Fay­ola Fras­er

In­fer­til­i­ty is far more com­mon in Trinidad and To­ba­go than most peo­ple re­alise, af­fect­ing an es­ti­mat­ed one in six cou­ples. Yet it re­mains one of the coun­try’s most qui­et­ly en­dured chal­lenges. Be­hind closed doors, many nav­i­gate un­cer­tain­ty, mis­in­for­ma­tion and stig­ma with lit­tle sup­port in an at­tempt to grow their fam­i­lies. For the past 20-plus years, The Trinidad and To­ba­go IVF and Fer­til­i­ty Cen­tre (TTIVF) has sup­port­ed count­less fam­i­lies strug­gling with in­fer­til­i­ty by help­ing them con­ceive the pre­cious gift of new life. The cen­tre has achieved sev­er­al ma­jor feats, in­clud­ing the birth of the first IVF ba­by in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean in 1997 and the de­liv­ery of more than 3,000 ba­bies since 2008.

Ob­served in 2026 from April 19-25, In­fer­til­i­ty Aware­ness Week is held an­nu­al­ly to raise aware­ness about in­fer­til­i­ty, re­duce the stig­ma sur­round­ing it and pro­vide sup­port for fam­i­lies nav­i­gat­ing fer­til­i­ty chal­lenges. While the aware­ness week orig­i­nat­ed in the Unit­ed States, its im­pact ex­tends well be­yond, res­onat­ing in coun­tries like Trinidad and To­ba­go where in­fer­til­i­ty is still of­ten dis­cussed in hushed tones. The week fo­cus­es on break­ing stig­ma, am­pli­fy­ing pa­tient voic­es and pro­mot­ing ac­cess to fer­til­i­ty care, while al­so chal­leng­ing com­mon mis­con­cep­tions about who ex­pe­ri­ences in­fer­til­i­ty and why. Through ad­vo­ca­cy, ed­u­ca­tion and sto­ry­telling, it re­frames in­fer­til­i­ty as a shared pub­lic health is­sue rather than a pri­vate bur­den, en­cour­ag­ing more open di­a­logue, ear­li­er in­ter­ven­tion and stronger sup­port sys­tems for in­di­vid­u­als and cou­ples nav­i­gat­ing the path to par­ent­hood.

Lead­ing this con­ver­sa­tion sur­round­ing in­fer­til­i­ty lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly is the TTIVF Cen­tre, led by Cather­ine Minto-Bain. Dr Cather­ine Minto-Bain, fer­til­i­ty spe­cial­ist, con­sul­tant ob­ste­tri­cian and gy­nae­col­o­gist, and med­ical di­rec­tor of TTIVF, de­scribes in­fer­til­i­ty sim­ply as “not get­ting preg­nant when you want to be.” Her ex­per­tise dic­tates that if a cou­ple has been try­ing for at least a year to con­ceive with­out suc­cess, they should be­gin to con­sid­er their op­tions at that point.

TTIVF has been in op­er­a­tion for many years and re­cent­ly opened a new clin­ic in San Juan, now re­gard­ed as the most so­phis­ti­cat­ed IVF lab­o­ra­to­ry in the Caribbean. TTIVF is al­so host­ing the re­gion’s first and on­ly fer­til­i­ty event, “Con­ceiv­ing Hope: The IVF Event,” a pa­tient-cen­tred fo­rum for men and women strug­gling with in­fer­til­i­ty. This fo­rum is de­signed not just to in­form, but to re­shape how fer­til­i­ty is un­der­stood across the Caribbean.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Minto-Bain, “in­for­ma­tion is pow­er, and our goal is to put that pow­er in your hands, so that you can trav­el your path to par­ent­hood with hope and con­fi­dence.” Con­ceiv­ing Hope will be held on May 16 at SAPA. The event is free to the pub­lic and re­flects Dr Minto-Bain and TTIVF’s con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy, with the ral­ly­ing cry that in­fer­til­i­ty is nei­ther a rare nor mar­gin­al ex­pe­ri­ence. TTIVF is host­ing this event to let cou­ples know that those who strug­gle with in­fer­til­i­ty are not alone. De­bunk­ing the taboo sur­round­ing fer­til­i­ty al­so re­quires an over­haul of the nar­ra­tive and the biggest mis­con­cep­tion, that “it’s al­ways the women’s fault.” In Trinidad and To­ba­go, based on re­search from TTIVF, male in­fer­til­i­ty is the cause of at least half of all con­cep­tion strug­gles.

In a Caribbean con­text where health­care fo­rums of­ten fo­cus on chron­ic dis­eases like di­a­betes or hy­per­ten­sion, fer­til­i­ty has his­tor­i­cal­ly re­ceived less pub­lic at­ten­tion. This ini­tia­tive at­tempts to close that gap, cre­at­ing a space where med­ical ex­per­tise meets emo­tion­al sup­port and pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion. It al­so seeks to re­duce the stig­ma sur­round­ing in­fer­til­i­ty, which for many can still car­ry a sense of shame, of­ten dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ing women. Con­ceiv­ing Hope ad­dress­es this head-on by fos­ter­ing com­mu­ni­ty and open di­a­logue, in­clud­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als from pa­tients, re­ferred to as “Fer­til­i­ty War­riors”, who will share their per­son­al jour­neys through IVF and oth­er treat­ments.

This year’s fo­cus is on in vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion (IVF), the sin­gle most ef­fec­tive treat­ment for in­fer­til­i­ty. Dr Minto-Bain notes that due to the com­plex­i­ty of the in­fer­til­i­ty land­scape, “al­though TTIVF seeks to tai­lor treat­ment to a pa­tient’s ac­tu­al needs, there is no get­ting around the fact that in the world of in­fer­til­i­ty treat­ment, IVF is the most suc­cess­ful route to con­cep­tion and par­ent­hood.” This event will de­mys­ti­fy the world around IVF and help pa­tients iden­ti­fy the best tim­ing for be­gin­ning treat­ment. By of­fer­ing struc­tured sem­i­nars along­side con­sul­ta­tions, the event at­tempts to re­place con­fu­sion with clar­i­ty, em­pow­er­ing in­di­vid­u­als to make in­formed de­ci­sions about their re­pro­duc­tive health.

The pro­gramme in­cludes pre­sen­ta­tions and op­por­tu­ni­ties for free one-on-one mi­ni con­sul­ta­tions with fer­til­i­ty ex­perts, in­clud­ing Dr Minto-Bain, Bre­quelle Tim­o­thy and Teri-Ann Ram­paul, the on­ly three qual­i­fied fer­til­i­ty doc­tors in Trinidad and To­ba­go. At­ten­dees will hear tes­ti­mo­ni­als from pa­tients who will share ex­pe­ri­ences from their jour­neys to par­ent­hood. For at­ten­dees who pre­fer pri­va­cy, there will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to sub­mit ques­tions anony­mous­ly and have the fer­til­i­ty doc­tors an­swer them on the spot.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the event high­lights a chang­ing fer­til­i­ty land­scape in Trinidad and To­ba­go, one where in­no­va­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and em­pa­thy are be­gin­ning to in­ter­sect. As aware­ness grows and stig­ma grad­u­al­ly re­cedes, TTIVF’s re­lent­less ad­vo­ca­cy is prov­ing piv­otal in re­defin­ing how the re­gion ap­proach­es one of the most deeply per­son­al as­pects of hu­man life: the jour­ney to par­ent­hood.