Not much compares to the anguish of couples anxious for children but unable to start a family due to infertility. Accordingly, once taken for granted, pregnancy has garnered closer scrutiny in developed, modern countries where women often delay childbearing until their thirties, forties, and sometimes beyond. When desiring a baby, older women, especially, have less time to waste, their body clock's tick shortening the window for conception. Fortunately, there are many treatments and methods to assist today's couples unable to become pregnant naturally and needing medical assistance to make their dreams of having a baby a reality.
Infertility is not a label simply arrived at on the spur of the moment, however. Before treatments can begin, there must be a medical diagnosis that the condition indeed exists. As a rule of thumb, after a year of unprotected intercourse does not yield a pregnancy, a doctor's advice should be sought. First performed, then, is a physical examination to evaluate each partner 's health and any obvious physical barriers to achieving conception. If nothing is indicated, in preparation for infertility treatments, more specific tests follow for both. Women undergo body temperature and ovulation analyses and x-rays of the fallopian tubes and uterus, while men's tests focusing on semen analysis.
Most infertility treatments consist, at first, of conventional therapies. These entail drug treatments for situations such as optimizing hormonal levels for fertility to occur, a specific example being estrogen levels boosted in women. Other conventional therapies involve surgery to repair reproductive organs damaged through scarring or other means. When not successful, it may be time for more involved infertility treatments.
Among the more involved treatments are in vitro fertilization, or IVF, once revolutionary but now becoming more and more of a household word, even though it accounts for less than five percent of all infertility treatments in the U.S. The process is especially effective when the woman experiences blocked or absent fallopian tubes, vital elements for the female egg's ability to travel from the ovary and experience fertilization by male sperm. For men with a very low sperm count, likewise, in vitro fertilization offers an opportunity for the couple to be the biological parents of a baby that cannot, otherwise, naturally be conceived.
IVF involves the surgical removal of eggs from the ovary, then being mixed, outside of the body, in a Petri dish with the sperm. After less than a 2-day time period, the eggs are checked to see if they are fertilized and dividing into cells. If so, they are placed into the woman's uterus directly, where it is hoped at least one will become implanted.
With the goal of a healthy baby in mind, infertile couples, regardless of reason, should not hesitate to seek the consult of medical professionals. Sympathetic to their plight, skilled at matching problems to treatments, and dedicated to helping them achieve what might be life's greatest gift of all, there is no time to waste after a year of trying to conceive has not yielded that much desired pregnancy.
James Copper writes articles for HeresHowToGetPregnant.org where you can find information on infertility treatments
