Male infertility treatment, such as ICSI, opens the doors to fatherhood
If you and your partner have been trying to get pregnant without success, you may need to consider that an infertility issue could be thwarting your efforts. At our Tulsa fertility clinic, our highly skilled doctors can diagnose common causes of infertility in both men and women. In cases that involve male infertility, treatments such as IUI, IVF and ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, can enable you to achieve your dreams of growing your family.
Understanding male infertility
Because it’s the woman who isn’t getting pregnant, many people mistakenly assume that infertility only affects women. However, when couples face infertility, half of those cases are linked at least in part to male infertility.
Low sperm production or quality, medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hormone imbalances, and certain medications can affect your chances of getting pregnant the old-fashioned way. Our Tulsa fertility clinic doctors recommend a full fertility assessment for both partners to pinpoint any barriers to conception.
How do you identify male fertility problems?
To confirm male infertility, your doctor will begin with a semen analysis. For this test, the man will provide a sperm sample. The semen analysis will evaluate the shape, motility, number and quality of the sperm.
If the results reveal any abnormalities, we will likely make a referral to a urologist, a specialist who can address any issues with the male reproductive system. A urologist can order hormone testing, antisperm antibody testing, or other highly specialized tests related to a man’s semen.
Who should consider ICSI?
During routine conception, the ovaries release an egg, which the sperm then fertilizes, and the fertilized egg travels to the uterus for implantation. In some cases, this process fails to work, so we employ infertility treatments such as IVF, and IVF with ICSI, to give nature some assistance.
Generally, we suggest that patients consider ICSI when the number of available eggs is low, and when certain male infertility factors are present.
- Ejaculatory or erectile dysfunction
- Low sperm count
- Poor-quality sperm
- Blockages that prevent ejaculation of sperm
- An inability of the sperm to penetrate the egg
- Antibodies to sperm
In men with azoospermia, or an absence of sperm in the ejaculate due to a medical condition or vasectomy, we may be able to extract sperm directly from the testes for use in intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
How does it work?
With ICSI, your partner provides a sperm sample, and our laboratory team washes the sperm with a special solution in preparation for next steps. The embryologist will then isolate a single sperm using a thin needle and inject the sperm directly into the egg. After the procedure, we monitor the fertilized egg in the laboratory, watching for signs that fertilization has occurred. This process is repeated for each egg retrieved.
We recognize that every situation and every patient are unique. The support and expertise offered by our Tulsa fertility clinic has enabled many patients and their partners to overcome infertility. Contact our office to schedule an appointment.