Estimating time to pregnancy from current durations in a cross-sectional sample

A new design for estimating the distribution of time to pregnancy is proposed and investigated. The design is based on recording current durations in a cross-sectional sample of women, leading to statistical problems similar to estimating renewal time distributions from backward recurrence times. Non-parametric estimation is studied in some detail and a parametric approach is indicated. The results are illustrated on Monte Carlo simulations and on data from a recent European collaborative study. The role and applicability of this approach is discussed.