Infertility. Can it be treated Doctor?
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For the past 17 good years working as a medical doctor, one of the most challenging episode was dealing with a couple or one of the partners who came to clinic for consultation on difficulties to conceive child of their own.
I could only imagine how they felt.
I would normally ask several questions in order to know them better.
- Are they staying together? Yes I do ask this question. Some may have been married but because of working commitment, they only meet once every week or more.
- How long have they been married?
- Have they consulted any doctor or specialist?
- Any of their family members have similar problem?
- Have they done IUI or IVF in the past?
- Have they considered adopting a child? And many more questions.
Once I know them better, it will be much easier talking to them and make them comfortable.
There are 2 types of infertility.
A. Primary Infertility – Couple who never got a pregnant after more than 1 year having sex.
B. Secondary Infertility – Inability to get pregnant to term after previously giving birth to a baby.
Usually I would start my consultation by sharing a story about someone I knew who have similar problem as them.
This is a story about a couple who have been married for 5 years and unable to conceive before they decided to adopt a baby. They have difficulties to conceive despite being told that every test came out to be normal. You could only imagine the irony. They have given up trying and leave everything to God.
Then on the 13th year of their marriage, wife got pregnant and delivered a very healthy baby girl. Now the girl is 7 years old.
Why is this happening? Is the infertility cured?
I told them another story. It's rather funny but I wasn't trying to.
I used to have a dairy milk cows business. The objective of this business was to have continuous supply of fresh milk every day. So, we must make sure that every cow got pregnant. How do we do it? We either introduce a bull inside their feedlot or looking for sign of heat in cattle. If we miss it, it will hurt the business.
My theory was, even an animal heat period must be accurately identified. I think it is the same for human.
Not all human have similar duration of ovulation phase. That explain why someone finds it easier to get pregnant and someone need to wait up to 13 years or more to get pregnant.
We could solve most infertility problem if we could accurately identify the most fertile period.
When does women become most fertile?
The few days surrounding ovulation (from approximately days 10 to 18 of a 28 day cycle), constitute the most fertile phase. This are called luteal phase.
Therefore, some women can be most fertile for 8 days and some could probably be most fertile for less than 1 day.
In both cases, they may show similar blood investigation results, which are normal.
However, not all of them will show similar picture like the above, they would be someone who is genuinely infertile. If they are, I would normally refer them to fertility clinic where they can be appropriately managed.
Most of my content are mainly based on my experiences as a General Practitioner.
Please consult your family doctor or your general practitioner for more info. Or you can always come back to my blog.
Next, Infertility Part 2. I would talk more on how I normally manage them at general practitioner level.
Thank you for reading.
p/s: I would start tag at steemitgp which stand for steemit general practitioner. This tag is for everybody who wish to share or to have better understanding about primary healthcare.
