Services and specialties

Artificial insemination is the process by which good mobility sperm is placed into a female’s uterine cavity at the same time of ovulation.

Artificial insemination is indicated in patients less than 38 years old, without tubaric permeability problems, and a partner with at least 5 millions of good mobility sperm cells.

It’s necessary first of all, to know and control the exact time of ovulation, for that, and depending on the case, we must closely observe the woman’s menstrual cycle in a natural way or by controlling it with hormonal treatment. The follow up of the cycle is performed in a periodic way by gynecologic ultrasonography and gestation tests. At the time of ovulation is necessary to process the semen at the laboratory so that we can separate the sperm cells with good mobility from the rest of semen components; once this process is performed (sperm qualification) the sperm cells are inserted in the uterine cavity with a thin cannula so that they by themselves may accede the ovocyte and fertilized it in a natural way.

The problems of this technique are virtually none, hospitalization is not required and neither any kind of anesthesia.

Principal risk is having a multiple gestation, however this possibility is almost discarded by controlling the number of follicles created and therefore the number of ovums that might be fertilized (maximum of two). We never had any of this cases at our center.

You must also know the risks that can lead a pregnancy. For more information about the informed consent for Assisted Reproduction techniques designed by the Spanish Society of Fertility.

Success rates depends in every single case, in our center it oscillates between 16 and 20%. Semen needs occasionally to be inserted twice before the woman conceives, but maximum attempts must not be higher than five.

Once we had several AIC failure attempts, we propose a more complex method such as In vitro Fertilisation (IVF or ICSI), because the reason of failure might be in the ovum quality, difficulty to flow trough fallopian tube, as well as alterations of the sperm cells that inhibit fecundation in a normal way.

The in vitro fertilization involves the transfer to the uterine cavity of embryos obtained from oocytes that has been fertilized in the IVF laboratory. There are two techniques, such as the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and the intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

IVF is based on the direct fertilization inside the laboratory of oocytes by selected sperm cells which are placed in a certain number next to the oocyte, this way fertilization occurs naturally in the culture plate. In the case of ICSI only one sperm cell is selected for each oocyte and then it’s directly injected into the mature oocyte, this would solve some of the potential failures that may present the IVF technique.

Once in vitro fertilization (IVF or ICSI) is accomplished, fertilized oocytes are cultured in the laboratory to get embryos that will be transferred to the uterine cavity. We must realized that every oocyte won’t get fertilization and not every fertilized oocyte will give rise to embryos, so it is desirable to obtain an adequate number of oocytes to enable the success.

The embryos grow in the laboratory for a time period that can vary between two and six days depending on each case. In this period of time they are carefully controlled. Once we decide it’s time to transfer the embryos to the female’s uterus we select the best of them (sometimes two, if it is desired for the couple) and we carefully placed them inside the uterus so they finish completing their growth and can be implanted in the endometrium giving pregnancy.

We must bear in mind that not all embryos that begin the division phase are viable embryos, many of them may have alterations in their molecular structure and can’t complete their growth to the blastocyst stage. These nonviable embryos never result in a pregnancy.

In our centre, only those embryos that haven’t been transferred to the uterus but achieved the blastocyst stage are frozen and carefully guarded in our bank of embryos so that they can subsequently be used by the couple.

This technique does not presents many inconveniences in itself, and the risks would be the associated with treatment, surgery and pregnancy themselves.

All information concerning assisted reproduction treatments is available in the informed consent for Assisted Reproduction techniques designed by the Spanish Society of Fertility