MYTHS AND FACTS
Myth: Partners having regular intercourse during a particular month will conceive in the same month itself
Fact: It takes a while to conceive. The fecundity that is probability of achieving a pregnancy in one menstrual cycle is only 20%. Multiple factors affect fecundity depending from the time of intercourse to various female and male factors revolving around it.
Myth: We as a couple are both healthy, we won’t have any problems conceiving
Fact: Healthy people also have infertility, various medical, genetic conditions affect fertility. Other factors to be taken into consideration is the age of the couples. The older you are there are a higher chance that you may need some form of an assisted reproductive technique.
Myth: Regular cycles are a sign of normal ovulation
Fact: Around 15 % of women can have regular cycles without ovulation which further affects fertility.
Myth: Infertility only happens to them who have no pregnancies in the past
Fact: There is an entity called as secondary infertility which occurs secondary to previous pregnancies. It may be due to further age-related decline in egg numbers in females and sperm numbers in males. It may be also due to other new conditions cropping up like endometriosis, fibroids etc.
Myth: Infertility affects couples married late or women in their late 30’s
Fact: 10 percent of women under 35 experience infertility and that numbers increases to 22 percent for women ages 35-39. Infertility is defined for population less than 35 years, for patients older than 35, this time frame is reduced to six months.
Myth: IVF is the only treatment for infertility
Fact: The Assisted reproductive technology does not always deal with IVF. Not all patients require IVF. Young couples with open fallopian tubes can try ovulation induction with planned relations or Intra uterine inseminations.
Myth: Doing IVF will guarantee you a pregnancy
Fact: Though there have been lot of breakthroughs in the process of IVF with the advent of ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), PICSI (physiologically selected Intracytoplasmic sperm injection), IMSI (Morphologically selected intracytoplasmic sperm injections), introduction of new culture medias and embryoscopes have improved the success rates of IVF however they are still not 100%.The average success rates of IVF depends form centres to centres and also on age and other factors affecting females and males.
Myth: IVF babies are abnormal
Facts: The background risk of congenital abnormalities is 2-3%, In IVF babies the risk of congenital abnormalities was around 3-4 % which is not significantly more than the background risk. Though the risk of malformations increases with advanced maternal age.
Myth: You have to take complete bed rest after IVF treatment.
Fact: There is no need of bed rest in the IVF procedure. Though we tell our patients to cut down their heavy work post embryo transfer however no bed rest is required on the other hand studies have shown that bed rest decreases the success rates of IVF.
Myth: In cases of azoospermia that is absence of sperms in semen sample then the only treatment possible is with donor sperms.
Fact: Azoospermia may be due to various causes ranging from obstruction to failure of testes to produce sperms. Various surgical sperm retrieval techniques have been developed like TEAS, PESA, TESE and micro TESA which makes it possible to retrieve sperms from testes from an azoospermic male however depending on the hormone levels.