How to prepare your body for IVF treatment?

Tuesday 02, 2024 by Sudha Fertility Centre

If you’re hoping to start or increase your family and have been trying all other fertility options, IVF can be the best option to have a biological baby.

It is a medical procedure in which an egg is fertilized with sperm, outside the mother’s womb, giving you an embryo — a baby seedling! This happens outside your body. The fertilized embryo is either frozen or the little seedling can be implanted in your womb right away. Hopefully resulting in pregnancy.

This procedure can be used to treat infertility in various cases such as damaged or blocked fallopian tubes, decreased sperm count or motility, ovulation disorders, premature ovarian failure, removed fallopian tubes, uterine fibroids, and genetic disorders.

Though the process of egg fertilization is artificial the overall pregnancy is as real as it can be. A mother would feel the same emotions, same discomfort, and same trouble in both cases. The feeling of getting the news of positive pregnancy will be the same and the feeling of hearing the first cry of your child will be the same. Another fact about IVF is that it’s common to opt for it.

Difference between IVF and IUI, Surrogacy

In the IVF treatment the eggs from the intended mother and the semen from the intended father are fertilized and implanted in the body of the intended mother only, whereas, in surrogacy, the embryo is planted in the womb of another woman chosen by the parents. The surrogate mother will keep the baby in the womb for the rest of the pregnancy procedure. Surrogacy is preferred mostly when the female partner has removed the uterus due to medical reasons or due to either uterine defect or inherent condition.

Preparing oneself for IVF

The anticipation to be a mother provides a woman the strength to bear and overcome any pain. But the preparation is needed at both emotional and physical levels to attain what’s required to be a mother. Therefore preparing oneself for the beautiful journey ahead is necessary. These preparations include a tremendous change in inhabits. You have to attain some and give up some other as well.

The do’s while preparing your body for the IVF are:

Quit nicotine and caffeine.

Quit smoking and drinking and start detoxing yourself before you conceive your baby. No one wants to stay in a dirty home. Limit your caffeine intake as it can increase the heart rate, blood pressure, and urine output and can adversely affect your metabolism. And all of these are unhealthy during or before pregnancy. Taking inspiration from the mother earth sow yourself for the unhealthy habits and prepare a hostile environment for your baby.

Balance your diet.

A little later from now, your whole life is going to revolve around your little one. Prepare yourself for new happenings and try to incorporate your efforts into the diet as well. The first step will be to introduce some fertility-enhancing foods into your diet. Be conscious about your weight as BMI affects your chances of IVF being successful. Try to balance your BMI between 20 to 30.  Also, the 30 days leading up to your IVF cycle are very important for ensuring your body is healthy, strong, and fully prepared for this fairly intense medical process.

Get a health check-up

Get yourself tested for diabetes, blood pressure, infectious diseases, and various other health measures that can affect your chances of conceiving the baby and the health of the baby. Both of the parents have to go through some fertility health check-ups as well to get to know the reason behind troubles in infertility. Some of these tests include Ovarian reserve testing, Semen analysis, Infectious disease screening, Practice (mock) embryo transfer, Vaginal ultrasound, Blood tests, and the Uterine exam.

Vitamins

The results of IVF are highly dependent on Egg quality.  Therefore it is important to add some fertility-enhancing vitamins to the diet. Folic acid supplements are known to reduce the risks of birth defects. It is necessary to consult your doctor before selecting the vitamins.

Regular sleep

Maintain your nocturnal cycle is really crucial if you are planning for an IVF treatment. Getting the right amount of sleep and fertility are closely connected. It helps you to balance your energy levels, moods and reduces anxiety and stress that makes you psychologically strong.

Be emotionally prepared

You may feel an amalgamation of various and several emotions when you prepare yourself for IVF. Anxiety, sadness, and uncertainty can be heightened from the start to the end. The IVF cycle can be a lot to handle as it quite time-consuming, physically demanding, a little expensive, and at the same time uncertain. The emotions can be altered and heightened due to various injections that can fluctuate your hormone levels.   

Is IVF painful process?

The experience of IVF varies from woman to woman. But most of the women describe the escapade as slightly discomfort rather than painful. The first discomfort can be felt during ovarian stimulation when injections of follicle stimulation hormones are injected to push your ovaries to generate multiple eggs in a single cycle. Some women may feel the fluctuation in hormones caused by the injections but these side effects are not usually severe or painful. These effects include breast tenderness, bloating, mood swings, insomnia, and headaches. After the eggs have been matured enough for the retrieval, a shot of HGC will be given 36 hours before the retrieval to ensure that the eggs are completely matured. After ensuring that multiple eggs are matured and released the retrieval step takes place. The egg retrieval step can cause a little more discomfort but you will be sedated or provided medicines to overcome that. The retrieved egg after that is introduced to the sperm indirectly or directly in the case of decreased sperm mobility. The embryo, the seed, gets fertilized outside the body and once the fertilization is ensured, the transfer of the embryo in the mother’s womb takes place. The embryo transfer as well won’t be that painful as it is a simple procedure of planting the embryo through the catheter. This feeling can be found similar to the feeling of speculum used during a pap test.