Will My Age Play a Factor in My Fertility Treatments?

Will My Age Play a Factor in Getting Fertility Treatments?

Fertility in men

While men are supposed to be fertile for life, things are different for women. For men though, fertility decreases with age and keeps decreasing but never completely depleting. Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here

Fertility in women

With age, fertility decreases for women and after a point of time it becomes zero. Thus, age plays a very significant role in the fertility of a woman. After the age of 29, the chances of getting pregnant keep going down.

It will get more and more difficult with age after this point. Statistics suggest that only 10% of the women in their twenties face fertility problems. This percentage rises to 25% when women in their thirties are taken into account.

It further increases to 50% when women above the age of 40 are considered. This is the reason why getting a fertility treatment also gets difficult and which fertility treatment you should get is also influenced by age. For example, a woman in her forties can’t really expect to get pregnant through simple fertility pills. She may need a high-end fertility treatment if she wants to get pregnant.

Fertility Treatments

There are many reasons involved in fertility issues and if the reason why you are not getting pregnant is your age, your doctor will let you know. According to that he will suggest a fertility treatment for you. Also, age comes into consideration even if something else is the reason behind your infertility.

For example, if you have blocked fallopian tubes and you are in your twenties, your doctor will suggest that IVF or in vitro fertilization is the ideal choice for you using your own eggs. But if you have obstructed fallopian tubes and you are in your forties, using your eggs can’t be the solution.

The doctor will suggest that you go for IVF but with donor eggs. At the age of forty and above most of the eggs are depleted. The remaining ones may not even be normal. Thus, using them may not increase your chances of getting pregnant even through IVF. To be on the safe side, your doctor will recommend the use of donor eggs so that chances of the procedure becoming successful are higher.

Age

Age also affects your menstrual cycle and this is how it can affect the fertility treatments you go for. Know that the luteal phase defect is common in older women. This phase is the time period from your ovulation to your period.

This has to last for 11 days at least. On an average it lasts for 12-16 days. During this time the fertilized egg implants itself in the uterus. If fertilization has not occurred, hormones are not produced and the next period occurs.

If the luteal phase is less than 10 days long, the fertilized egg won’t have enough time to implant and thus, even though conception has occurred and the egg has been fertilized, you won’t be able to get pregnant. While in younger women this can be rectified by the use of fertility drugs such as Clomid, rectifying this in older women is particularly harder. You might, thus, need more sophisticated procedures to get pregnant.

While age does play a role, it is not right to say that it always plays a role. Your fertility issue may not be related to age at all and it may be because of a whole other reason that is just difficult to rectify or overcome.

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Dr. Prabha Sahgal, MD
Dr. Prabha Sahgal, MD | ConceiveEasy
Dr. Prabha Sahgal MD, is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and subspecialty board certified in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. Dr. Sahgal holds a B.S. degree from MIT in molecular biology and currently serves on the ConceiveEasy board of directors.

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