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(text on screen): Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source
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Ask the Experts
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What are options for getting pregnant with unexplained infertility?
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Dr. Daniel Williams, Houston Infertility Institute: If we haven't found a cause for infertility,
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we really can't treat something specifically.
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Therefore, our treatment goal is simply to accelerate the time to pregnancy. That is, get the couple pregnant as quickly as possible.
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So, there are two main principles we utilize to achieve that goal.
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One is, we increase the number of eggs. And that makes sense because humans on their own make one egg a month.
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If we give fertility medicines that increase the number of eggs made in that month,
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it increases the chances for conception in that month.
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The second thing that we do is we actually want to get the sperm and egg closer together.
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And by doing that, it actually gives you higher rates above timed intercourse, or regular intercourse,
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because we try to get millions of moving sperm into the uterus
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or upper female reproductive tract by use of intrauterine insemination.
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Or, we can actually go so far as to stimulate the ovaries, take the eggs out of the ovaries, and then fertilize the eggs in the lab;
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let them grow into embryos and then put the embryos back into the uterus, which is called in vitro fertilization.
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So, those are our two methods of getting the sperm and egg closer together.
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Most studies have shown that use of either of the principles; say, doing fertility medicines alone for unexplained infertility,
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or doing intrauterine insemination alone for unexplained infertility, do not significantly increase pregnancy rates above baseline.
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So, that's usually not going to increase their chances for conception in that month.
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There are two factors that couples consider when determining which treatment option they wish to choose.
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One is cost. The other is success rates.
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IVF has the highest success rates of all treatments. Of course, it has the highest cost as well.
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But if you actually factor in doing multiple treatment cycles of a treatment that gives you a lower success rate,
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it ends up being more cost-effective to move more quickly to in vitro fertilization.
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And more recent studies have actually confirmed that.
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We would not recommend more than three cycles of any given treatment.
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In other words, most patients who are going to be pregnant with a given treatment have done so within three treatment cycles.
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Usually, in actual practice, most patients do one or two cycles of a lesser treatment before moving directly to in vitro fertilization.
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(text on screen): Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source
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