Treatment procedures for infertility problem - IVF, in vitro fertilization(Part 3)

IVF Process

Step One - Ovarian Downregulation

This is a preparation procedure that uses medications, such as Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist or GnRH antagonist to temporarily ‘switch off’ the messages going from the brain (pituitary gland) to the ovaries telling them to produce an egg on a monthly basis.

 

Pituitary gland, which is close to the front of your brain, is responsible for the normal functioning of your ovaries.

 

Suppressing the pituitary gland not only helps in achieving optimum ovarian stimulation, but most importantly it stops your ovaries from releasing premature eggs.

 

Ovarian downregulation is particularly helpful for women who respond poorly, or not at all, to the ovarian stimulating medications and therefore cannot take the full advantage of the IVF treatment. 

 

 

 

Step Two - Ovarian stimulation

This involves stimulating the development and the release of eggs using various infertility medications.

 Infertility medications like gonadotropins will be used to stimulate the growth of the follicles and eggs which will be retrieved for IVF procedure.

Your doctor will monitor you frequently during this time to make sure your follicles are developing properly and to identify the right time for egg retrieval. Once your follicles are developed, your doctor will retrieve the mature eggs.

 

What does it involve?

Your treatment will depend on your specify needs but it generally include following pathway:

 

Are there any restrictions of using hCG injection?
Sometimes hCG injection may be stopped because:

·           A lack of mature eggs for the IVF procedure such that the follicles may not have developed properly

·           Woman ovulates prematurely and the eggs cannot be retrieved

·           Woman develops too many follicles and doctor feels that it would be unsafe to give the hCG injection.

 

How long is ovarian stimulation?

It can be a lengthy process with a lot of your time devoting to attending appointments with your doctor and taking your medications at the right time. The length of ovarian stimulation will depend on your ovarian response during the treatment.

 

Reference: fertility.com.hk

The information aims to provide educational purpose only. Anyone reading it should consult obstetricians and gynecologists before considering treatment and should not rely on the information above.