Infertility

Treatment

Treatment of Infertility

One often hears from patients that a “friend” saw Dr. X who prescribed a certain form of treatment, and “what do you think of this treatment for me?” This type of question is most distressing as it usually indicates that the couple have no idea of their specific problem.

General Principles of Treatment

Your medical advisers will follow certain principles of treatment, such as :-

Where possible, treatment should only be given once the infertility investigation is complete and a cause(s) found. The “try this, it may work” situation should most definitely be avoided.

Only specific problems should be treated. For example, there is no need to take drugs for ovulation if you are already ovulating normally.

Patients must be informed about the causes of their infertility, the reason for treatment, the type of treatment, success rate of the treatment, and, most important of all, how long treatment should last. For example, if the patient does not ovulate and is given a drug to cause ovulation, then she only has the same, no better, chance of conception as a normal ovulating female. Thus, the patient may require to take this drug for long period of time.

Certain courses of treatment need to be followed up by tests of their efficacy. For example, if a drug is taken to induce ovulation, testing should be done to check that it occurs, and continues to do so (eg midluteal progesterone).

Each infertile couple presents a unique infertility problem and is treated as such. Therefore do not compare your treatment with someone else’s!

It is important to realise that different treatment options exist. Your doctor should advise you as to which approach offers you the best chances of success, and what the alternatives are.

Treatment often requires a team approach involving your infertility specialist/gynaecologist, andrologist, infertility laboratory, nursing staff and occasionally psychologist.

Finally, if all else fails, alternatives to treatment of the infertility problem should be discussed with your doctor. These include:

Artificial insemination using donor semen, or the use of donor embryos or ova as applicable.
Remaining childless
Adoption
Surrogacy (in special circumstances)

In addition, new developments occur rapidly. You should therefore keep in regular contact with your doctor.