The Road to Fertility

So it's been some time that you as a couple have been at it and there is nothing to show for..What to do now? Keep trying or chuck the whole idea of a family for now and go back to that demanding crazy hour career routine? Well the decision is yours to take but as an intelligent young person, it should be an informed , well thought of decision. It is a fact that all women are born with a fixed number of eggs and we do not grow any new ones at any point in our lives, unlike the sperms. Also once a woman achieves puberty and starts menstruating, she uses up a cohort of these finite eggs each month of an ovulatory cycle. What I mean by a cohort is that each month a number of immature eggs start the journey towards the final aim of ovulation. The hormone system of the body is sufficient to promote the growth of only one single healthy mature egg over, ideally, a period of 12-14 days. This single mature egg then proceeds to be released for the benefit of the incoming sperms, while the r

Many a times one would be confronted with this question nagging in the back of mind. I say why cant they go hand in hand...? You ask your doctor and the you trust them doubly. When things do not go as planned, the patient would be better prepared and the doctor would not have to face the mistrust which comes in at this conjuncture. Because our culture teaches us to regard the doctor as 'healer', someone at a pedestral, who is the lifesaver and perhaps a 'common being' shouldnt be the one to question that authority, doesnt mean you as a service reciever should not ask. Many a times in clinical practice I meet patients who have undergone more than 5 or so fertility treatment, even ART procedures, but have no clear understanding of why it was undertaken, what exactly was done, how were the outcomes as per the expectations, even to the limit that whether there were any surplus gametes/embryos frozen for them! Sometimes, they have no records of what they had undergone in the

Its a logical time to revisit Clomiphene..The Indian Government has banned the use of another Ovulation Induction drug, Letrozole! It was sufficient to wake me from the inertia of writing this blog. So, why am I talking this jargon really? Some of you would ask me "what do I care a bit about the tussle between the government and drugs! My gynaecologist gets me to ovulate"..Well time to sit up and question how and what and a lot more. A good 70% patients in India have no clue about their fertility issues, leave alone the treatment prescribed for the same, duration and feasibility of such a treatment and outcomes verses side effects. Ovulation Induction is the medical process of getting your eggs to grow and finally to ovulate to help conception. It is achieved by Clomiphene citrate or other common drug which was until now in use, i.e Letrozole. Clomiphene works wonders and in patient where ovulation is the only hurdle to pregnancy, it helps approximately 70% women ovulate and

The various events for a "Woman's Day" prompted me to think...Why a day? Why not celebrate a Lifetime? The celebration of the many aspects of Womanhood! From a Daughter who brings immense joy to the parents, and is always there for in a quiet, sometimes boisterous ways... To a Sister who walked with you through thick and thin.. To a Girlfriend who brought out the best in you... To a Wife , who made sure you stuck to your guts exploring the best in you! And above all to the Mother, who instilled the best in you!!  All the other pages were handed over to us in a way to execute, all except "Motherhood", which then becomes a woman's prerogative, to initiate and perpetuate until the fulfilment comes in the shape of a bundle of joy, which is incidentally shared by the whole family! Its a huge responsibility, which comes easy to some and as a battle to some others.   If having children was part of your life plan, as is for most of the women,accepting that a baby wo

All of us can answer differently to the above question! I would say "Creepy Crawlies" of the world..but that does not mean that I would not try to face them when the situation demands, avoid as I may! When it comes to Fears, its like an omnipresent chapter in our lives, the face of it may differ from person to person. But one thing we all are scared of.."Failure"!! How we deal with the fear is another aspect. Some may deny it, others would ignore it, few may succumb to it. Best is to deal with it! It is the same in our journey to fertility, we pass the same stages of denial, ignorance and for some , succumbing to it. Then there are those brave souls who deal with it! Hats off to them!! A woman who has a mortal fear of needles, going through a fertility treatment is to me like a brave soldier who has pulled up her socks and gathered her armamentarium of strengths and has declared war on the hurdles in between her and the conception she so desires!Even though she holl

The big M "Miscarriage" is like an uninvited demon that casts its shadow in the unsuspecting lives of approximately 15% of women in reproductive years. The first reaction to a miscarriage is invariably of shock followed by a shrug of the shoulder and "Well, I shall manage" attitude. Most of the women, and also doctors would not attach much importance to the incidence. "Its known to happen! literature quotes XYZ %" is what we all hear and also, I may say, tell our patients! Its when it happens for the second time that a thought is spared to what could be going wrong! By the time its third occurrence, all the literature has gone out of the back door, especially for the woman undergoing the trauma. Then we sit down and ask serious questions and put a label "Bad Obstetric History" on an already suffering girl! We are not wrong in doing so medically as the definition of BOH does mention 3 or more recurrent abortions. What we have to think here is not