INFERTILITY

From early childhood, most of us understood that there are certain phases in life. You go to pre-school, then primary school followed by high school. Then you can either move on to study a field of your interest, take a gap year or two abroad or start working. Some time before or in between you fall in love and out of love but eventually marry the person you would like to love forever.

These phases don’t necessarily stop with marriage. Some couples get a dog; others obtain many dogs and maintain a well groomed garden before they believe they are ready to be parents. For certain couples pregnancy happens before they even planned it while others feel that they are suitable for this big step from the start. It doesn’t matter which one of these couples you are but what does, is the realisation of possible infertility. 



Infertility is medically explained as 12 months of regular sexual intercourse without using any form of contraception and yet no pregnancy.  Infertility can be broken down into three groups:

Primary infertility is the term used to describe a couple that has never been able to achieve a pregnancy after at least 1 year of unprotected sex.

Secondary infertility describes couples who have been pregnant at least once, but have not been able to achieve a pregnancy again.
Recurrent Miscarriage Women who experience recurrent miscarriages also receive a diagnosis of infertility if they experience two or more successive miscarriages.

Causes of Infertility

Causes of infertility can be found within the male or within the female and can be due to numerous reasons.

The most common male causes include: decreased sperm count, environmental pollutants, hormone deficiency or smoking, heavy alcohol consumption etc.

The most common causes for infertility with woman include: abnormal egg transport from the ovaries through the fallopian tubes, hormone imbalance, ovarian cysts, poor nutrition etc.

Other infertility risks include: anovulatory menstrual cycles, endometriosis, a history of orchitis or epidymitis in men, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), being overweight, age etc

Treatment of Infertility

In order to treat infertility successfully, you will have to know the cause of it. Infertility treatment also depends on whether the problem is from the woman’s side, the man’s side or from both sides. Education and counselling on this issue is extremely important in order for you to make empowered decisions around the following:

Medicines to treat infections and clotting disorders, or promote ovulation

The first line of treatment for most women with ovulation problems is through medication. Fertility drugs can help a woman ovulate 80% of the time. Natural Fertility Wonder also falls into this category but the difference is that the medicine and treatments are 100% natural with no side effects.

Surgical Treatments

A high percentage of female infertility cases, problems are commonly found with the fallopian tubes or with the inside layer of the pelvis and abdomen. This can be diagnosed through a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) test. If the tubes appear blocked laparoscopic surgery will need to be done.

IUI - Intrauterine Insemination

This procedure is also known as artificial insemination. It involves placing specially washed sperm directly into the uterus. This treatment may be used in some cases of male factor infertility, if there’s a problem with the woman’s cervical mucus, or in cases of unexplained infertility. IUI may also be used for donor sperm.

Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) refer to infertility treatments that involve the handling of eggs or embryos. This includes in vitro fertilization (IVF), gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), and zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT.) Today, IVF is the most common form of ART.

IVF (in vitro fertilization)

Normally with a typical IVF procedure, a woman will need to take fertility drugs in order to stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs. These eggs will then need to be retrieved from the ovaries and placed together with sperm. After fertilization takes place one to three embryos are place inside the woman’s uterus.