Has the birth movement become mainstream?
The Trump administration is considering baby bonuses. Is it enough to encourage people to have more children?
The US birth rate has been steadily decreasing since 2007, and birthers both inside and outside the White House are determined to raise it. But what do you think?
President Donald Trump and his administration reportedly have begun to walk through various proposals aimed at reversing the decline in American fertility rates. The ideas floating around include scholarships for married people and parents, a one-off $5,000 cash “baby bonus” for mothers, and government-funded education on menstruation and ovulation. One outbreak activist also suggested that more than six mothers receive a “national medal of motherhood.”
And it’s not just that women are in the White House in search of having more children. They are permeated in the cultural era.
Trad Wives, or “Homestead Creators,” is making waves on social media to romanticize the nuclear family units praised by Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
However, when a partner struggles to get pregnant, the burden is rarely distributed evenly between men and women. Still, infertility experts say we miss an important element of conversation: infertility in men.
Research shows that for heterosexual couples trying to conceive, if the cause of infertility can be attributed to a known factor, it is about 50-50 divisions between male and female factors. Male partners were solely responsible for about 20% of infertility, and were found to be a contributing factor for an additional 30-40% of all cases. According to Dr Neel Shah, chief medical officer at Maven Clinic, a virtual clinic for women and family health, men and women infertility factors often coexist, but many men do not undergo testing before female partners begin IVF.
“Our health care system generally seems to be designed for men more than women, but men are reluctant to engage in it in the first place,” he says. “It is relatively common for women to go through the entire fertility journey and men never tested. However, if you don’t treat couples as units, the burden is disproportionate for one person.”
One in six people are affected by infertility, but women often suffer from burdens
According to a 2025 report published by Maven Clinic, which surveyed 1,000 women struggling with infertility, 65% said they felt the burden of fertility was almost entirely with them, not with their partners.
“The design of the healthcare system was even broader and socially, unfortunately, a whole burden on women,” says Shah. “They are the first people who were tested. They are the most emotionally responsible. But the science is very clear and infertility can be just as much a cause as women’s factors.”
Characterizing fertility as a woman’s problem alone is part of a “broader cultural misconception” and contributes to the feelings of shame that some women experience when they struggle with infertility.
Men are reluctant to perform infertility tests
Women have biological markers such as the menstrual cycle, which serve as a checkpoint for reproductive health. Men, on the other hand, do not have any obvious visual indicators of sperm health.
To test for infertility in men, doctors can see the concentration of sperm and motility. This means how active the sperm is. This usually involves going to the clinic to produce semen samples. Shah says many men are trying to do it.
“Men love to do it and are grateful to be able to support their partner,” he says. “But in many cases… they’re not engaged in ways that make them comfortable.”
In some cases, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is still necessary if male infertility is the contribution or the sole factor. However, it should be done using ocular cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which involves injecting a single healthy sperm into the egg.
“It’s the smallest operation in the world,” says Shah.
Several factors that contribute to male infertility are based on lifestyle. You can actually reduce your sperm count by wearing tight underwear or sitting in a hot tub. Other factors, such as taking testosterone, can act as contraceptives, as well as estrogens in women. “We believe that men are taking testosterone to stimulate themselves more, but that’s the opposite,” explains Shah.
Women want parental leave, greater economic incentives to increase fertility rates
In a video with over 330,000 viewers, parents expressed shock at some of the White House’s suggestions to raise fertility rates. “Obviously they weren’t involved in this council that came up with these ideas,” the man said in the video. She lamented, “I paid free health care and maternity leave that I don’t know.”
Demographicist and book author Jennifer Cyber previously told USA Today that “counting 8 billion: how sex, death and migration shape our world.” First of all, more people just feel they can’t afford to have a family amidst economic uncertainty and rising housing prices. Couples seeking IVF are often filled with high prices, with some coming to participate in “medical tourism” overseas for inexpensive fertility care.
Sciubba added that more couples will also delay marriages, shorten the window and naturally conceive with their spouses. Also, more people don’t look at their children as needed to live a fulfilling life.
Shah advises against framing of fertility in moral and political terms.
“We send a message that women’s bodies are public battlefields,” he warns. “It could negate some of the emotional pain of the real medical struggle (and) people have when they are trying to build a family.”
Contributors: Charles Trepany, Jonathan Limehouse
