What is infertility?

Infertility is defined as the failure to conceive after a year or more of regular sexual activity during the time of ovulation. An estimated one in every five couples (men and women equally) in the United States experiences infertility. It is not a disease. Rather, it is a symptom that something is preventing the reproductive processes from working properly, and needs treating.

A highly prevalent feeling of people with infertility is loss of control. Most people assume they can have children when they choose. After twenty or thirty years of assuming you would have your children when wanted, and spending time and energy trying not to get pregnant, you feel frustrated when you decide to have the baby and find that it is not so simple.

We are taught from an early age that the harder we work at something, the more likely we are to get it. Infertility is different. How hard you work at getting pregnant or what kind of person you are is irrelevant. Many get stressed at the job of making babies and this work against them. Stress is one of the major causes of infertility in couples who have no problems otherwise.


Symptoms Of Infertility:
Infertility is a major and growing problem. Over three million visits each year to North American physicians are for infertility. The demand for treatment is increasing and the cost, both financial and emotional, can severely strain relationships.

*Inability to conceive a child after one year of unprotected sex
*A total sperm count lower than 5 Million/ml
*The presence of greater than fifty percent abnormal sperm
*Inability of sperm to impregnate egg, as determined by the postcoital or hamster-egg penetration tests

Reproduction In A Woman

Five important hormones stimulate the reproductive system of a woman:

• gonadotropin-releasing hormone
• luteinizing hormone
• follicle stimulating hormone
• estrogen
• progesterone

Here is how the hormones work:

• The hypothalmus, a region in the brain, first releases a hormone called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH).
• GnRH causes the pituitary gland to produce two more hormones--luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone.
• These hormones, in turn, tell the ovaries to release estrogen and progesterone.

How hormones regulate a woman's fertility

A woman's ovaries contain 200,000 to 400,000 egg follicles--small sacs that contain the ingredients needed to form ripened eggs.

• Over a two-week period in a woman's monthly cycle, FSH causes several follicles in the ovaries to ripen and mature.
• FSH also orders the ovaries to produce estrogen, which in turn, launches the manufacture of large amounts of LH hormone.
• LH hormone stimulates the release of an egg from the largest follicle into the fallopian tubes - a process called ovulation.
• LH hormone also stimulates the follicle to produce corpeus luteum - a collection of yellow tissue that manufactures progesterone.
• Progesterone and estrogen work together to thicken and prepare the lining of the uterus for a fertilized egg.
• Together, these hormones swell the lining of the uterus with blood, making it easier for a fertilized egg to implant itself there.