When a childless couple is not able to conceive, there are myriad paths that the couple may follow to obtain a solution. If IVF does not help the couple, then they can go in for surrogacy. In this method, another lady conceives, carries and gives birth to the baby created by the sperm and eggs of the intended parents. Let us find out more about surrogacy today.

Who can use it?
Surrogacy can be availed by couples who are not able to conceive due to many conclusive reasons including the absence of a womb or the malfunctioning of the same. Also, recurrent miscarriages can be one of the reasons. Further, a couple who has been through IVF or In Vitro Fertilisation implantation failure a number of times can opt for surrogacy.

How does it Work?
Full surrogacy, as it is known, is a process of implanting an embryo in a host body. This embryo is usually created using the egg and the sperm of the parents, or even a fertilised egg that has been donated by a donor, which is then fertilised using the sperm from the intended father. Also, this embryo may be created by using donor eggs and donor sperms. Partial surrogacy is also a method that may be used. When artificial insemination or intrauterine insemination (IUI) is used to create an embryo with the sperm from the intended father and the egg from the surrogate mother, then the process is known as partial surrogacy.

Chance of having a baby with surrogacy
The chance of having a baby with surrogacy depend on various factors. It depends on the ability of the surrogate to get pregnant, as well as her overall health. Before choosing a surrogate, it is important to put her through all the necessary tests to ascertain a good state of health. Further, the age of the egg donor is also a factor in such cases. The success of related procedures like IVF or IUI will also determine the chances of conception through this method. Furthermore, the quality of the elements used by the couple or the intended parents will also make a difference to the process and its efficacy. Yet, the most important factor includes the age of the woman whose egg is being used.

Difference between IVF and Surrogacy
In IVF, the eggs are gathered from the woman and the sperm is taken from her partner before an embryo is created and affixed in the uterus of the intended mother. In surrogacy, it is actually another woman who carries this lab-created embryo through methods like artificial insemination. The sperm may come from the father and the egg may be donated by someone else, in many cases involving full or partial surrogacy.

What is Surrogacy and how it is different from IVF

Daljindar Kaur's inspiring story of motherhood: How IVF became her savior

The success of In vitro fertilization continues in India as a septuagenarian woman gives birth to a baby boy. Even after 46 years of marriage, the couple from Amritsar was childless. Daljinder Kaur, along with her 79-year-old husband, Mohinder Singh Gill, had been visiting National fertility and the Test Tube Baby Centre in Hisar since 2013 and did not give up even after two failed IVF cycles. They had faced ridicule for their inability to have a baby and yet they kept their hopes up.
On the 19th of April, the couple was blessed with a baby boy who is nothing less than a miracle. The groundbreaking achievement of the embryologists from Hisar has been an inspiration and a beacon of hope for couples all across the country. Once again, IVF has proved to be one of the most successful procedures to have babies for couples with fertility issues. Following are some of the advantages of In vitro fertilization, which you should know about-
1. It can be used by anybody
In-vitro fertilization is not necessarily used by the going to be a mother. It can be used by gestational carriers or by a surrogate as well. So it depends on whether the parents want to take the help of a surrogate or themselves want to be involved in the pregnancy. IVF gives an opportunity to single women and same-sex couples to become parents.
2. Use of donated eggs and sperms
There might be circumstances when the doctor can recommend using donated sperms or eggs. In that case, the eggs can be fertilized manually in the lab and the fetus developed can be used for in vitro fertilization. This increases the chance of pregnancy by a fair amount.
3. Control over timing
In vitro fertilization is a solution for couples who have a very engaging professional life, and can be an option for people who want to have babies after a certain point of time. Eggs and embryos can be preserved for future use. It is also helpful for couples who already have a child and plan to have another later.
4. Decreases chances of miscarriage
Genetic abnormality is one of the primary causes of miscarriage. The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is used to ensure the viability of the embryo much ahead of time so that the mother can have an uncomplicated pregnancy and carry her baby full term.



Daljindar Kaur's inspiring story of motherhood: How IVF became her savior

If you are trying to get pregnant through IVF, then you must be receiving a lot of suggestions from people close to you. You get suggestions about lifestyle changes, changes in your diet and much more. You will definitely get to hear about the Mediterranean diet in that list. This is one of the best diets that can ensure a healthy pregnancy.

There are so many studies conducted on the right diet for women to achieve a healthy pregnancy. A diet which is rich in vegetables, fruits, high fibre, whole grains and fish is good and the Mediterranean diet has just what a woman requires.

What is the Mediterranean diet?
The Mediterranean diet includes eating fresh fruits and vegetables. It also includes good fat, proteins and carbohydrates. When you are opting for IVF treatment, your overall lifestyle plays an important role such as the food you consume. You need to add more proteins to your diet as that can help in the production of eggs. You need to consume vegetable protein and not just animal protein.

How can the Mediterranean diet influence the results of an IVF?

Your body should be able to absorb the nutrients from the food that you eat. This will help in the production of quality sperm, egg and hormones. So, the Mediterranean diet can help you with that.
The Mediterranean diet helps manage blood sugar levels. Most women crave sweets or experience mood swings caused by hormones good food can help control these. When you are able to manage your blood sugar with the help of this diet, then you will be able to produce good quality or healthy eggs.
You will have to make sure that the food you are eating is protecting the cells from radical damage. When the cells in the body are damaged, then they will impact the quality of the sperm and egg produced. The Mediterranean diet is high in antioxidants that protect the cells.
The Mediterranean diet contains good fats. Fats from fish are very good as they boost the cell membranes. Inflammation is also prevented with the help of this good fat.
Apart from that, you will also find the Mediterranean diet useful in reducing obesity, heart diseases and diabetes.
Being overweight can also be one of the reasons for not getting pregnant. This diet will help you maintain a good weight. People with sleeping disorders are also able to overcome the problem. So, overall the Mediterranean diet is the best diet for maintaining overall health. Overall good health will guarantee a good and healthy pregnancy. 

Mediterranean Diet - How Can It Influence The Results After IVF?

Women undergo menopause in their 40s and this is primarily known as the age after which they can't bear children in their wombs any more. The ability to develop and maintain a healthy pregnancy wanes as a woman crosses the age of 30, which according to research is the optimal time for a woman to become a mother.

The body undergoes changes as it gets older and women slowly start losing the perfect conditions for pregnancy. However, with the rise of the IVF treatment for infertility, a great number of people are choosing to embrace parenthood at a relatively advanced age. However, the question is, can the same IVF treatment prove effective for a woman after her menopause?

The answer is yes. There have been several instances where a woman past menopause has been implanted with a fertilized egg and has been able to conceive a healthy offspring from the same. However, such an IVF treatment is much more complex and can require a lot of external hormonal treatments on the side as well.

How can IVF help menopausal women?
Women, who have gone into menopause more than 6 months ago, require additional care to achieve pregnancy through IVF. The uterus is usually shrunken in such people and the endometrial lining also develops a resistance to estrogen. Several cycles of estrogen treatment are needed for such women to achieve a healthy pregnancy.

Most doctors suggest at least a couple of months of estrogen and progesterone treatment prior to taking the actual IVF treatment. However, there is no guarantee that the same will be effective in every case.

By any chance, if the menopausal woman chose to store her eggs prior to her menopause, she can get those eggs fertilized and implanted after menopause, using the IVF method, in order to achieve a healthy pregnancy. Through, this procedure, the woman can not only become pregnant after menopause but can also ensure that she is the biological mother of the child who would be born.

At any rate, it is best to undergo the IVF treatment before menopause, as this improves the chances of conceiving. The hormonal treatments are often easier and most women can completely forego the progesterone and estrogen supplementation in such a case. This will not only reduce the time required to complete the treatment but will also significantly reduce the cost that the parents have to bear.

Can IVF Help Menopausal Women Get Pregnant?

When we talk about infertility attention usually falls on treatment for women. However, infertility can affect men as well. The condition of infertility, can be described as the inability to become pregnant for a period of 1 year despite having unprotected, well-timed sexual intercourse. A low sperm count is one of the primary reasons for infertility in men.

Typically there should be fifteen million sperm per milliliter of semen. Low sperm count refers to the ejaculation of less than a normal amount of sperm in semen. This can also be termed as oligospermia. A complete absence of sperm in semen is known as azoospermia. Low sperm count does not mean that you cannot impregnate your partner but it reduces the chance of a successful conception. Thus, one of the most common ways to treat infertility caused by low sperm count is IVF.

IVF involves harvesting eggs from the woman s uterus and sperm from the male partner and combining them in a laboratory to form a zygote. When IVF is used to treat male infertility, a semen analysis is the first step. This helps determine the patient s sperm count, sperm motility, volume, pH levels, white blood cell levels etc.
The ejaculated semen is then processed so as to separate the sperm cells from the plasma. In this process sperm cells with higher motility are identified and segregated. These cells have a higher chance of fertilizing the egg.
Sperm cells are then injected into the harvested egg. Some techniques may require the injection of 50,000 or more sperm cells while others such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be effective with a single sperm cell. Once the egg is fertilized, it is allowed to develop for a few days in the laboratory. 
Two or three embryos are then selected to be reintroduced into the woman s uterus with the help of a catheter. The remaining fertilized embryos are preserved in an embryo bank in case the pregnancy is not successful. If these need to be used later, the woman does not have to go through the initial stages of IVF treatment to stimulate the follicles and harvest eggs from the ovaries.
When it comes to IVF, the success rates are very high. However, one of the most common side effects is the birth of twins or triplets. This is because multiple embryos are inserted into the uterus. The number of babies born then depends on the number of embryos that are implanted successfully.

Declining Sperm Count - How IVF Can Help Deal With It?

Intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) are two commonly used methods of fertility treatment, which increase a couple s chance of becoming pregnant.

The Procedure

IUI- IUI is a procedure during which processed and concentrated motile sperm are inserted directly into a woman s uterus. This procedure is timed according to a woman s ovulation, and may be performed one to two times in the days immediately following the detection of ovulation. After ovulation a woman s egg is picked up by the fallopian tube and waits there for the sperm. Since the IUI procedure deposits higher concentrations of good quality sperm close to where the egg is waiting, the chances that the egg and sperm will find one another are increased.

IVF- IVF is the most successful method of fertility treatment utilized today to help couples to conceive. The basic components of the IVF process include stimulation of the ovaries to produce multiple eggs at a time, removal of the eggs from the ovary (egg retrieval), fertilization of the eggs in the laboratory, and subsequent placement of the resulting embryos into the uterus (embryo transfer). The chance of pregnancy from IVF depends primarily on the age of the woman, the cause of infertility, and factors related to the quality of the IVF laboratory.

Success Rates

IUI Treatment: There is a marked difference between IVF and IUI pregnancy rates. IUI has a success rate between 5% and 20%, but it can even be as low as 1-2 %, depending on the woman s age and fertility levels. The chances of conceiving through IUI is higher if fertility drugs are administered along with the treatment.

IVF Treatment: IVF has a high success rate   between 20% and 35% and it can even go as high as 40%. This may not seem like a lot, but it is very high, considering that an average young and fertile couple has only a 15-20% chance to conceive in a month. It is important to understand what IVF and IUI success rates mean and the factors that affect it before deciding on a fertility treatment. You can also use any reliable online IUI vs IVF comparison tool to determine your approximate success rates with each of these treatments, depending on your age, lifestyle, and medical history.

You should use online sources of information to understand more about fertility problems, how age affects fertility levels, and whether freezing your eggs is a good option for you. However, discuss all these issues with your doctor to ensure that you have the right information and that you have understood it correctly. Fertility specialists provide you with personalized fertility plans based on your health which is why you should always talk to them before you make any decision.

IVF or IUI - Which One Should You Opt for?

Don't wait any longer, manage your Insemination online with a Lybrate doctor today

Consult for Insemination - Online and Easy!

FilterClear All

COMMON SPECIALITIES

COMMON ISSUES