When couples have trouble getting pregnant, many erroneously assume they’ll have to go straight to In Vitro to have their baby. But IVF is considered an advanced fertility treatment, and many infertility problems can be successfully treated in more basic ways.
Get on the right schedule.
Sometimes the problem is simply that couples aren’t having intercourse at the right time. For “regular” women, have intercourse daily beginning five days before your expected ovulation date, and keep it up until the day after. If you aren’t so regular, an ovulation predictor kit may help you determine the dates on which to focus your efforts.
Stay cool.
Too much heat can damage or destroy sperm. That’s why men who are trying to get their partner pregnant should avoid hot tubs, using a laptop on their lap. While we’re at it, research also has linked smoking, drug use, excessive drinking, high stress and poor sleep quality to impaired male fertility, so it’s a good time to focus on your overall health, guys, for everyone’s sake.
Ovulate. Ovulate. Ovulate.
If there is no egg to fertilize, there can be no baby. For women who aren’t ovulating regularly (or at all), this will be your doctor’s primary focus, mainly through the use of prescription medications, like Clomid, which has about a 43% success rate for pregnancy.
Give them a head start.
If the cause of infertility is sperm count, sperm motility issues, or problems with ejaculation, these can often be overcome with intrauterine insemination (IUI). During IUI, the doctor places concentrated sperm directly inside the woman’s uterus. IUI is also an effective treatment when infertility is related to cervical issues such as “hostile” cervical mucus or cervical scar tissue.
Of course the treatment we at Fertility Treatment Center will recommend will depend on the results of extensive infertility testing of both partners. If these low tech fertility treatments don’t or can’t work for you, we may may recommend more advanced treatments such as IVF, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), or other forms of assisted reproduction.
