- What are my chances
of falling pregnant each month I try?
Welcome to Fertile Minds.
My name is Dr. Shadi Khashaba,
and today we're gonna talk about chances
of falling pregnant when you try naturally.
One question I get asked by all couple, basically,
"When we try to fall pregnant,
what are the odds of falling pregnant
or succeeding in that month we try?"
And it's basically, one in six.
That's the magical number.
It's a roll of the dice.
So each month you try, it's a roll of the dice.
And it's advice, I mean to couple
when they try to fall pregnant,
let's say if we got 10 couple,
and they say, let's make this year, our year.
By the end of that year,
no one can actually roll the dice for 12 months.
But if they tried it 9 or 10 times in that year,
we know roughly 7 out of 10 will fall pregnant.
And the three couple that didn't fall pregnant,
if they keep rolling the dice
and trying for the second year,
one out of three will fall pregnant.
But that odd of the rolling the dice in the first year
become less as time passed by,
'cause there might be something
delaying pregnancy from happening.
And that's why we say,
well, if you've got no concerns, you're below 35,
give it 12 months.
If you're above 35, it's only six months of trial,
then see your GP or fertility specialist
just to make sure everything is fine.
'Cause time becomes of the essence.
Now what could delay a pregnancy from happening?
And we've got heaps of tests that we could do
but they all boil down to three basic things,
and what are they?
Well, the sperm,
and the sperm, they need to be good looking.
They need to be good swimmers, and lots of them.
So you need a lot of good looking swimmers.
Second thing you need to be ovulating.
Having regular period tells us more or less 95%
that you're ovulating,
and it's not a hundred percent.
We could track your cycle just to make sure
that you're ovulating.
And the third thing
is the pathway for the sperm to reach the egg is clear,
and there's not any blockage or suction along the way.
So when you go for fertility
we say, time is of the essence when your above 35
'cause the major factor that contributes
to the success each month you try
is the age of the eggs,
younger is the better.
So above 35 is still is not all
like it starts to drop dramatically at that point.
But time becomes of the essence,
six month to a year makes a difference.
So don't leave it for two, three years and then look at it.
'Cause 35 is not like 38 or 39.
So basically when we go to see your GP
or fertility specialist,
what do we do at the first visit?
First of all, we get to know you better
and discuss with you your medical background,
what you've been doing, what your health like,
any surgeries you've done,
any medical conditions for both of you.
It takes two to tango.
Now, after getting to know you better,
we discuss with you,
what are your family plans are,
and how do you envision your family,
time, size, and intervals between them?
Then we discuss, well, the next step,
what tests that can be done.
And basically the tests are divided into a few categories.
We do blood tests, we do urine tests.
We do ultrasound,
and we check the sperm.
The blood tests compromise few components.
So we do check your hormones,
and make sure hormones from the brain,
from the thyroid, and the ovaries
are all communicating each other.
And it's a clockwork.
We do check infection screen for your health
like hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV,
chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis.
We do also check for your nutritional status.
So make sure that you have enough vitamin D in your blood,
a folic acid,
and make sure your hemoglobin is okay,
and the iron stores are good.
So you're not anemic.
We check your blood group
and the type of hemoglobin you've got.
It's one extra test that is called the AMH.
And the AMH tells us how many eggs left in the ovary.
We supplement that with an ultrasound
just to make sure that the uterus and the ovaries
are perfectly in the right position,
and they're working at each month,
and there's not any problems
that could hinder pregnancy from happening.
We run the same test for the male partner.
We do a blood test
that check for hormones from the brain and the testes.
We make sure that there's no any infection,
nutritionally fit and healthy.
On top of that, we do a sperm test
to make sure he's got good looking swimmer
or enough good looking swimmers.
And these are the initial tests,
usually it takes around two to three weeks.
And after that first visit,
we sit again and go through them,
and plan our weekend help you start a family.
My name is Dr. Shadi Khashaba.
Thank you again for watching Fertile Minds.
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