Conceiving a child is the ultimate purpose and goal of every couple. This is step in building a family. However, many individuals suffer from infertility wherein they are unable to conceive a child even though they engage in unprotected sex for more than one year. Luckily, as science and technology advances, so are options available to assisted reproductive techniques.
First, artificial insemination is the most popular of the reproductive techniques today. It is the installation of sperm to the women's reproductive tract. If the sperm of the husband is incapable of impregnating the partner, they can opt to use the sperm of a donor. It can be placed into the cervix or directly into the uterus. Some companies today are offering freezing the sperm of males. However, many studies disapprove frozen sperm because it lowers the mobility of the sperm and can be linked to various congenital anomalies.
Another technique is In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer wherein mature egg cells from the woman are extracted and then exposing the cells to the sperm under laboratory guidance and conditions. After about 40 hours, when the egg is already fertilized, they will insert it to the woman's uterus for implantation. However, there are many cases of multiple gestation with this procedure leading to twins, triplets and even quadruplets.
One technique is called Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer wherein the egg cell is obtained like that of In Vitro. However, instead of waiting for fertilization in the petri dish, they directly instill both the sperm and the egg cell to the open end of the fallopian tube where they are expected to join and be a fertilized egg.
Lastly, there is what we call a surrogate mother. A woman that carries the pregnancy to the term of the couple is called a surrogate mother. She can have her eggs fertilized through artificial insemination with the man's sperm. However, there are ethical and legal problems occurring with this type of technique. In some cases, at the end of pregnancy, the surrogate mother forms a bond with her baby, and would not want to give the baby to the couple.