Many patients with infertility have experienced one or several sessions of pharmacological ovulation induction during the course of their consultation. In particular, IVF patients have obtained about 5-20 eggs in one menstrual cycle through controlled superovulation and egg retrieval procedures. People often ask, in a natural cycle, ovulation occurs in only one follicle a month, while so many are ovulated at once after ovulation induction, will this accelerate the aging of the ovaries? Our answer is clear: no. So, why is this? The number of follicles in a woman is fixed at birth and no more new follicles are produced after birth. The ovarian reserve of primordial follicles lies dormant in the ovarian cortex called the “follicular pool”. Starting at the age of 12-13 years during puberty, the follicles in the follicular pool are hormonally regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, and groups of primordial follicles are awakened and enter a process of growth and maturation that lasts for more than 30 years. Once these follicles are awakened, they are on the “road to nowhere”. The whole development process until ovulation takes about 200 days, going through the stages of follicle initiation – antral follicle – sinus follicle – growing follicle – mature follicle – ovulation. Follicle growth is regulated by a hormone called “gonadotropin”. During the last 14 days of follicular growth, some follicles are sensitive to low doses of gonadotropins and some are not. The sensitive follicles move on to the next stage of growth and have a chance to become mature follicles. The rest of the follicles that are not well matched to the gonadotropin levels enter into their own degenerative atresia phase accordingly. The ovulation medication that we usually use is also known as gonadotropin. By increasing the dose of gonadotropin, some of the non-sensitive follicles are brought into the sensitive category and grow further into mature follicles in order to obtain more follicles than in a natural cycle. In other words, the group of sinus follicles saved by the ovulation-promoting drugs has gone through the first 200 days of growth and development, and is prevented from dying by the drugs in the last 14 days, entering the final stage of growth and maturation. The ovulation process is pulling the follicles that should have entered the atretic stage back into the growth queue using the drugs, rather than bringing forward the later follicles. In addition, the dormant initiating follicles do not respond to ovulatory drugs. As the exogenous ovulatory drugs are metabolized, these follicles will still develop and occlude later according to their natural pattern. Ovulation promotion does not disturb the follicular pool of primordial follicles, and 1 or 2 IVF ovulation treatments will not accelerate the aging of the ovaries. For ovulation disorders or IVF ovulation promotion, there is even less need to worry about the growth of 1~2 follicles per cycle.