Regional differences in waiting time to pregnancy: pregnancy-based surveysfrom Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden

The objective of this study was examine geographical variation in couple fe cundity in Europe. The study was based upon all recently pregnant (or still pregnant) women within well-defined geographical areas in Europe (Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and France) at a given time period in 1992, Altoget her, 4035 women responded to a highly structured questionnaire. Highest fec undity was found in Southern Italy and Northern Sweden; lowest fecundity wa s seen in data from the East German centre, Approximately 16% of the study population had a waiting time of more than 12 months to become pregnant. Mo st of the pregnancies were planned (64%) and approximately 14% were the res ult of contraceptive failures. The study shows that smoking, body mass inde x,age and parity did not explain the differences in fecundity found between the centres, Regional differences in fecundity exist and the causes may be genetic or due to variations in behavioural and environmental exposures.