biology, adoption or third-party reproduction. "There was really no other research that focused solely on this population in this era, with numerous reproductive options and so many life choices available for women." Rosner, 46, lives and works in Manhattan, where she established her own private psychotherapy practice in 2000. She says that, while there is a great deal of existing research that addresses the psychological impact of infertility for women who are actively experiencing it, almost none examined the post-treatment phase. Women are frequently asked if they have children or when they plan to have children, but the impact of such questioning for a woman who is struggling with infertility can produce a profound feeling of social exclusion, which can be brief or prolonged, Rosner says.