Infertility and assisted infertility technologies:

A large number of couples all over the world are infertile, that is they are unable to produce children inspite of unprotected sexual co-habitation, this is termed as infertility.

Reason for infertility:

 Many–physical, congenital problems, diseases, drugs, immunological or even psychological problems too.

How to overcome the problem:

Specialised health care units called infertility clinics, could help in diagnosis and corrective treatment of these infertility disorders and enable these couples to have children. But if any correction is not possible, then couple should adopt a child.

Here, the couples are assisted to have children through some  special techniques commonly known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These are explained as following:

1) Test tube baby programmes:

• In this, ova from the wife/donor (female) and sperms from the husband/donor (male) are collected and are induced to form zygote under simulated conditions in the laboratory, called IN-VITRO fertilization.
•  The zygote or early embryos (with upto 8 blastomeres) could then be transferred into the fallopian tube called zygote intra fallopian transfer (ZIFT).
• Embryos with more than 8 blastomeres are transferred into the uterus to complete its further development called  intra uterine transfer(IUT).

2) Gamete intra fallopian transfer(GIFT):

• Transfer of an ovum collected from a donor into the fallopian tube of another female who cannot
  produce one, but can provide suitable environment for fertilisation and further development.

3) Intra cytoplasmis sperm injection(ICSI):

• It is a procedure to form as embryo in the laboratory by directly injecting the sperm into an ovum.

4) Artificial insemination (AI):

• In this technique, the semen collected either from the husband or a healthy donor is artificially introduced either into the vagina or into the uterus (IUI – intra-uterine insemination) of the female.
• The technique is also used where male is unable to inseminate sperms in the female reproductive tract or due to a very low sperm count in the ejaculation.