Infertility and In vitro fertilisation (IVF)

A discussion on reproductive health is totally incomplete without mentioning infertility which is a serious problem in present generation. As we have already discussed about reproductive health earlier, let us discuss this burning topic of this generation. A large number of couples all over the world including India are infertile, i.e. they are unable to produce babies inspite of unprotected sexual co-habitation. The reason for this could be physical, congential, diseases, drugs, immunological or even psychological. In India, basically women are blamed for couple being infertile but the problem may lie in male or female partner. Some specialised healthcare units and doctors can help these couples in diagnosis and corrective treatment of some of these problems. Even if they are not able to give birth to baby with such corrective measures then the couples may be assisted to have baby through some special techniques called assisted reproductive technologies (ART).

It was more than two decades ago, in an experimental procedure called in vitro fertilisation (IVF), doctors joined woman’s egg and a man’s sperm in a glass dish in a laboratory. For the first time, conception happened outside a woman’s body. Nine months later, world’s first test tube baby was born. Today, assisted reproductive technology (ART) refers not inly to IVF several various tailored to patient’s unique conditions. These procedures are usually paired with more conventional therapies, such as fertility drugs, to increase success rate. Almost one out of every three cycles of ART results in the birth of a baby these procedures are invasive and expensive. Though no long term health effects have been linked to children born using ART procedure, most doctors recommend ART as a last sort of having a baby.

There are so many ways to produce baby by ART and some of them are discussed below:

Ø In vitro fertilization (IVF): This is one of the most commonly used procedures. Eggs are combined with partner’s sperm in a dish artificially. Once fertilization occurred, the resulting embryo develops for 3-5 days in artificial medium and then it is placed in the uterus of the mother.

Ø Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI): In this process, one of the partner’s sperm is places inside the egg with a microscopic needle, rather than many sperms positioned close to the egg as in IVF. Once fertilization occurs, the resulting embryo is placed inside the mother’s uterus.

Ø Gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT): In this process, an ovum is collected from a donor and is transferred to the fallopian tube of a woman who can’t produce one but can provide suitable environment for fertilization and the further development.

Ø Zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT): In this process, ova or egg from the wife/donor (Female) and sperms from husband/donor (Male) are collected and are induced to form zygote under simulated conditions in the laboratory. The zygote or an early embryo with eight blastomeres is then transferred into the fallopian tube and the zygote with more than eight blastomeres is directly transferred into the uterus (IUT – Intra-Uterine Transfer) to complete its further development.

Ø Artificial insemination (AI): Infertility in man is either due to inability to achieve an erection of penis to inseminate the female or due to very low sperm count in the semen. It is corrected by AI process. In this process, the semen is collected either from the husband or a healthy donor and is artificially introduced into the vagina or into the uterus of the female.

Ø Surrogacy or use of a gestational carrier: In this process, another woman carries embryo or a donor embryo to term.

Though there are so many options for an infertile couple to have baby, all these techniques require extremely high precision handling by specialised professionals and expensive instrumentation but with the advancement of technologies, these facilities are presently available in most of the cities of the country. All these methods of ART are very expensive and for this reason, its benefit is affordable to only limited number of people. Since the ultimate aim of all these procedure is to have children, infertile couples can adopt orphaned and destitute children who need care and support. As we are loving in a developing country and most of the population of our country are not educated properly about sexual problems, generally women are divorced for not able to give birth to babies without medical confirmation. Even women are always blamed for giving birth to girl children which is fully depends on male partner as the sex chromosome in sperm only determines the sex of babies. Our society is totally male dominated and people accept everything that goes in favour of man. We need to educate our people about reproduction and reproductive health then only we can expect for a healthy and balanced society.