Sunday, March 9, 2014

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)

A paper on the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) techniques being performed worldwide. 




Infertility is becoming a bigger issue as the number of infertile parents all over the world increases every year. Because of this, doctors have formulated and are formulating Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) techniques that could allow parents with different cases of infertility have a child of their own.

From the earliest surgery done in 1851 that cured women’s infertility, a lot of ART techniques perfected and backed with research since then have been devised to help infertile men and women build their own families. Here are some of them:

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). As the meaning of in vitro suggests, In Vitro Fertilization or IVF is “the joining of a woman’s egg and a man’s sperm in a laboratory dish” (Medline Plus, 2014). IVF is the most successful and popular ART, with over “five million IVF babies … since assisted reproduction began in 1978” when the first IVF baby, then called a ‘test tube baby’, was born successfully (The Telegraph, 2012).

IVF has five basic steps, namely,

1. Stimulation or over ovulation, wherein the patient is given fertility drugs to improve egg production;
2. Egg Retrieval, where a minor surgery is done on the patient to collect the eggs;
3. Insemination and Fertilization, wherein a sperm and the best quality eggs are placed together in an environmentally-controlled chamber (insemination), and the fertilization will follow a few hours later;
4. Embryo Culture, where the fertilized egg (now an embryo) will be regularly checked to ensure that it is properly growing, and after 3-5 days;
5. Embryo transfer, where the healthy embryo will be transferred to the patient’s womb through the cervix and with a catheter (Medline Plus, 2014).

Gamete Intra Fallopian Transfer (GIFT).  This ART is very similar to the IVF. Their only difference lies during the insemination and fertilization. In IVF, the healthiest eggs and sperm are combined in the laboratory, and only after the egg is fertilized will the embryo be put inside the womb, while in GIFT, the healthiest eggs gathered will be put together with the sperm  in a catheter, to be put  in the fallopian tube. “Fertilisation therefore takes place in the body, as it would if conception had occurred naturally” (Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2009).

Intraeuterine Insemination (IUI). It is also known as artificial insemination. It starts with a laboratory procedure wherein the fast-moving sperm are separated from the slow-moving or non-moving sperm. After that, “the fast moving sperm are then placed into the woman’s womb close to the time of ovulation when the egg is released from the ovary in the middle of the monthly cycle” (Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2009).

Surrogacy.  Simply put, it “is when another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the couple who want to have a child” (Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2014). It is appropriate for women who have medical conditions in which conceiving a baby is lethal.

There are still many other ART being done today, and many more others that are being formulated in laboratories. With the fast pace of science today, we can be sure that ART techniques that are safer and more accessible to the public will be perfected soon.



Barbosa, Camille Anne C.
2013-01010


References:

American Experience, n.d. The History of In Vitro Fertilization. American Experience.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/babies/. Accessed 8 March 2014.

Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2009. Gamete Intra Fallopian Transfer (GIFT). HFEA.  http://www.hfea.gov.uk/GIFT.html. Accessed 7 March 2014.

Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2009. Intraeuterine Insemination (IUI). HFEA.  http://www.hfea.gov.uk/IUI.html. Accessed 8 March 2014.

Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, 2014. Surrogacy. HFEA.   http://www.hfea.gov.uk/fertility-treatment-options-surrogacy.html. Accessed 7 March 2014.

Medline Plus, 2014. In Vitro Fertilization. Medline Plus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007279.htm. Accessed 6 March 2014

Telegraph, 2012. Five million IVF babies since 1978. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9368905/Five-million-IVF-babies-since-1978.html. Accessed 7 March 2014



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