Menopause is defined as the day 12 consecutive months after your last menstrual period. But the period of time when estrogen and progesterone production declines and menstrual periods become irregular, called perimenopause, can begin by age 45...
Over 1.2 million women in the U.S. seek treatment each year for infertility, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some conceptions require only fertility-enhancing medications or artificial insemination. Other babies start...
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a medical procedure in which eggs and sperm are fertilized in the laboratory and the resulting fertilized eggs or embryos are returned to the mother to establish a pregnancy. Physicians use variations on this...
Acupuncture involves placing small, sterile needles at the points on the body where channels, or meridians, occur in order to improve the way the body functions. When it comes to infertility, acupuncture---which often is used in conjunction with...
Today, almost any woman undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) can use egg donation to conceive. Egg donation is most often used by women who have been unable to conceive with their own eggs. Donor eggs can also help women who cannot get pregnant...
Receiving an egg from a donor can help a woman to get pregnant even when her own body is no longer releasing eggs, or her eggs are not viable for reproduction. The egg is combined with sperm in a laboratory--it can be her partner's sperm or donor...
In the mid-1980s, a group of scientists first discovered that there was a natural decrease in fertility as a woman aged. By studying different populations from as early as the 1600s (when contraception was not an option), these scientists were...
