Reproductive Alternatives: sometimes women have difficulty getting pregnant and need help from modern science.

Infertility Couples who are unable to conceive a child because of 1 or more physical abnormalities. After 1 year of unprotected sex Causes… Males…  Low sperm count  Impotence (erectile dysfunction) Females…  Lack of eggs  Failure to ovulate  Cannot support a growing embryo

Treatments Male…  Briefs to boxers  Drug therapy (viagra)  Sperm injection  Sperm bank Female…  Hormone injections  Donor egg  Surrogate mother  InVitro Fertilization

InVitro Fertilization Eggs are fertilized by sperm outside the body in a petri dish At ~ 8 cell stage a few healthy embryos are injected into the female uterus Hopefully, at least 1 egg will implant and develop. But sometimes, several eggs survive and multiple births can result; there have even been cases where “selective abortion” had to be used to lower the number of fetuses to enable the rest to survive

Below: a glass tube is used to pull an egg away from the rest and then insert it into the female’s uterus.