Infertility
Charles Theisler in Adjuvant Medical Care, 2023
For men, mayoclinic.org states that although most types of infertility are not preventable, these strategies may help: Avoid drug and tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption.Avoid high temperatures (e.g., avoid hot tubs and steam baths).Avoid exposure to industrial or environmental toxins.Limit medications that may impact fertility, to include both prescription and non-prescription drugs.Exercise moderately. Regular exercise may improve sperm quality and increase the chances for achieving a pregnancy.1
Introduction
Chinmay Murali, Sathyaraj Venkatesan in Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine, 2021
Infertility is a gender-neutral health problem which affects both men and women. Clinically, it is “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse” (WHO 2009). Put differently, infertility is “the inability of a sexually active, non-contracepting couple to achieve pregnancy in one year” (WHO 2009). When a couple is unable to reproduce due to medical problems that lie with the male partner, the condition is referred to as male infertility. Male infertility includes “any health issue in a man that lowers the chances of his female partner getting pregnant” (Urology Care, n.d.). Women’s infertility, on the other hand, is defined as “not being able to get pregnant after one year of trying (or six months if a woman is 35 or older)” (Office on Women’s Health 2017). Women who can get pregnant yet are unable to sustain their pregnancy are also categorised as infertile.
GH–IGF1 axis in spermatogenesis and male fertility
Rajender Singh in Molecular Signaling in Spermatogenesis and Male Infertility, 2019
Infertility is defined as the inability of a couple to conceive after a year of unprotected intercourse. Approximately 15% of all couples are recognized as infertile, and the “responsibility” is attributable in half of the cases to the male partner. The latter estimate is growing because some evidence indicates that the quality of human sperm is decaying over the years (1). Among the causes that may be involved in this problem, there are certainly genitourinary infections, environmental exposure to chemical insults that decrease spermatogenesis, anatomical or physiological obstructions, immunological deficiencies, abnormal morphologies and even hormonal disorders. Spermatogenesis is a rather complex cell development process that requires the presence of pituitary gonadotropins and testosterone that indirectly regulate this mechanism via autocrine, paracrine and juxtacellular pathways. Growth hormone (GH) and its main factor, the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), are only two actors in this scenario, but they reach a significant role considering current evidence (2). The GH, mainly represented by the 22 kDa form, is produced by the anterior pituitary gland and regulates, in addition to growth, the formation of secondary sexual tissues as well as the uterus in the woman and the prostate and seminal vesicles in the man.
Breaking the silence around infertility: a scoping review of interventions addressing infertility-related gendered stigmatisation in low- and middle-income countries
Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 2023
Trudie Gerrits, Hilde Kroes, Steve Russell, Floor van Rooij
Infertility in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is widespread and has serious emotional and social consequences for people.1–4 WHO defines clinical infertility as “the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse” (p.1).5 Taking different measurement approaches into account, an estimated 48.5 million to 186 million couples are affected by primary or secondary infertility.2,6,7 Primary infertility is defined as the inability to become pregnant or initiate a pregnancy. Secondary infertility is the inability to conceive despite previously doing so,8 and is more common than primary infertility, partly resulting from a high prevalence of reproductive tract infections.2,6 In most societies, it is culturally expected to become a parent. Many studies in LMICs have given insights into the social and psychological repercussions for people facing fertility problems and/or being involuntarily childless and the negative impacts on people’s health and well-being.1,3,4,9–12a Those who fail to meet the social expectation to have children experience various forms of stigmatisation, leading to grief, stress, marital instability, verbal abuse, intimate partner violence, isolation, and exclusion.4,12–19
Live birth per embryo transfer with next generation sequencing preimplantation genetic testing: an analysis of 26,107 cycles
Published in Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine, 2023
Papri Sarkar, Erika P. New, Rachel G. Sprague, Robert Stillman, Eric Widra, Samad Jahandideh, Kate Devine, Anthony N. Imudia
PGT-A cycles with no euploid embryos available for transfer were not included in the primary analysis. Etiology of infertility was identified which included endometriosis, diminished ovarian reserve (DOR), ovulatory disorder (PCOS), male factor, tubal factor, uterine factor and unexplained. The primary diagnosis of infertility was considered for our analysis. Multiple etiologies were not considered. The primary outcome was live birth rate (LBR) defined as live birth at >24 weeks. The secondary outcomes included clinical pregnancy rates (CPR) defined as intrauterine pregnancy confirmed by ultrasound, and miscarriage rate (defined as intrauterine pregnancy demise confirmed by ultrasound or histology). A sub-analysis of the pregnancy outcomes was performed based on infertility diagnosis while adjusting for other confounding factors.
Age and menstrual cycle may be important in establishing pregnancy in female athletes after retirement from competition
Published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 2023
Sayaka Nose-Ogura, Osamu Yoshino, Hiroe Kamoto-Nakamura, Mayuko Kanatani, Miyuki Harada, Osamu Hiraike, Shigeru Saito, Tomoyuki Fujii, Yutaka Osuga
For the amenorrhea group in (3), only those who did not resume spontaneous menstruation between retirement and pregnancy were considered eligible. Those in (1) were defined as the normal menstrual cycle group, while those in (2) and (3) were defined as the abnormal menstrual cycle group. Infertility treatments included intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization; however, the present study categorized infertility treatments by method of ovulation induction. Information collected on infertility treatment included 1) timed therapy, 2) oral ovulation inducting drug treatment, and 3) injected ovulatory drug treatment. Subjects in the oral ovulatory drug group included only those who underwent oral ovulation induction, whereas subjects in the injected ovulatory drug group included those treated with injected and both oral and injected ovulatory drugs. Modes of delivery were categorized as natural childbirth, vacuum-assisted deliveries/forceps-assisted delivery, elective cesarean section, and emergency cesarean section.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Assisted Reproductive Technology
- Child
- Fertility
- Puberty
- Sexual Reproduction
- Semen
- Haplodiploidy
- Offspring
- Male Infertility
- Female Infertility