"HYPERPROLACTINEMIA: A POTENTIAL FACTOR IN INFERTILITY - INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP AND IMPLICATIONS".

Abstract

Infertility is the inability to establish a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility can be of two types. When a couple has primary infertility, they are unable to conceive after a year without using birth control.  However, the couple is unable to conceive after the first child if they have secondary infertility. About 21.9% of Pakistanis suffer from this prevalent issue, with 3.5% primary and 18.5% secondary infertility. Female infertility factors can be divided into the following broad categories polycystic ovary syndrome, hormonal disorders, pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, prolactin deficiency, obesity, ovarian failure, lifestyle factors, and hyperprolactinemia. This study aims to find the relation of hyperprolactinemia with infertile women. It was a cross-sectional study with a sample (convenient) size of 108. This study was conducted from June 2023 to December 2023. The results show that 22.2% of infertile women aged 15 to 25 years, 60.2% of infertile women aged 26 to 35 years, and 17.6% of infertile women aged 36 to 45 years were infertile. Moreover, 79.6% of females had hyperprolactinemia and 20.4% had normal prolactin levels. The study also shows that 60.1% of females had primary infertility 39.9% had secondary infertility. Pearson’s Correlation analysis was conducted to see the relationship between infertility and prolactin, PCOS, Blood pressure (BP), and diabetes. There was a significant positive correlation between infertility with prolactin. (p=<0.01) and PCOS(p=<0.01). The sample consisted of 108 participants for both variables. However, diabetes (p=0.351) and BP (p=0.62) show a non-significant negative correlation with infertility types.