Infertility is one of the leading causes of marital troubles and more than seven million couples are affected by it. Many people are waiting until their mid 30s to start a family these days only to find out that they aren't getting pregnant right away.

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"If they are under the age of 35 and have been trying to conceive for over a year, that's time to see a specialist. If they're over 35 and have been trying for six months, then it's time to seek help," said Dr. Al Peters, Medical Director of the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine in New Jersey.

"It's a couples problem. What can happen is we say there's a low sperm count causing the problem and automatically, the burden of the problem is put on the male. Or maybe the woman has endometriosis and then the problem shifts to her," said Peters. "Much of the treatment for infertility absolutely involves both people. We can't get an individual pregnant without the husband and vice versa."

"One of the most common problems we see is advanced maternal age. We're seeing a lot of difficulties with women 35 or over and sometimes even younger than 35, who are starting to have diminished egg quality. We call that diminished ovarian reserve. So at 35, their eggs and ovaries might be acting like they're 42 or 45 and that can be a difficult problem to get through because the essence of the embryo and the infrastructure of the embryo is the egg so you must start off with a good quality egg. The best way to eliminate that is with early detection and treatment as with most disorders," said Peters.

"The second most common problem we see is male factor," said Peters. "A sperm test or semen analysis is usually one of the first tests we'll perform on a couple. There are plenty of other issues including endometriosis, polycystic ovarian disease, blocked fallopian tubes, among others."

"Many couples are opting to have children later and it's understandable that they want to be financially stable with a successful job and career, but unfortunately Mother Nature doesn't wait for that. To some degree, I do want to get out the message to couples to not wait too long," said Peters. "If we can start testing women when they're younger around the age of 30, with simple blood tests which can give a woman an idea of the quality of her eggs, that would help. One of the things we can do now is take the eggs of a young woman, freeze them and then use them later in life when they're ready to have children."

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