New research suggests that African-American women are equally, if not more, likely to experience infertility than their white counterparts, but they usually cope with the issue alone.

Researchers at the University of Michigan found that many African-American women often cope with infertility in silence and isolation.

"Infertile African-American women are indeed hidden from public view," Rosario Ceballo, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers interviewed 50 African-American women of different socioeconomic backgrounds about infertility and relationships with friends, relatives and doctors. Their ages ranged from 21 to 52 and most were married. Many of the women had college degrees and worked full-time.

In describing the difficulties of getting pregnant, 32 percent of the women discussed stereotyped beliefs that equated being a woman with motherhood. Some responses included: "Emotionally, I felt that I was not complete, because I had not had a child. I didn't feel like I was a complete woman," and "It (having no biological children) would label you as a failure."

Furthermore, infertility was infused with religious significance for some women. They believed God intended women to produce children, which further heightened their sense of shame.

Researchers noted that some women, especially those with secondary infertility, stayed silent about being unable to conceive because discussing it did not elicit sympathy or empathy.

"Women may also reason that other people can neither change their infertility status nor understand what they were experiencing," Ceballo said.

They found that some women remained silence about infertility because of cultural expectations about strong, self-reliant black women who can cope with adversity on their own and with notions about maintaining privacy in African-American communities, she said.

Overall, when black women could not conceive a child, it negatively affected their self-esteem. They saw themselves as abnormal, in part, because they did not see other people like themselves--African-American, female and infertile--in social images, Ceballo said.

The findings are detailed in the Psychology of Women Quarterly.