This article is dedicated to the branch of medicine which deals with the issues of pregnancy achievement, pregnancy monitoring and leading all this to the child’s birth.
Honored Doctor of Ukraine, the chief reproductologist of the ICSI Clinic Oleksandr Darii mentions, there are two approaches for married couples who are planning pregnancy:
#1 – As soon as such a decision is made in a family, a couple books an appointment and comes for a diagnostics to the reproductologist. It is done on both. A husband should have 2-3 days of abstinence from sexual affairs for him to be able to pass a spermogram. Besides the spermogram he passes the test for oxidative stress. This is the presence of the harmful substances in the sperms, which can affect the chromosome set – a genetic material of these sperms. The tests are also done to find out whether the motility of the sperms is good or slow, whether their quality is normal or reduced.
The second point is diagnostics of a wife. This is a complex diagnostics, which includes gynecological diagnostics, including an uterus and ovaries condition. This is a hormonal diagnostics, the one including the hormones of the thyroid gland etc.
#2 – Pregnancy doesn’t occur during a stated time period of having an unprotected sex. That is 3-6 by standards of the World Health Organization and a maximum of 12 months. In this case the experts’ aim is to investigate and find out the reasons why it’s not happening. Further they seek for the most effective treatment plan for the couple to experience parenting.
The latter is not an easy path to pass, that is why ICSI Clinic team try to be psychologists, besides a staff reproductive psychologist himself, who gets involved in the most difficult cases. Having 28 years of experience in reproductive medicine, the team understand well that all those worries, fears, concerns which are there among the couples torment emotionally and psychologically, when the pregnancy doesn’t occur, and they all do their best to help.
Needless to mention that a huge role in the whole process is played by the quality of genetic material. This is what is passed to future generations from the future father’s (chromosomes packed in the sperm, in its head) and mother’s (the nucleus of the egg) side. And, respectively, how a child will look like depends much on this genetic material.
As it was mentioned earlier, a huge role is played by oxidative stress – a quantity of the harmful substances, which is easily detected via certain tests. The point is that these harmful substances can ruin or damage the genetic material in the sperm and in this way the sperm deliver already damaged genetic material into the oocyte. A good news is that it is possible to neutralize and by some means to preserve the maximum quantity of undamaged genetic material in sperms. For example, IMPRYL was invented by the Swiss company for this purpose. Moreover this complex fits both, men and women, in the aspect of protection of the genetic material from the oxidative stress. It’s useful to use IMPRYL or any other similar complex for 3-4 months. That is the thing which will play an important role in the quality of the reproductive genetic material.
On the whole, the family planning situation in Ukraine, just like in all the civilized countries, is more or less the same. One third of the patients have problems with pregnancy occurrence because of the female factor. A specific complex of questions is included into it, connected with fallopian tubes, the issues around the fallopian tubes, endocrine factor, endometriosis etc. One third concerning the pregnancy occurrence failure is a male factor. It’s a decline of the sperm quality, motility, quantity, sometimes even their absolute absence. And one third is the mutual factor, when there is both a male and a female factor.
There are certain analyses which will show the presence of some problems – endocrine, inflammatory, etc. And when pregnancy occurs, it’s important to make sure that everything is going on well with the pregnancy. This is the approach to pregnancy monitoring on early stages – up to the 12 weeks, when it’s important to see that pregnancy has occured, settled down, in the uterus exactly, not ectopic pregnancy; the stage when the heart appears, when a pregnancy develops well, on the term of 9 weeks hands and legs, fetal movement appears, the heartbeat of the fetus, when in 12 weeks due to the results of the ultrasound everything is alright, the question appears, is it definitely ok concerning chromosomal set. And in this case there are different approaches: chorionic villus sampling, NIPT (non-invasive prenatal test) the main point is that future parents could be absolutely sure that everything’s ok with the baby’s chromosomal set.
After 12 weeks one gets onto the home stretch – that is pregnancy monitoring, future mom’s health monitoring, how the fetus develops, whether there aren’t any malformations, etc.
It’s important to understand that reproductive age for women means one thing and reproductive age for men means an absolutely different one. In men from the moment of puberty and up to death new and new sperms are produced and a 18 year old man and 98 year old man are capable of giving birth to a baby. On the other hand no new oocytes appear there in a woman’s organizm from the moment of birth. Approximately 300k – that is the quantity which is initially laid down at birth, get spent, regardless of whether it’s a baby or an adult, whether a person takes medicines or a person is pregnant. That is all the time, all the time approximately thousands of oocytes disappear from a woman’s organizm up to the moment it runs out of these oocytes – this is called menopause. A normal physical menopause starts from 40 years old. Others have it after 50 years old. Respectively, before menopause occurance the pregnancy occurrence is possible. But there’s a peculiarity here. The peculiarity lies in the fact that due to decrease of oocyte quantity their quality gets worse. Respectively, fertility of oocytes gets lower – that is the ability to produce pregnancy.
ICSI Clinic team believes that everyone who wants to give birth to a baby in their family, will undoubtedly achieve it and reproductive medicine will help the couples with it. The main thing is to turn to reproductologists IN TIME.