Pioneering Fertility Care
Using techniques like IUI and IVF, these couples can have children. There is a seed-and-soil theory on pregnancy. The seeds represent sperms and eggs while the soil represents the uterus. If they are brought to an optimized level, then the chances of getting pregnant successfully increase.
The main goal when looking at an infertility patient is to find out why they are infertile. In females it is 30 per cent, in males also it is 30 per cent, while in some cases both partners contribute 30 per cent and there is no particular cause identified called unexplained infertility that contributes the remaining 10 per cent.
First, when patients come for treatment, it is wise not to rush them into anything as such; instead, we conduct investigations thorough enough to ascertain both partners’ fertility status. In addition, at times we do genetic profiling tests for some couples with long-term infertility or several failures of IVF so that we know if there is a genetic contribution towards their condition and personalize their care plan based on this specific detail. This gives us insight into how they would respond to different drugs and also lets us know how much of which drugs they should be given and so on known as precision medicine.
Besides helping with fertilization outside the human body using technology such as incubators, some other tests are performed too. Sometimes we receive immature eggs from our patients meaning through technology; these immature eggs are grown outside but still inside an artificial environment that makes them ready for reproduction purposes. Besides, AI helps in identifying strong embryos that have a possibility of success as far as pregnancy is concerned.
For sperms, different technologies are available. Microfluidics however has become very popular where we use chips to sort out the best sperms hence choosing only those that are perfect. Normally, sperms are visualized using a 400x power microscope but in cases where there are very few sperms, we use IMSI technology whereby the sperms are magnified to 6600x so that defects that may be overlooked at that level of magnification can be detected and avoided.
After fertilization, AI helps in choosing which embryos will have the highest chances of implantation. This is one way of knowing that you have chosen the best embryo to ensure it has a better chance of being successful.
With the help of such advanced technologies and numerous other innovative approaches, we can significantly enhance the likelihood of conception. This means we can make the dream of parenthood achievable for all couples struggling with infertility.
