More on Controlling Fertility Flashcards
How can a woman not be able to get pregnant?
Some women have levels of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) that are too low to cause their eggs to mature. This means that no eggs are released and the women can’t get pregnant.
What hormones can be given to women in a fertility drug to stimulate ovulation? What are the pros and cons of this?
FSH and LH.
Pros:
- It helps a lot of women to get pregnant when previously they couldn’t.
Cons:
-It doesn’t always work - some women may have to do it many times, which can be expensive.
- Too many eggs could be stimulated, resulting in unexpected multiple pregnancies (twins, triplets, etc.)
What can a woman choose to try instead of medication for getting pregnant?
IVF (“in vitro fertilisation”).
What does IVF involve?
Collecting eggs from the woman’s ovaries and fertilising them in a lab using the man’s sperm.
What technique can IVF treatment involve?
Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), where the sperm is injected directly into an egg. It’s useful if the man has a very low sperm count.
What are fertilised eggs then grown into and where?
Into embryos in a laboratory incubator.
What happens once the embryos are tiny balls of cells?
One or two of them are transferred to the woman’s uterus to improve the chance of pregnancy.
What is given before egg collection and why?
FSH and LH give to stimulate several eggs to mature (so more than one egg can be collected).
What are the pros and cons of IVF?
Pro:
Fertility treatment can give an infertile couple a child.
Cons:
- Multiple births can happen if more than one embryo grows into a baby - these are risky for the mother and babies (there’s a higher risk of miscarriage, stillbirth…).
- The success rate of IVF is low - the average success rate in the UK is about 26%. This makes the process incredibly stressful and often upsetting, especially if it ends in multiple failures.
- As well as being emotionally stressful, the process is also physically stressful for the woman. Some women have a strong reaction to the hormones - e.g. abdominal pain, vomiting, dehydration.
What has helped to improve the success rate of IVF?
Advances in microscopy techniques have helped improve the techniques of IVF.
Specialised micro-tools have been developed to use on eggs and sperm under the microscope. They’re also used to remove single cells from the embryo for genetic testing (to check that it is healthy) More recently, the development of time-lapse imaging (using the microscope and camera built into the incubator) means that the growth of the embryos can be continuously monitored to help identify those that are more likely to result in a successful pregnancy.
What are some people against IVF?
The process of IVF results in unused embryos that are eventually destroyed. Because of this, some people think it is unethical because each embryo is a potential human life.
The genetic testing of embryos before implantation also raises ethical issues as some people think it could lead to the selection of preferred characteristics, such as gender or eye colour.
