In vitro fertilization

Womens health is a complex issue that can span many things, such as infertility, menopause, hormone treatments, and more. The female body is a fascinating and wonderful thing, but things can often go wrong in ways that have impacts larger than just the woman experiencing them. One such issue is infertility, which has often been a large topic of womens health. Luckily for women and their partners who want to have children, modern technology has come far in advancing that opportunity. Several infertility solutions now exist, like prescribed medicines, undergoing surgery, using intra-uterine insemination, or choosing assisted reproductive technology, such as in vitro fertilization.
Why Might A Woman Be Infertile?
Frustratingly enough for some women, the answer doctors often have about causes of infertility in women is: “We’re not sure.” In some women, it’s a mysterious thing. However, in about a quarter of infertility cases, problems with ovulation is a key factor, especially in terms of hormone imbalances. Another factor can be endometriosis or uterine problems in general. Doing drugs or smoking will also increase a woman’s chance of becoming infertile. Luckily, a lot of the scares you hear (like taking a certain pill or eating a certain food) are not based in any particular truth. Some women also suffer from secondary fertility, which means that a woman has successfully had one child, but isn’t able to conceive again after a year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 11% of couples have this experience.
What Treatments Exist Today for Infertility?
Like mentioned before, today a range of options exists for women who are facing infertility. If you’re 35 years of age or younger, you will want to try for at least a year before going to see a doctor about being possibly infertile. Some couples try for a couple of years before successfully conceiving, which is perfectly normal.
One of the most well-known treatments is intra-uterine insemination, which involves choosing the most active sperm from a male and implanting those sperm in a woman’s vagina close to ovulation. Bad or sluggish sperm are completely eliminated from this process and the timing is lined up, which increases the chances of the egg being fertilized. This usually has a 5 to 20% success rate, depending on how old the couple is and what specific fertility problem they’re facing.
Another popular type of treatment is in vitro fertilization, which is also well known because of its use by surrogate mothers, who carry a child to term for another mother. In this process, a sperm fertilizes an egg in a lab, monitored by scientists. If the fertilization is successful, it’s kept under watch for another 2-6 days and then put in the uterus where it hopefully comes to term.
Although this isn’t an exact treatment for infertility, per se, one route many couples go if they decide they don’t want medical procedures, is choosing to adopt a child either domestically or internationally. Although it isn’t their biological child, they raise him/her as their own and get the satisfaction of parenting and caring for a child.
Although womens health still has many questions that are not yet solved, modern medicine is steadily advancing on them and turning questions into answers.