Human fertility and infertility

Fertility is essential for human reproduction and is one of the most important aspects of life. To have offspring and to sustain humanity is a primary drive in the history of mankind, although it took some time to discover and confirm the relation between sex and conception. The existence of biological parents established fertility as a common responsibility of women and men and turned infertility potentially into a female as well as a male problem. This book aims at presenting human fertility and infertility from prehistory to the present, and illustrates the unique aspects of pregnancy, birth, and parenthood in the past, but also in the modern world with new forms of maternity and paternity. The authors, a urologist and a gynaecologist, also discuss how different cultures worldwide dealt with the biological and psychological facts of reproduction and illustrate how the arts were inspired by the image of parenthood.