Married couple asked to seek specialist help after two years of infertility

Tema, June 9, GNA - Couples, who have been married for more than two years without any sign of procreation, have been advised to seek the assistance of fertility specialist.

Dr Joe Mainoo, Medical Director of Pro Vita Specialist Hospital in Tema, gave the advice in an interview with Ghana News Agency in Tema on Thursday. He stressed that instead of making infertility an entire family issue, married couples should report to fertility experts for help.

Dr Mainoo said the issue of infertility should not be associated with women alone and advised that both men and women should consult specialists when such situation occurs.

He, however, said in the case of women, criminal abortion and leaving of tissues in the womb after legal abortion, could lead to infertility since the fallopian tubes or exist to the womb could be blocked.

Other causes of infertility in women, according to Dr Mainoo are Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), vaginal infections, malfunctioning of the ovaries, fibroids in the womb, and damage of part of the brain that stimulates ovulation.

Concerning men, he mentioned low sperm counts or lack of sperms, due to infections caused by STDs as some causes of infertility.

"If the sperm count in the man is not good, no matter the amount of eggs produced by the woman, there cannot be fertilization", Dr Mainoo said.

He advised that married couples, who could not have children the natural way due to any of the above situations, should go through the selection and preparation of eggs and sperms from the woman and the man respectively, by a specialist for an In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) also known as artificial insemination.

Dr Mainoo said between four and five hours of harvesting or retrieving and fertilizing of the eggs with the sperms, the insemination is done. He explained that there were two procedures in inseminating the fertilized embryo, depending on the number of the sperm count.

Dr Mainoo explained that 93If the sperm count is between 10 million and 20 million, the best 100,000 among them, is selected and added to the egg for fertilization, whereas if the sperm count is between one million and three million, a selection of the sperm is loaded into a syringe and one sperm is injected into the cytoplasm of the egg".

He elaborated that in cases where there was no production of sperms at all, the process of Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) was done.

Dr Mainoo explained that ICSI was the process by which tissues of the testicles were removed medically for spermatic to be collected and prepared for the purposes of fertilization.

He indicated that in case that the ICSI faileds, the patient could fall on sperm donation for fertilization.

Meanwhile, the 34-year-old trader, Mrs Stella Obeng-Sakyi, who delivered a set of quintuplets, three girls and two boys, at Pro Vita through IVF on Monday, May 9, after seven years of infertility, was discharged together with her babies on Wednesday, June 8.

Dr Mainoo stated that the babies who were delivered in the 34th week of pregnancy through caesarean section, now weighed between 1.5 and 2.2kilogrammes compared to their weight at birth, which was between 1.1 and 1.5 kg.

He said that three embryos were inseminated into Mrs Obeng, but two of them were divided each leading to the production of the two boys and three girls she delivered.

Dr Mainoo appealed to the government, non-governmental organizations, religious groups, corporate establishments and philanthropists, to help the parents of the quintuplets, to cater for the children.

He said in European countries such parents received help from the government to mitigate the financial and material burdens in catering for multiple children.