What to do in case of Unexplained Infertility-Dr.Radhika Seth of Cloudnine Hospitals|Doctors’ Circle
Infertility is the inability of the couple to conceive within 1 year of marriage. Depending upon the cause of infertility the treatment varies. Typically out of 100 cases of infertility, 30 would be due to female partner, 30 would be due to male partner, 30 could be a combination of male and female partner and 10% are the cases where we do not know the cause and it comes under the umbrella of unexplained infertility. In my cases we may just give few tablets to the wife so that she produce her eggs. When these eggs rupture, which is monitored by follicular scan or ultrasounds we tell the couple when to have intercourse depending on the time when the egg is released. This is called as ovulation induction with timed intercourse or planned relation. If few cycles of this do not work, then we go to the next level of treatment which is IUI or intrauterine insemination. In intrauterine insemination, we start treatment usually on the 2nd or 3rd day of lady’s periods, where we give her hormones in the form of tablets and sometimes injectables with an aim of producing a maximum of 2 or 3 follicles. When these follicles ruptures, it usually happens around 13th or 14th day of the periods we ask the husband to give us the sperm, we clean the sperm by a process of centrifugation where we remove the dead sperms, we remove the immotile sperms and we transfer the good motile concentrate into the uterus, using a painless technique called as IUI or intrauterine insemination. IUI has a success rate of 10 to 15% per cycles if multiple IUI cycles haven’t worked, say 6 IUI cycles, or depending upon the case we sometimes shorten the IUI trying tie to 3 to 4 cycles and if multiple IUI cycles don’t work, to the tune of 4 to 5 IUI cycles, depending upon the case, we may need to advise the next levels of fertility treatment, which is invitro fertilization or IVF.
