What Are the Most Commonly Offered Fertility Treatments?
Real Issue With Common Fertility Treatments
These days, fertility treatments have become very common. You can see fertility clinics everywhere. However, most of them only focus on achieving successful conception and don’t address the real problems causing fertility issues in the first place.
Hence, as explained in the chapters above, even if conception is achieved, the overall failure rate remains high.Hence, as explained in the chapters above, even if conception is achieved, the overall failure rate remains high.
3 Most Common Fertility Treatments
Even if there is a little problem in conception, patients are promptly advised one of the following procedures:
- Hormonal Treatment
- Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)
- In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)
Hormonal Treatment
When troubled with difficulties in conception, hormonal treatment is the primary recommendation made by doctors.
As you might have known by now, hormonal imbalances are responsible for most fertility issues. An imbalance in your hormones is usually responsible for all fertility issues besides structural and genetic factors.
From primary issues like difficulties in egg development and timely ovulation to implantation issues and even miscarriages, hormonal balance plays a very important role everywhere.
Hence, the doctors immediately examine a woman for hormonal imbalances whenever she complains of fertility issues.
The Process
Normally, in the first 14-days after your periods, your ovaries should produce oestrogen and progesterone hormones in optimum quantities. These hormones are required for egg growth, development, and ovulation.
If that is not happening then there could be conception issues. Modern fertility treatments address this problem by supplementing oestrogen and progesterone hormones through pills. In some cases, only oestrogen is given to the patients.
This additional boost of hormones helps in the growth and development of the egg. Around the 14th day of this cycle, a hormonal injection is given to the patient to induce ovulation when the egg has achieved its desired size. Due to this injection, the egg follicle breaks and the egg is released from the ovaries.
This process requires continuous monitoring. Your doctor might do repeated sonographies to monitor the egg size and when the desired size has been achieved, ovulation is induced using a hormonal boost. As soon as ovulation occurs, the prime conception window opens up. The doctors advise their patients to have as frequent intercourse as possible during this period.
Even after ovulation, some progesterone pills are given to patients to increase the chances of successful conception. You must understand that your whole pregnancy until this point is dependent on an external hormonal boost. It doesn’t end here. You will remain dependent on chemical hormones throughout your pregnancy to sustain it.
Causes of Failure
Hormonal treatment has a considerably high failure rate. It is the first line of treatment but not very effective in itself. The problem lies in the surface solution offered by it.
Hormonal imbalances cause problems in natural egg growth, development, and quality. Inadequate hormonal production also affects timely ovulation. While hormonal treatment can boost egg growth and induce ovulation, it can’t improve egg quality. On the contrary, synthetic hormones deteriorate the quality of eggs significantly.
The quality of the egg is very important. In the end, this egg has to carry out the whole journey by itself and implant itself on the uterus bed called the endometrium. If the quality of the egg is not high, it will fail in the further steps leading to conception failures.
Firstly, hormonal treatment carries a real-life risk of aggravating pre-existing hormonal imbalance issues in the patient. Secondly, hormonal treatment usually deteriorates the quality of the egg. This leads to a very high rate of conception failures.
Side Effects
The most common side effects of hormonal treatment are:
- Severe mood changes and mood swings that may also include anxiety and depression
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Headaches
- Cramps
- Breast tenderness
- Increased risk of pregnancy loss
Overall Impact on Hormonal Balance and Health: While hormonal treatment is given to supplement a few hormones lacking in your reproductive system, it doesn’t address the real problem. On the contrary, it can aggravate the hormonal imbalance in your body. Suppose a woman is suffering from PCOS or endometriosis. In that case, it can have a long-term impact on her health and ability to conceive.
Conception Failures: Many women are generally kept in the dark about the impact of this treatment on the quality of the egg. While this treatment can help increase the egg size and timely induce ovulation, the egg quality remains poor. Such eggs most likely fail during the fertilisation stage. When the sperm fertilises such eggs, the embryo doesn’t replicate at the desired speed and strength. It ultimately results in conception failures.
Implantation Failures: Excess hormonal supplementation also deteriorates the endometrium layer and the egg quality. This is the layer where embryo implantation occurs. Endometrium health is crucial for the successful implantation and nutrition of the embryo. Hence, the chances of implantation failures after a few days of conception increase considerably.
Hormonal treatment isn’t wrong in itself. It is simply being misused and overused. Most healthcare institutions are using this treatment without giving due consideration to the specific health requirements of the patients, which may lead to considerable drawbacks.
