IVF Giving Hope To Late Mothers

Infertility is gaining its ground pretty fast and now one out of every six couples are suffering from the problems of infertility where about forty percent of the problems of infertility are linked to the females and about forty percent to the males, whereas twenty percent of the problems are linked to both the males and the females. The couples who are going through the problems of infertility are suffering a lot psychologically and is a lot damaging to the mental health of the couple. The problem of infertility has long been a problem, but this problem has been overcome by the efforts of two doctors who have given a great hope to a lot of couples throughout the world and now the couples who are going the problems with infertility can have their child with the procedure of in vitro fertilization. The two doctors who have introduced this procedure are Dr. Edwards and Dr. Steptoe who have provided a lot of couples with hope and this procedure was being introduced in the year 1978 for the very first time.

Now this procedure is being used through the entire world where the couples have been going through the problems with infertility and this technology has since been refined by a lot of physicians and embryologists throughout the world and there have been 20,000 babies that have been born with this procedure. The chances or the possibilities of a continuing pregnancy being achieved have been enhanced from about none to one chance in four to six at the centers where the in vitro fertilization is being performed.

There are a lot of variables on which achieving a pregnancy in a couple is achieved and it varies from couple to couple and these variables include age, the reproductive health of both the man and the woman who want to achieve pregnancy and the chances of the in vitro fertilization also varies from case to case for that reason a complete evaluation is being required so that the chances of pregnancy can be determined in the given situation.

In the process of in vitro fertilization the egg is being obtained from the ovary by a needle that is being placed under ultrasound guidance and this ultrasound guided procedure has taken over the surgical procurement of the egg. The best thing that the ultrasound guided procedure offers is that the woman who is undergoing that procedure does not need to undergo hospitalization neither general anesthesia because both these have their own risks and complications profile.

Before obtaining the egg through the transvaginal ultrasound guided procedure, there is a proper environment that needs to be prepared in a woman so that the chances of getting the multiple healthy and mature eggs is possible and for that reason the woman just goes for about two weeks of extensive preparation. In this procedure, the woman goes on the fertility drugs and then the blood tests are being done and then the ultrasound scans are being performed of the ovaries so that the optimal time to retrieve the eggs from the ovary is being defined and the optimal time to obtain the eggs is the ovulation time because it is when the eggs are ready to be fertilized.

Around the time of ovulation the patient is prepped and draped and under sterile conditions and under the transvaginal ultrasound guidance a 16-gauge single lumen needle is passed transvaginally and then the eggs are being obtained. The women who have gone through this procedure has said that there is mild discomfort that is being felt and that is very much similar to the pap smear or the endometrial biopsy that is being taken. Once the procedure is being done, then the patient can go home in a short time and they can do their activities of daily living.

After that the fluid that is being obtained from the follicles is being examined under the microscope and then the eggs are being located and then the sperms are being placed within the eggs. The eggs then start to cleave down to indicate that the process has started and then after two or three divisions that the egg goes into, it is then known as the preimplantation embryo. These embryos are then kept in the laboratory and then in a mixture that acts as a substitute for the environment that would have been provided by the fallopian tubes. After that the embryos are then placed in the uterus by passing it through the vagina by using a special catheter and then when the embryo has been placed in the uterus, the woman is asked to lie in the bed quietly for about an hour or so and then she is asked to return home.

After that the embryo starts to develop inside the uterus and then the woman goes through the regular checkups so that the fetus in the mother’s womb can be checked regarding growth. It was important that the entire procedure of the in vitro fertilization is being explained in detail so that you must know as to what are the different things that are involved in that. Now this procedure is a great hope for women who want to be pregnant in the late ages and along with this process there is also a breakthrough in getting the embryos frozen for women who want to preserve the embryos and a new technique has been developed where the problems with the thawing of the embryos has been eradicated and that has brought a big hope for the women.

There are also women who are going through the cancer treatments and also the other life threatening conditions in which they have to go through the aggressive therapies and have a chance to get their ovaries affected by these treatments, then they think that their eggs be preserved so that they are able to conceive once they are in a stable condition and their cancer is in remission, which is a big hope for these women. The process known as Cryotop in which the embryos can be frozen more rapidly, which can remove the ice from them and prevent damage to the embryo and through this they have come to manage about 90 percent survival rate of the embryo and a high pregnancy rate of about 42 percent which is the same as can be achieved through a fresh egg. This process has helped eliminate the infertility problems in which the eggs are produced for a specific time span.


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