It is easy to save the money, house, car, ready for the baby’s arrival of a sufficient material base, but wait right and left, the eagerly awaited baby is slow to arrive. At present, among the 230 million couples of childbearing age in China, the number of couples with fertility problems is increasing at a rate of 400,000 pairs per year. According to the World Health Organization statistics, with the increasingly serious environmental pollution, the pace of life is accelerating, human fertility has declined significantly. About 10-15% of couples of childbearing age need the help of human assisted reproductive technology to have children. The current situation of China’s infertility population is similar to that of the developed countries in the West, with about 10% of couples needing medical treatment in order to have children. According to reports, IVF is becoming more and more sought after, and several hospitals in the province have been granted IVF services, and patients applying for IVF have been scheduled for three or four months or even six months later. In the face of the familiar but unfamiliar technology of IVF, people are full of questions: Who can “make” IVF? What is the success rate of IVF? In this issue, we invited Prof. Yang Jing, Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine of Wuhan University People’s Hospital, to unveil the mystery of IVF – IVF Not everyone is suitable for IVF, and it takes 10 months to conceive. Is “IVF” conceived in a test tube? In fact, IVF is the process of inviting the sperm and the egg to meet outside the body, with the first meeting taking place inside the test tube. Professor Yang Jing explained the process of fertilization, the woman first uses drugs to promote ovulation, the eggs are removed from the ovaries, then the sperm is removed from the man’s body and “selected for the job”, then the sperm and eggs are put together in a laboratory dish to fertilize the eggs. After 2-5 days of in vitro culture, the embryos are then transferred back to the uterus for implantation and pregnancy. In fact, the formal name of IVF technology is “In Vitro Fertilization Transfer” (IVF-ET). The term “IVF” is not really a baby that grows up in a test tube, but a baby that lives in a test tube for a few days, and is called that for simplicity and common sense. To be precise, the baby that lives in the test tube is not yet an IVF baby. The mother’s egg and the father’s sperm are cultured in the test tube for a few days, and once the egg is fertilized, the fertilized egg is sent into the mother’s uterus under the supervision of ultrasound. Many people think that IVF is a “one and done” solution, but this is actually a misconception. Professor Yang Jing, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the People’s Hospital of Wuhan University, reminds us that IVF is the last option for infertile patients, but never the only one. In fact, only about 1/3 of the infertility patients really need this artificial means to get a child, and many patients only need artificial insemination, or medication for endocrine regulation, ovulation treatment, or endoscopic treatment. Many patients only need artificial insemination, or medication for endocrine regulation, ovulation promotion, or endoscopic treatment. Yang Jing said, because there are so many causes of infertility, it is very important to investigate the cause of infertility, and we often encounter patients who have spent tens of thousands of dollars in private clinics or hospitals that are not equipped to do so, but have not even found the cause of infertility, and finally come to us. The main tests include female sex hormone test, hysterosalpingogram, endometrial biopsy, basal body temperature measurement, etc. and semen test of male partner. For patients with ovulation disorders, different ovulation treatment methods are used depending on the cause. For tubal factors, treatment of the tubal conditions is performed. For proximal tubal obstruction and partial adhesions of the tubal lumen, hysteroscopic intubation of the tubal orifice is performed, while for pelvic adhesions and distal tubal obstruction, laparoscopic surgery is performed. Only when the fallopian tubes are completely obstructed and there is little chance of recanalization is the patient advised to undergo IVF treatment. IVF should be done with caution after the age of 43. “If you want to do the procedure, you should consider it as early as possible, and the success rate will be greatly reduced if you do it after the age of 35.” Yang Jing noted that the procedure should be considered early if one is infertile. This is because a woman’s fertility declines as she ages, and pregnancy can be extremely stressful on the heart, kidneys and liver. Not all people are suitable for IVF, even if they are eligible. Female fertility gradually decreases with age, and ovarian function begins to deteriorate after the age of 35. The pregnancy rate for IVF in patients under the age of 35 is 67%, but in patients over the age of 43, the pregnancy rate is less than 5%, and the miscarriage and malformation rates are high, making IVF unsuitable. Experts urge that IVF procedures should be done while you are young. Assisted reproductive technology cannot solve all infertility problems, and complications can occur with IVF. Psychological factors affect the chances of success Can I be sure to get pregnant after one IVF? Before and after “IVF”, the psychological and mental state of the couple is very important, they need to release the psychological pressure, communication between doctors and patients, mutual understanding and encouragement. Yang Jing introduced, although the success rate of IVF is gradually increasing, but generally at about 30-40%, there are many reasons why IVF is not successful, such as the patient’s age, years of infertility, the quality of eggs, sperm quality, etc.; on the other hand, the IVF environment itself is very important, which affects the success of IVF. These all affect the success rate of IVF. The average cost of doing an IVF is roughly around 20,000 RMB because of the need for ovulation-promoting drugs, the high cost and the high external conditions required for egg fertilization and embryo development, and the whole process requires unknown circumstances such as ovulation promotion, examination and embryo conception. The psychological and mental state of the couple is important. Women with high psychological stress, their endocrine will be affected, the blood vessels are in a state of contraction for a long time, which affects the local blood flow to the uterus and ovaries, and the tension in the nervous system will cause abnormalities in the release of some neural mediators, resulting in disorders in the contraction of the muscles of the uterus and fallopian tubes, causing embryos to fail to bed and leading to treatment failure.