Ovulation Induction
When an egg is released from one of the ovaries, this is known as ‘ovulation’. In women with regular menstrual cycles, this happens approximately once a month.
In some women, the follicles that hold the eggs don’t mature regularly and so the woman ovulates irregularly, rarely or not at all.
Ovulation induction is a straightforward fertility treatment that involves taking oral or injectable medication to stimulate regular ovulation. The medication is usually taken at the beginning of the menstrual cycle and the body’s response is monitored through the cycle using ultrasound. The clinician can then see when you are due to ovulate and therefore the best time for intercourse or insemination.
The clinical approach to ovulation induction requires an understanding of the causes of anovulation. Proper diagnosis of underlying conditions may not only be relevant for infertility treatment but may also have general health implications (such as bone health, brain health and wellbeing, sexual health, and long-term cardiometabolic health).
Will I need other treatment combined with ovulation induction?
Every couple is unique and, depending on your fertility history and the man’s semen analysis, you may need additional treatments to increase your chance of becoming pregnant.
In simple cases, inducing ovulation and recommending sexual intercourse at the right time to coincide with that ovulation may be all that are needed. This is called Timed Sexual Intercourse (TSI) and the clinician will tell you the best times for intercourse based on your ovulation stimulation treatment and ultrasound scans.
Ovulation induction can also be combined with Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) – (see separate fact sheet). This involves extracting sperm from the man’s semen sample, concentrating them in the laboratory and placing them directly into the uterus to coincide with ovulation. This approach can be useful even if the man’s semen analysis is not quite ideal as we can concentrate the sperm in the lab.
For IUI, the man usually produces a fresh semen sample at the Life Fertility Clinic, but it can also be used with thawed frozen samples including donor sperm.
A few hours later, once the sperm has been prepared, the woman attends the clinic for insemination, which is a simple procedure using a thin catheter inserted through the cervix (similar to having a pap smear).