What does the title mean?

Is it something explained in the book that never made it to the movie?

Yes. It is the title of a short, heartbroken poem written and recited by Pookie in the novel at or near the point of the couple's breakup. You can find a transcription of it on the "bloopers" thread.

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"About 56 of the Old World species and 3 of the New World species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds. The best-known example is the European Common Cuckoo. The cuckoo egg hatches earlier than the host's, and the cuckoo chick grows faster; in most cases the chick evicts the eggs or young of the host species. The chick has no time to learn this behavior, so it must be an instinct passed on genetically. The mother still feeds the cuckoo chick as if it were her own, the chick's open mouth serving as a sign stimulus for the host to feed it." - from Wikipedia

This strikes me as similar to Pookie's situation. Abandoned by her parents in a "nest" where she doesn't belong, she desperately opens her mouth in the hope of being "fed" with affection. Eventually, she finds someone like Jerry who's willing to take her "under his wing," but then she tries to evict anyone who gets between them, like Charlie, by branding them "weirdos." In the end, though, Jerry is forced to evict Pookie from the nest, lest she take over his life completely.

The "sterile" part of the title has multiple levels of meaning, I think. The most common meaning is "sexually infertile," and so there's the obvious parallel of Pookie's false pregnancy, with its suggestion that her fantasy springs from her inability to have kids of her own -- or, perhaps, simply from a cuckoo-like inability to take responsibility for them. "Sterile" can also mean "free from bacteria," and no doubt Pookie sees herself as uninfected by the sickness of the "weirdos" around her. But "sterile" has yet another meaning: "lacking in imagination or vitality, not stimulating." At first glance, this doesn't seem to apply to Pookie at all, and no doubt she'd rather die than admit that her life might be sterile in this way -- but by the end of the film, it's clear that this is just what she fears she really is, and that there is some reason for her fear. And as the film concludes, Pookie's mental illness has tragically brought her to the final dictionary definition of "sterile" -- i.e., "lacking any power to function, not productive or effective."

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