Infertility  the inability to have children affects one in every seven couples of fertile age  The infertility rate is increasing as a result of increased stress  competitive work environment  hectic and fast paced imbalanced and erratic lifestyles  obesity  irregular body cycles  urbanisation  environmental toxins  delayed marriage  prolonged family planning  priority to career advancement over commencing family informed Dr  H  Narmada Devi  Gynaecological Endoscopic Surgeon and Fertility Specialist at Narmada Fertility Center  This is evident from the fact that Hyderabad city has well over 20 Fertility Centers  Reproductive Medicine centers and Assisted Conception services
Addressing media men on the occasion of the second anniversary of Narmada Fertility Center and on her completing 25 years in the profession Dr  H  Narmada Devi revealed a interesting IT sector infertility link  The city based Fertility Specialist who is trained in USA for infertility and high risk pregnancy is taking a serious look at the increasing number of software professionals who come to seek help at her infertility clinic  She is putting together her experience of assisting hundreds of Information Technology couples  Over the years the problem is increasing alarmingly  she says
Out of 100 couples  at least 15 per cent need treatment for infertility  Of these  40 per cent is due to male infertility  Dr  H  Narmada Devi is a city s well known and most sought after Fertility Specialist who served in Gandhi Medical College earlier teaching Gynecology for 12 years  spent 7 years in Iran  The Fertility Center which she started three years back is frequented by many software professionals with infertility problems
Couples walking into infertility clinics and asking about assisted methods of reproduction is common these days unlike in the past  This explains the rising number of infertility clinics everywhere  The IVF industry  is also registering growth of 20 to 30 percent with around 40 000 IVF cycles done every year  informed Dr  Narmada  Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception  Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term added Dr  Narmada
Narmada Fertility Center  a specialty clinic for women which Dr  Narmada has been running for the past couple of years is a single window one stop centre for infertility treatment  IVF treatment and assisted reproduction  providing world class technology and professional care at an affordable cost with outstanding pregnancy rates  She has attended to hundreds of patients
We keep reading newspaper headlines frequently report about rising inflation  It is time for them to write about Infertility  which Dr  Narmada says that it has been on rise at alarming pace in India  As if rising rate of public health challenges such as diabetes  hypertension  high blood pressure  and heart disease were not enough  statistics reveal more and more couples in India are finding it difficult to procreate  Medical case studies  evidence as well as the rising number of infertility clinics in urban areas of the country are pointing to the fact that infertility is becoming a health challenge in the country she said  Especially it is growing at an alarming pace in the cities
Out of around 250 million individuals estimated to be attempting parenthood at any given time  13 to 19 million couples are likely to be infertile  Close study of national census revealed that infertility has risen by 50 percent in the country she informed  Nearly 30 million couples in the country suffer from infertility  making the incidence rate to 10 percent
Earlier childlessness in a couple used to be talked about in hushed tones  with the problem  without doubt  being attributed to the women  Today  infertility is no longer recognized as only a female problem  In fact  the term infertility is a broad term  often loosely used  It actually refers to a range of disorders some of which affect the male  and some the female  and contribute to childlessness in a couple  There is also something called unexplained infertility  where doctors fail to come up with a medical explanation for the couple s inability to conceive  Study reports suggested that male infertility is almost as high as female infertility  One in every five healthy young men between the ages from 18 to 25 suffers from abnormal sperm count  In every 100 couples  40 percent of the males suffer from infertility compared to 50 percent women  In the remaining 5 percent  the causes are common to both men and women
Stating further  Dr  Narmada added interesting and untold information such as for instance most of the time men who work on laptop at home keep it on their lap and work  Due to the heat it produces for a prolonged time and radiation it generates adversely affects the production of the sperms  High pressure information technology jobs  erratic work and sleeping schedules  long hours of working  working in nights sleeping during the days adversely affect hormones is the another reason why high pressure infotech world is taking a toll of the fertility of its professionals  she said
Some common causes of infertility in men are irregular sperm production  hampered sperm delivery due to either erectile dysfunction or early ejaculation  presence of medical conditions such as obesity that may hamper sperm production  certain infections such as Sexually Transmitted Diseases  STDs   and lifestyle conditions such as diet imbalance  addiction to smoking or alcoholism  sedentary existence  or mental and emotional stress  all of which contribute to poor sperm count she said  In women  hectic lifestyle and job stress contribute to conception problems  A very common cause is polycystic ovary disease  PCOD   a condition characterized by excess production of hormones and lack of ovulation
There is also delayed marriage and deferred childbirth among couples  by the time the new age  career oriented urban Indian woman is ready to have a child  her biological clock has already slowed down  and she needs the help of artificial and assisted technology for childbirth  I am shocked to see some couple who approach her for abortion at 32 years
Advanced fertility treatments include IVF or in vitro fertilization  in which case the eggs are removed from the woman s ovaries and fertilized with sperms in a fluid medium before transferring it to the woman s uterus  IUI or intrauterine insemination  which is a treatment used to increase the number of sperms reaching the fallopian tubes  therefore increasing the chance of fertilization
 With advances in technology  the success rate of artificial reproductive technology has steadily increased in the past few years  today the success rate with all of these are around 35 to 40 percent  she said  The treatment costs are also drastically coming down
Dr  H  Narmada Devi is a member of I S A R Indian Society For Assisted Reproduction  Gynecologic Endoscopy Surgeries of India and Life member of Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India  FOGSI   She just completed 25 years in her profession and shared her experience for the benefit of the society at large