Female Fertility

• Female infertility occurs if a woman lacks the ability to get pregnant after regularly having unprotected intercourse for 12 months, or six months for women older than 35.
• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that infertility affects nearly 11 percent of reproductive-age women in the United States.
• A fertility specialist will conduct tests to help evaluate symptoms and determine a cause for infertility in a woman struggling to conceive.
• Common causes of infertility in women include ovulatory dysfunction, imbalance of hormones, and structural issues of the reproductive system.
• Treatments available for infertility in women include fertility drugs, reproductive surgery, intrauterine insemination (IUI), and in vitro fertilization (IVF).

ASRM reports that 85 percent of female infertility cases under medical attention are treated with either fertility drugs or surgery. The recommended course of treatment will vary for each woman based on her individual circumstances, including age, duration of infertility, and overall health.

Some treatments for infertility in women include:

• Lifestyle changes may help alleviate and manage chronic health problems that can cause infertility, such as obesity or smoking.
• Ovulation induction uses hormone drugs to help signal the ovaries to develop and release eggs that have reached maturation.
• Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a type of artificial insemination in which a fertility specialist will insert sperm from a partner or donor into the woman’s uterus. It is often performed to combat male infertility conditions that make it difficult for sperm to reach the woman’s egg.
• Minimally invasive surgery can remove or repair a woman’s damaged organs or tissue that cause her reproductive system to not function properly.
• In vitro fertilization (IVF) is an assisted reproduction technology (ART) involving fertilizing a woman’s egg(s) outside her body in an IVF lab, and then implanting a healthy embryo(s) in her uterus.
• Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a lab procedure used during some IVF cycles in which one healthy sperm (collected from the male partner) is inserted into the cytoplasm of a woman’s egg (collected during the first part of IVF) for a better chance at fertilization and development of a healthy embryo.
• Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) determines if a certain genetic condition exists in an embryo(s) prior to implantation during IVF.
• Preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) is a test that evaluates an embryo(s) for all chromosomal abnormalities and can also be used to determine the sex of an embryo (to avoid gender-specific genetic conditions in the baby).
• Assisted hatching is a treatment during IVF where the outer layer of an embryo is punctured to assist in its attachment (called hatching) in the uterus, increasing the likelihood of implantation and pregnancy.
• Donor eggs or donor embryos may be used in women who are unable to conceive with their own eggs or embryos.
• Gestational carriers or surrogates are women who carry a pregnancy to term for a woman who may not have the ability to carry a pregnancy due to health issues or reproductive system problems.