Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term. There are many biological causes of infertility, many of them may be bypassed with medical intervention.
Women who are fertile experience a natural period of fertility before and during ovulation, and they are naturally infertile during the rest of the menstrual cycle. Fertility awareness methods are used to discern when these changes occur by tracking changes in cervical mucus or basal body temperature.
Infertility exacts an enormous toll on both the affected individuals and on society. Couples in their most active and productive years are distracted by the physical, financial and emotional hardships of this disease. For these couples, infertility is more than a disease, it is a devastating life crisis which can greatly impact the couple’s general health, marriage, family relationships, job performance and social interactions. Added to the emotional and physical toll exacted by infertility is the financial burden carried by some couples seeking treatment for their disease.
Services provided :
- Follicular tracking
- IUI
- Donor insemination (DI)
- Infertility surgery
- Laparoscopic surgery
- Hysteroscopic surgery
We undertake management of Infertility starting from basic investigations and treatment to Intrauterine insemination (IUI).
Controlled ovarian stimulation utilisnggonadotrophins and follicular tracking by transvaginal Ultrasound scan (TVS) is regularly performed.
A well-maintained Sperm bank is in operation for donor insemination an cases of azoospermia (total absence of sperms).
All Infertility-related surgery (Laparoscopic as well as hysteroscopic) are undertaken. Surgery for Endometriosis, Polycystic ovarian disease (PCOD), recurrent miscarriage (Hysteroscopicseptal resection) are done regularly.
Definition
Definitions of infertility differ, with demographers tending to define infertility as childlessness in a population of women of reproductive age, while the epidemiological definition is based on “trying for” or “time to” a pregnancy, generally in a population of women exposed to a probability of conception.
One definition of infertility that is frequently used by reproductive endocrinologists, the doctors specializing in infertility, to consider a couple eligible for treatment if:
a woman under 35 has not conceived after 12 months of contraceptive-free intercourse. Twelve months is the lower reference limit for Time to Pregnancy (TTP) by the World Health Organization.
a woman over 35 has not conceived after 6 months of contraceptive-free sexual intercourse.
These time intervals would seem to be reversed; this is an area where public policy trumps science. The idea is that for women beyond age 35, every month counts and if made to wait another 6 months to prove the necessity of medical intervention, the problem could become worse. The corollary to this is that, by definition, failure to conceive in women under 35 isn’t regarded with the same urgency as it is in those over 35.
Alternatively, the NICE guidelines define infertility as failure to conceive after regular unprotected sexual intercourse for 2 years in the absence of known reproductive pathology.
A couple that has tried unsuccessfully to have a child after a certain period of time (often a short period, but definitions vary) is sometimes said to be subfertile, meaning less fertile than a typical couple. Both infertility (see above for definitions) and subfertility are defined as the inability to conceive after a certain period of time (the length of which vary), so often the two terms overlap.
Primary vs. secondary infertility
Couples with primary infertility have never been able to conceive, while, on the other hand, secondary infertility is difficulty conceiving after already having conceived (and either carried the pregnancy to term or had a miscarriage). Secondary infertility is not present if there has been a change of partners (this follows tautologically from the convention of speaking of couples, rather than individuals, as being infertile; if there is a change of partners, then a new couple is created, with its own chances to be infertile.)