Infertility - Infertilty Treatment

What is Infertility?

Infertility is a health condition of the reproductive system. This results in the inability to get pregnant in females and inability to get the females pregnant in males. Conception is a complicated and delicate process that depends upon many factors. If only one of these range of factor doesn't goes nicely, infertility occurs. Usually if the inability to conceive has stretched for a period longer then one year of unprotected intercourse at proper timings then it is taken as a disease. Inability to carry a pregnancy until delivery of a live baby is also referred as infertility disease.

As per an estimate 35% of females and males have infertility as a problem and 20% combined problem of the couple. Around 2.6 million American couples suffer from the condition of infertitlity. It is essential that both the man and the woman be evaluated during an infertility work-up.

Only a small percentage of these male factor cases can be attributed to a treatable medical condition of infertitlity. Most infertile men are often not given a definite diagnosis.

Different causes of Infertilty:

About 1/3 of infertility cases are attributed to male factors, and about 1/3 to factors that affect women. And infertility is caused by a combination of problems in both partners in the  remaining 1/3 of infertile couples which are  unexplained.

• No healthy sperm cells are produced or a very low count of sperm cells are produced.
• All the sperm cells die out before they egg.
• The sperm is not capable enough to fertilize the egg.
• Unhealthy eggs of a woman.
• The inability of the fertilized egg to become implanted in the uterus of the women.
• Blocked fallopian tubes is a reason which doesn't lets the sperm to reach the egg.
• Insufficient embryo quality.
• Abnormal structure of the uterus can result in miscarriages.

Lastly for the pregnancy to well for the full term woman's hormonal environment must be adequate for the growth  and survival of the embryo.

IVF or In Vitro Fertilization-Infertilty Treatment

IVF or In Vitro Fertilization is a procedure which has given couples coping with infertility a great hope. This was first succeeded Dr. Edwards who was an embryologist and Dr. Steptoe (a gynecologist) in England. In infertile couples where where men have low sperm counts or the women have blocked or absent fallopian tubes, this technique called IVF offers a incredible chance for bearing biologically related children.

In this treatment of infertility (IVF), eggs in the women's ovary are surgically removed mixed with the male sperms outside the body. Approximately after about 40 hours, the eggs are examined if they have been fertilized by the sperm and are dividing into cells. If fertilized, these eggs or more specifically embryos are then placed in the women's uterus, bypassing the fallopian tubes.

There is no increased chance of birth defects in becoming pregnant through IVF. However, any long term effects of  in vitro fertilization remain to be determined with time. It takes approximately 3 weeks time for the entire procedure. Ovaries are stimulated with fertility drugs. The patient is monitored by ultrasound and also by hormone levels during the 4 to 6 days prior to ovulation.

Infertitlity is a big problem and IVF seems to be great medical advancement for its cause but it only accounts for less than 5%of all infertility treatment in the United States.