Nowadays, medicine offers different solutions to have a child when it is not possible to achieve it in a natural or conventional way. Common problems such as infertility, which limit the reproductive capacity of human beings, can be combated thanks to the proliferation and success of different Assisted Reproduction procedures.
There are treatments adapted for both women and men. The best known are artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization. Insemination consists of monitoring ovulation by ultrasound (i.e. the patient’s menstrual period) and introducing the semen into the uterus at the moment of ovulation. The sperm can be from the couple themselves, when the infertility problems belong to the woman, or from a donor qualified by the Sperm Bank, who will have passed rigorous medical controls to avoid the transmission of any type of disease. Several insemination cycles are performed until pregnancy is achieved.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) consists of stimulating the ovaries with medication, extracting the eggs when they are mature and joining them with the couple’s semen in the laboratory to fertilize them and obtain embryos. These embryos are then introduced into the uterus two or three days after fertilization, depending on the speed of development of the embryos. It is one of the most widely used methods of assisted reproduction, but it presents the risk of suffering a multiple pregnancy (triplets or more).
Monitoring the treatment
The efficacy of these treatments can reach 90% of the cases. However, in order to choose the most appropriate method, a medical specialist should be consulted. He or she will take into account the pathology presented by the couple, always starting with the simplest procedures, and then, progressively, more complex treatments will be introduced, but more effective in cases where the procedures used have not been successful. It is always necessary to go from less to more and to try to achieve pregnancy in the least interventionist way.