Fertility Preservation

fertility preservation
                                                                 [moffitt.org]
Fertility preservation is a greatest option for those people who are diagnosed with cancer or other health issues. Family planning has fundamentally changed as compared to generation ago.

Progressively, women are postponing childbearing for non-medical reasons. For example, pursuing a career, unstable relationship, and financial deliberations. As a result, over the past 40 years, the age of a woman’s first pregnancy has been gradually rising.

When a woman should freeze her eggs?

If woman who is not ready to have a child now but wants to conceive later by her preserved eggs, should keep in her mind about right time of freezing her eggs. The best time for a woman to freeze her eggs is under the age of 30. The number of mature eggs frozen allows for the best prediction of ultimate pregnancy. For example, with ten frozen eggs the chances of a live-birth is twice as high for women under age 35 and under than for those over the age of 35.

When a man should freeze his sperms?

Various studies have now revealed that a man’s sperm production and quality declines with age and male fertility appears to wane after the age of 40 – 45. Due to their ability of continuously producing sperms throughout their lives, there are less apparent guidelines for men on non-cancer/non-medical fertility preservation, but under the age of 40 is a reasonable time.

How to Make a Decision of Preserving Fertility?

This is an extremely difficult question and one that requires consultation with an infertility specialist as well as a reproductive health counselor such as Dr Shivani Sachdev Gour. The pursuit of fertility is a physical, emotional, and financial investment with all three of these factors carrying equal weight and importance. People should decide very carefully before the preservation. Dr. Shivani discusses some issues that people must keep in mind before fertility preservation:

  • Financial Constraint: Fertility Preservation is an expensive process as it requires some medical tests and sperm/egg preserving labs. People have to pay for the time duration they need to keep their sperms preserved in these labs. Thus, they must be sure about preservation of fertility and make decision according to their financial condition.
  • Health Issue: Some people who want to become parents but they are cancer patients or surviving from any other disease where they cannot conceive, must think and decide very carefully about preservation of fertility. Anxiety is common in risky condition of health therefore a great patience is necessary during decision making by the suffering people.
  • Emotional Issue: People keep them emotionally strong for preservation of fertility.Because some of the people worry a lot about success rate of procedure. They keep thinking about future that whether they able to conceive using preserved egg/sperm in future or not. This is also an issue which can affect their decision of fertility preservation.
  • Unstable Relationship: Some couples have not stable relationship. It is very big issue for them to decide whether preserve their fertility or not. They should be ready for the future preservation about fertility after a deep discussion between both of the partners.

While advances in technology today allow for immediate and effective fertility preservation for men and women, in spite of that it is necessary never to pursue a pregnancy until peoples are physically, emotionally, financially prepared, and in a stable relationship, if applicable.

When Couples Should Think About IVF Treatment?

IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) is a process that provides couples an opportunity to have a baby when other treatments have failed or are not appropriate. But the major question is, what are the conditions and factors to opt for IVF treatment?

There are some medical conditions in which couples should think about an IVF treatment.

Infertility

(IVF) has become an established treatment for many forms of infertility. Infertility can be in women or men both. Usually, infertility means not being able to get pregnant even after one year of unprotected sex (or six months if a woman is 35 or older). Following are some reasons in which IVF is helpful to conceive a baby.

  • Fallopian tube damage or blockage.
  • Ovulation disorders.
  • Premature ovarian failure.
  • Endometriosis
  • Uterine fibroids.
  • Previous tubal sterilization or removal.
  • Impaired sperm production or function.
  • Unexplained infertility.

Genetic Disorder

A couple can opt for IVF treatment if either of the partner has a genetic disorder that they do not want to pass on to their baby. In this case, healthy egg or sperm is taken from donor and fertilized in lab using IVF.

Genetic Disorder
                                                  Source: redorbit.com

Fertility Preservation for Future Use

IVF treatment is helpful in fertility preservation to freeze eggs or sperm for future use. If either of the partners is suffering from cancer and about to start a treatment, they can arrange to freeze their healthy eggs or sperm, as chemotherapy and radiotherapy can harm fertility. These eggs or sperm can be thawed later and used in IVF once the cancer treatment is over.

fertility-preservation
                                                 Source: obgyn.mcw.edu
Apart from medical conditions, there are some factors that lead couples to opt for IVF treatment.
  • The couple should be financially strong or must have a financial source for treatment; as IVF treatment is an expensive process.
  • The couple should be determined and patient enough to conceive a baby by this method; because IVF treatment may not be successful in one cycle and may require two or three cycles for result.