Many people want to grow their family, yet have trouble conceiving a baby. Fertility treatment is needed to help some women achieve this dream. Fertility treatment is most often used when women are under 35 and have been trying to conceive for over a year, and women over 35 that have been trying to get pregnant for over six months. Fertility treatment to get pregnant is often a long, tough process so there are many things to know
Health Care Provider
Talk to your health care provider if you think fertility treatment is the best thing for your family. They can help you figure out if there is really a problem and which road to take. There are a few different types of treatments that can lead to pregnancy.
Testing
Many health providers will run tests to see if they can find the problem with why the woman isn’t getting pregnant. Woman often take a blood test for AMH, or anti Mullerian hormones, these hormones create egg sacs. The results of this test help your health provider know about your egg reserves in the ovaries and how they will react to fertility treatment. Men often provide a semen sample for count and to find any problems.
Assisted Reproductive Technology
ART, or assisted reproductive technology is the term for treatments involving the handling of eggs and sperm. A team works together with ART to give you the best possible treatment for you. During IVF, techniques may involve an intracytoplasmic sperm injection which injects one sperm inside an egg, assisted hatching which is the assisting of implanting an embryo into the lining of the uterus, and using donor eggs or sperm.
Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation
COH, or controlled ovarian hyperstimulation helps your body release eggs using medication. COH usually uses the medications called clomiphene citrate, a pill which helps women ovulate or shots with gonadotropins which do the same thing. Many times, a health care provider will also use an IUI (intrauterine insemination) which places sperm inside your uterus when you ovulate, along with the other medication to boost chances of pregnancy.
In Vitro Fertilization
IVF, or in vitro fertilization uses reproductive technology to hopefully impregnate the patient. Egg and sperm are combined outside of the body to create a fertilized egg. This embryo is then placed inside the uterus. Many women need to use this technology is they cannot conceive naturally whether they have damaged fallopian tubes, endometriosis, the partner cannot produce sperm, and/or other health issues. Sometimes more than one embryo is placed in the uterus often resulting in multiple babies. This boosts the chance of pregnancy as well as the chance of multiple babies. Your health care provider will know how to get the best results regarding how many embryos to transfer to your uterus.
Time Length
Fertility treatments take different time lengths depending on what plan you are following towards pregnancy. During two weeks of the first treatment session of IVI ovaries are being stimulated to produce more follicles meaning ovulation should occur after insemination. When doing IVF, the process takes about four to six weeks before the egg is retrieved. The embryos are often transferred from three to five days later.
Acupuncture
Many women looking for a fertility treatment without drugs look to fertility acupuncture in Boston. Acupuncture treatments change the way the body deals with stressors helping the nervous and endocrine system have a healthy balance. This does not mean the woman will for sure get pregnant, but the body should be better able to focus on producing eggs and sperm. When all of the systems are working efficiently, the healthy eggs and sperm are better produced for pregnancy. Acupuncture inserts tiny needles throughout different areas of the body. It is painless and is used to treat many medical conditions.
Surgical Fertility Treatments
Sometimes fertility treatments can be handled with surgery. In about 35 percent of female cases, the fallopian tubes and/or the lining of the pelvis and abdomen have issues that prevent pregnancy. Many times doctors perform a laparoscopic surgery to repair the issues. Other times scarring or a blockage prevents any sort of surgery meaning IVF is needed. Sometimes women opt for surgical hysteroscopy which is used when there are lesions inside the uterine cavity. Ovarian drilling is used often when women suffer from PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. Women with endometriosis sometimes have laparoscopy surgery to remove emdometrial deposits or uterine fibroids.