Importance Of Fertility check After 30-Year Of Age

Hello everyone,

 My name is Dr. Richa Singh. Today I am going to discuss a very important topic on how to plan your pregnancy when turning 30 and importance of fertility screening? Why this topic? Because patients do come to me for their infertility problems in their early 30s and once, I ask for the investigations, it is usually found that majority of them have already exhausted their ovarian reserves. That means they have prematurely decreased the capability of producing a baby. So, friends, it becomes a very big problem for them to conceive and even in IVF they have to face many consequences of cycle cancellations or they have to switch over to donors. So, this video is for those couples who are planning and they would be able to plan according to their biological age so that they don't land up in infertility and have a safe pregnancy. In the current scenario, if we see there are a lot of delayed marriages, late settlements and people are postponing their pregnancies due to various other reasons maybe career prospects or maybe anything else.

But what happens is that your biological age keeps on increasing. It doesn't stop. So, when you actually plan your pregnancy, by the time, in some patients the reserves have already been exhausted. Then it becomes a lot of problem for them. But you can avoid this problem. How? There are two tests which are usually done to check your fertility. So, any lady who is above 28 years of age, she is a married woman and she is trying to postpone her pregnancy, she should undergo two tests for her fertility check. One is AMH which is an Anti-Mullerian hormone. It is basically a blood test which can be done at any point of time of the cycle. Second is an ultrasound which is done on day 2 of the cycle to know the number of follicles in the ovary. These two tests when they are done will be able to tell us about your reproductive potential. So, how to interpret it? If the AMH values are above 2, then it is normal. If it's between 2-1, it is a low ovarian reserve. If it is less than 1, it is a poor ovarian reserve. Similarly, if your antral follicle counts in both the ovaries are more than 10, it's normal. If it is less than 10, the reserves are decreasing that is a low ovarian reserve and if it is less than 5, it is a poor ovarian reserve.

So how will all these help results help you in planning your pregnancy? If any lady who undergoes these 2 investigations and finds that her AMH is normal, her antral follicle counts are normal, then it means you have time. That is if you want you can postpone your pregnancy. But, with a caution that you have to get these tests repeated every year and when it starts declining then you should start thinking of pregnancy. Then, 2nd category comes in those patients where the reserves are decreased. AMH is between 1 to 2 and antral follicle accounts are less than 10. It indicates that you don't have much time and you should consult your obstetrician and gynaecologist and discuss the options of pregnancy. You can try naturally and if not, you can take the help of some drugs with the help of your doctor. Third point comes where the reserves are very poor such as the Anti-Mullerian hormone comes to be less than 1 and antral follicle counts in both the ovaries are less than 5. In such cases, you need to consult an infertility expert regarding your treatment options. Now, what are the options?

You don't have time. So probably you will have to resort to some treatments like IUI or IVF, maybe embryo freezings or if you really want to postpone your pregnancy, you can also opt for oocytes freezing that is preservation of your fertility till the time you want pregnancy. So, friends if you follow this it will be a great help to you and how will it be advantages. It is very important, number 1, you can avoid the problem of infertility because you have identified it earlier. Second important point is that even if your reserves are low since you have identified early you can take help of various treatments available for you to get pregnant. This will help you to achieve pregnancy.

Number third is even if your reserves are very low, if you have opted for early IVF, the chances of success are better because the younger, the better it is, the results of IVF. And lastly you will have two benefits: one is that you will not have to switch over to the donor because you identified your reserves declining early, so you will be able to catch or diagnose premature ovarian failures at the earliest stage and second you will have the chances of your own genetic babies. It is the most important factor, I can that every mother wants their own baby. So, I hope this information is going to help the young couples and for any other queries or consultations or second opinions, you can always reach me.

Thank you!