infertility treatments

• Fertility is how likely a person is able to conceive (have a baby).

  There are many factors that can affect fertility.
• Some women have levels of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) that

  are too low to cause their eggs to mature. This means that no eggs

  are released and the women can't get pregnant.
• The hormones FSH and LH can be given to women in a fertility

  drug to stimulate ovulation.
• The advantages of using hormones is that is increases the chance of

  pregnancy, however, many women may have to do it multiple times

  which can be expensive and multiple eggs may be released resulting

  in multiple pregnancies.
• If a woman can’t get pregnant using medication, she might try IVF (in-vitro

  fertilisation).
• IVF involves collecting eggs from the woman's ovaries and fertilising them in a lab using the man’s sperm.

  FSH and LH are given before egg collection to stimulate several eggs to

  mature (so more than one egg can be collected).
• IVF treatment can also involve a technique called Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), where the sperm is injected directly into an egg. It is useful if the man has a very low sperm count.
• The fertilised eggs are then grown into embryos in a laboratory incubator.

  Once the embryos are tiny balls of cells, one or two of them are transferred to the woman's uterus to improve the chance of pregnancy.
• IVF increases the chances of pregnancy, however, there a few

  disadvantages:

  • The success rate is low, which makes the process very stressful

  and upsetting, especially if it ends in multiple failures

  • It is physically stressful because of the hormonal treatment and

  procedures

  • Some women have strong reactions e.g. Abdominal pain and

  vomiting

  • It is expensive
  • It can lead to multiple births
• The process of IVF often results in unused embryos that are

  eventually destroyed. Because of this, some people think it is

  unethical because each embryo is a potential human life.
• The genetic testing of embryos before implantation also raises

  ethical issues as some people think it could lead to the selection

  of preferred characteristics, such as gender or eye colour.