IUI, or Intrauterine insemination, may be offered to couples with unexplained infertility, for women with mild endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome and for minor male factor sperm problems. IUI is often suggested as a precursor to IVF, as it is less invasive and less expensive.
During an IUI treatment cycle, the man's sperm is placed inside his partner's womb to increase the chances of pregnancy. IUI is sometimes carried out without using any fertility drugs, in what is called an unstimulated cycle. Alternatively, drugs may be used to induce ovulation in a stimulated cycle, but this increases the risk of a multiple birth.
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| IUI Infertility Treatment |
During an IUI cycle, the follicles that are developing in the ovaries are regularly monitored with ultrasound to check on their progress, and you may be asked to use an ovulation prediction kit too. When the time is right, you go to the clinic where your partner is asked to produce a sperm sample. The sample is 'washed', which ensures only good-quality sperm are used for the insemination. They are put right into the womb in a thin catheter, which is passed through the cervix.
Usually, you wiIl have the sperm put into the womb only once during each cycle. Some clinics do offer two inseminations, but there is no evidence that this improves the chances of a successful outcome. If you are having IUI, do check that your clinic is open at weekends and bank holidays. Otherwise, if you ovulate at the wrong time, the treatment won't be able to go ahead.
'It was fairly nightmarish. We'd go through it all, and then if I ovulated at the weekend or on a bank holiday, that was that. They couldn't do the treatment. I found it so stressful. We never knew if we would have the treatment or not.' Lulu, 39
You may be offered up to six cycles of IUI, although few couples actually seem to get through that many, often preferring to move on to IVF if the IUI is unsuccessful. The success rates for an individual cycle of IUI are not high, at around 12 per cent, but the chances of getting pregnant are increased in stimulated cycles. IUI is often regarded as much 'easier' than IVF from the patient's perspective, but the emotional trauma of unsuccessful treatment cycles is the same, and some women find it just as hard to deal with.
'I did IUI for six months. There was always a risk that you would either overdo it or under-do it, so one month the cycle would be cancelled because I didn't have any follides, and the next month it would be cancelled because there were too many, because if there were more than three they wouldn't inseminate. It was stressful. You just felt like you never knew where you were.' Naomi, 39
IVF
One of the most established forms of assisted reproduction, IVF has been used for about 30 years. IVF stands for 'in-vitro fertilization', and it involves eggs being taken out of the woman's body and fertilized with her partner's sperm in a laboratory, before being returned to the womb as embryos. Most couples don't imagine they will ever get as far down the line of treatment as IVF, and it can be a daunting prospect.
There is a general assumption, probably partly because we have all read so much about miracle test-tube babies, that IVF will inevitably work. In fact, even now with much improved success rates, an individual IVF cycle is more likely to fail than it is to succeed. That can be hard to accept when you are investing so much emotion, time and often money too, in your first treatment cycle.
'You go into it quite naively really. You hear about IVF in the media, and you think you do IVF and get a baby at the end. Thinking back we were so unrealistic. We went into the first one really excited and hopeful, thinking that now we were going to get our baby. It was only when the first one failed that we realized actually it doesn't work like that.' Mary, 38. To find out more, you can check out IUI Infertility Treatment.
