A New Era for Men’s Fertility: The Power of IVF
Fertility is a god’s imprint in a couple, which usually seems to be a smooth conception. However, for millions of couples around the globe, parenting is a challenging endeavor—there are lots of obstacles when a man’s infertility is the issue. There are several causes of male infertility, including low sperm production, poor morphology, hormonal disorders, and genetic factors. The recent decades offered tremendous growth in medical sciences, particularly in new reproductive technology, or assisted reproductive technology (ART), to reduce the challenges such couples face. Of all the treatments of male infertility, the most successful and widely used is in vitro fertilization (IVF).
IVF: An Overview
IVF, and in particular all the methods connected with it, is an experimental procedure that requires creating an embryo by fertilizing the woman’s ovum with a man’s sperm and then implanting the resulting organism in the woman’s uterus. The treatment procedure is as follows: stimulation of the ovarian cycle, retrieval of eggs, fertilization of eggs, culture of embryos, and embryo transfer. The use of IVF as a method of treating infertility has dramatically changed the way that couples approach the problem as they are provided with every chance to conceive without having to go through the natural reproductive process, thus the various issues that may come with male and female infertility.
IVF and Male Infertility
The fertility of sperm can be a factor in conceiving, and IVF surmounts this because it does not require the sperm to be of high quality. In IVF, the sperm and egg are put together in a fertilization dish, so sperm do not have to reach the egg in the woman’s body to fertilize it. This has made it possible for traditional sperm indices such as sperm concentration, motility, and morphology to have limited value in the diagnosis of infertility.
Other Advantages of IVF for Male Factors
Controllable environment
IVF occurs in a laboratory setting, so the medical practitioners can fine-tune fertilization conditions and subsequent embryonic development.
Multiple embryos
IVF will likely produce surplus embryos, which can be cryopreserved and later used if required. Not only will it help increase the probability of conception in the current cycle, but it will also give a further opportunity for the next cycle should it be needed.
Reduced risk of genetic disorders: Subjects
IVF is used for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), in which embryos are tested for genetic disorders before being implanted in the uterus. This lowers the probability of transmitting hereditary diseases to the children and is especially helpful to that couple where the man is infertile and may likely have a child with some hereditary disease.
Conclusion
IVF, or treatments of male infertility, have revolutionized infertility treatment and given couples an additional opportunity to use IVF to decide on childlessness when they are facing the issue of male infertility. Thanks to IVF, fertilization can be artificially controlled, ICSI or other superior technologies can be applied, and multiple embryos can be created and genetically tested to be then transferred for couples suffering from male infertility to start families. Such assumptions are pretty realistic because as research proceeds, improvements in ART are sure to increase the chances of IVF success in cases of male infertility.