Infertility is a large population, but many people currently have many misconceptions about the diagnosis and treatment of infertility, and the common misconceptions in this area are briefly described below.
Misconceptions.
I. Infertility is the business of the female partner and the male partner does not need to be examined.
Both men and women may have causes of infertility, among which the female factor accounts for about 60%, and the common ones are ovarian, fallopian tube, uterine cavity, cervical and vaginal diseases. The male factor accounts for 30% of the cases, including abnormal semen, poor sperm transportation, genital malformation and systemic diseases. Male and female factors account for about 10%, such as lack of sexual knowledge, immune factors, psychological reasons, etc. A very small percentage of infertility is due to unknown reasons. So even if the female partner is checked for the cause, it does not mean that the male partner is normal, on the contrary, it is possible that the female partner is all normal and the male partner has no problem. Moreover, many causes of infertility are related to miscarriage, surgery and age. Even if the male partner has a history of causing pregnancy in the past, it cannot be excluded that there is a problem now. Therefore, the quickest way is for both partners to be examined at the same time according to the doctor’s recommendation so that the cause can be clarified and a treatment plan can be formulated as soon as possible.
Menstrual disorders can treat infertility through menstrual regulation.
Some diseases causing infertility can be manifested as menstrual disorders, such as: polycystic ovary syndrome patients manifesting as scanty menstruation, obesity, hirsutism, infertility, etc.; uterine polyps or uterine fibroids can lead to prolonged periods (more than 7 days) and increased menstrual flow; patients with uterine adhesions and hypopituitarism can manifest as reduced menstrual flow. However, some doctors and patients in the clinic lack knowledge of these diseases causing menstrual disorders and will only use drugs for menstrual regulation treatment. Many patients also think that they can get pregnant if they have regular periods, so they come to the clinic with the purpose of using medication to get their periods. It is not known that simply maintaining regular menstrual flow with medication and normal ovulatory menstruation are two different things, so simply regulating menstruation cannot treat infertility. It is recommended to follow a scientific approach to first clarify the cause of menstrual disorders, along with other infertility-related tests, and then treat the symptoms. If necessary, assisted pregnancy measures such as ovulation promotion should be used.
Tubal incompetence can be removed by lumpectomy.
Tubal infertility is a common cause of female infertility patients, and there is no doubt that there is no shortage of clinical examples of infertility patients conceiving after lavage. Theoretically, lavage may play a therapeutic role in patients with light tubal inflammatory adhesions causing infertility, and it only accounts for less than one tenth of patients with tubal incompetence. Therefore, many places and patients use lumpectomy to treat infertility, especially tubal incompetence. In fact, the principle of imaging is basically the same as that of lavage, except that the fluid injected into the fallopian tubes is different. If the fallopian tubes are incompetent, lavage is difficult to make them open, and repeated lavage may cause the risk of pelvic infection. Tubal infertility can also be treated with blind tube insertion, hysteroscopic tube insertion or COOK guidewire intervention for tubal unblocking, separation of peri-tubal adhesions and tubal ostomy as well as IVF depending on the situation. You must visit a regular medical institution to clarify the nature and location of the lesion and choose the correct treatment to avoid misdiagnosis and wrong treatment, resulting in pain and economic loss.
Fourth, children born after assisted reproduction treatment are not as healthy as those who are naturally pregnant.
Since IVF technology has an in vitro culture system where both gametes and embryos stay outside the human body for a period of time, it is understandable that people have this concern. However, from the current record, the occurrence of birth defects with IVF technology is not significantly different from natural pregnancies, i.e., there is no significant increase in birth defects. However, because IVF is sometimes multiple, the infant weight statistics are lower than those of normal infants; also, because most of those who choose IVF technology are infertile, the disease causing the infertility itself may also be responsible for the low infant weight. However, no conclusive evidence has been found to link low weight to IVF technology.
V. Undergoing assisted reproductive treatment, preferably with multiple births or choice of fetal sex.
This is really a misconception of patients. Because of the use of ovulation-promoting drugs, the rate of multiple pregnancies in assisted conception treatment is about 5%-20%, which is significantly higher than the normal population. However, multiple pregnancies are associated with a variety of complications for both the mother and the fetus, which can be a serious threat to the safety of the mother and the baby, and the rate of perinatal mortality and morbidity increases significantly with the increase in the number of pregnancies. Therefore, elective reduction is necessary for pregnancies with more than three fetuses. The ultimate goal of implementing assisted conception techniques is to obtain a healthy child, and a singleton pregnancy is the safest. As for gender selection, although this technology (preimplantation embryo genetic diagnosis i.e. PGD) is currently available, it is only for some patients with genetic diseases, and the cost is higher than that of normal IVF, and the pregnancy success rate is low.
VI. The success rate of IVF should be very high when the fees are so expensive.
It is true that the cost of IVF treatment is not cheap, but humans are naturally animals with relatively low fertility. If both men and women are disease-free, the likelihood of pregnancy is only 10 percent per month under normal circumstances. If both the man and the woman have a disease, then the success rate is only about 1 percent. Nowadays, the single success rate through IVF technology has increased to about 30%, which is far beyond the human limit. But IVF is a science after all, and it is impossible to achieve a 100% success rate. At present, the success rate of the best IVF centers at home and abroad can only reach about 40%.
VII. No other drugs should be applied during ovulation promotion.
Due to physical, environmental or mental factors, many patients may suffer from common diseases such as cold and cough during ovulation promotion. Most patients are worried that the treatment with medication will affect the effect of ovulation promotion or the health of their children in the future, so they dare not use medication even if their symptoms are severe. In fact, it is not true, because even after pregnancy, it is impossible to guarantee health all the time, so in fact, many drugs can be applied during pregnancy, such as penicillin, etc., as long as you pay attention to the effects of the drugs on pregnant women in the instructions.
VIII. Repeated early pregnancy tests less than 14 days after embryo transfer.
We do not recommend patients to repeatedly use early pregnancy test paper to check. Almost all patients will buy early pregnancy test strips in pharmacies after embryo transfer in the hope of knowing whether they are pregnant early. Such anxiety is understandable, but there are many false positives and false negatives in the test results of early pregnancy test paper, and the accuracy is very poor, and repeated use of unscientific methods may cause great joy and stress, which may lead to failure of pregnancy preservation. The only accurate way is to take a blood test on the 14th day of menstrual cycle. If the HCG level starts to rise rapidly and multiplies within 2-3 days, it is generally considered to be pregnant. If HCG levels do not plateau, pregnancy is not present. Some patients have a slow rise in HCG levels, and most of these patients have a smaller chance of getting pregnant.
IX. Excessive rest after embryo transfer.
Moderate rest after embryo transfer is necessary, but usually only about half an hour of bed rest is needed to resume normal work and life. We do not recommend long bed rest, firstly, it does not help to improve the success rate, and secondly, long bed rest can easily lead to irritability, physical fatigue and even depression, which is not good for the success rate. Therefore, we recommend to resume normal activities after a short rest, but avoid strenuous activities and fatigue. There are precedents of patients who were in a particularly relaxed mood after transplantation and then went shopping everywhere, resulting in failure due to overexertion.
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