What Does Artificial Insemination Involve?

If you can’t get pregnant the natural way, either for medical or lifestyle reasons, then artificial insemination can be a very effective way to have the pregnancy you want. IVI, who have a number of high tech assisted reproduction clinics all over Spain, as well as in Portugal, central and South America and India, boast a very high success rate for this technique, and it has helped countless women give birth to healthy, happy babies.

Sperm

There are two ways artificial insemination can be done – either using sperm from your partner, or sperm from a donor. Using sperm from your partner can allow you to have a baby together even if he has slight problems such as low sperm motility, or if the cause of your inability to conceive naturally is unknown despite testing. Because artificial insemination includes a process of preparing only the best sperm from the semen to be used in inseminating the female partner, this can overcome these issues.

Using sperm from a donor is an option when your partner is sterile or has a genetic condition that would be passed on to the baby, or for women who are single or homosexual. At IVI’s locations around the world, single women are legally entitled to use this service, and patients are never even asked about their sexual orientation so you don’t have to explain why you are choosing artificial insemination unless you want to.

Preparing for Insemination

When there are fertility issues, the female partner will undergo a course of treatment that will cause her to produce more eggs than the usual one a month. This gives a far better chance of one of those eggs becoming fertilised. After this course of treatment, which takes about 12 days, is finished, ovulation will be induced. At the same time, the sperm will be prepared for insemination in a lab, with the best quality, most mobile sperm being selected and any dead or ‘slow’ ones removed. This course of preparation is done in a high tech, clinical way, which is one of the reasons the results obtained in IVI with artificial insemination are so positive.

The Insemination Process Itself

Once both the woman who is going to be inseminated and the semen have been fully prepared, the sperm is applied directly into the uterus using a speculum and cannula to pass through the cervix. This gives the sperm an even better chance of fertilising the egg than when it is administered the natural way. The process can cause a little discomfort, much like having a smear test, but is not painful and there is no need for anaesthesia or sedation. It is a fast process, and once it is complete, all you have to do is wait to find out if you are pregnant.

Artificial insemination at IVI is a relatively simple and painless procedure that can help many people toward the baby they desire. For most people having trouble conceiving, it is the first thing to try before considering more invasive processes like IVF.