A Model of Age-specific Fecundability

A new model of the behavioural and physiological causes of age-specific variation in marital fecundability is presented. Total fecundability is decomposed into a series of susceptibility factors (the length of ovarian cycles, the length of the fertile period within each cycle, the probability that a cycle is ovulatory, and the likelihood that an act of unprotected intercourse within the fertile period results in conception) and an exposure factor reflecting the effect of duration of marriage on coital frequency. The impact of intra-uterine mortality on effective fecundability is also modelled. Data on western women, from which standard age curves of fecundability are estimated, suggest that any decline in fecundity between ages 30 and 40 is attributable to changes, not in the ability to conceive, but in the capacity to carry a pregnancy to term. Sensitivity tests suggest that the most important potential sources of inter-population variation in fecundability are intra-uterine death and the incidence of anovulatory cycles.