According to estimates, depending on the age of the woman, between 50TP3T and as many as 80% of all couples trying to conceive struggle with so-called idiopathic infertility, that is, they experience difficulties conceiving despite the fact that routine fertility tests have not shown them any significant abnormalities. The longer they fail to achieve a pregnancy without medical support, the lower their chances of parenthood - after five years of unsuccessful attempts at conception, the probability of conceiving a child drops below 10%. This is why it is so important to take effective action as early as possible in their efforts to expand their family.

Why don't we have a child?

Doctors have calculated that on the day of ovulation, which is the most fertile day of the cycle, a healthy woman has a maximum 30% chance of becoming pregnant. Moreover, even if fertilisation occurs, there are no guarantees that the embryo will implant in the uterine cavity and develop properly for the entire nine months. As statistics show, one in five pregnancies ends in a very early miscarriage in the first trimester, generally even before the woman is aware that she is going to be a mother.

The causes of spontaneous miscarriage at an early stage of pregnancy vary. Because the process of embryo formation and implantation in the uterine cavity is a multi-stage process, and even a slight deviation from the norm can disrupt it, getting to the root of the problem can be challenging.

Check and treat

Statistically, the identification of a specific cause of infertility succeeds in about 20-50% cases; in the remaining couples, standard infertility diagnostics are not yet able to identify the 'main culprit'. However, this does not mean that couples struggling with idiopathic infertility are left to their own devices - on the contrary, despite the lack of a precise diagnosis, they can and should undertake treatment.

If a woman is under 35, doctors often opt for clomiphene citrate (an ovulation-stimulating drug - two or three eggs are produced instead of one) in combination with intrauterine insemination. With the first three attempts, the percentage of pregnancies achieved is 10%, then decreases markedly in the following months.

Another method of treating idiopathic infertility is to give the woman FSH hormone injections before insemination. The injections can also be used without the additional support of assisted reproduction techniques, but the effectiveness of this is not yet thoroughly tested.

It is known, however, that in the case of idiopathic infertility with normal ovarian reserve, in vitro fertilisation, i.e. in vitro fertilisation, yields good results. The use of insemination in idiopathic infertility - especially after the woman's 35th birthday - is now being abandoned. - "The age of the patient trying to have a child is of colossal importance when choosing the method of treatment," explains Dr Łukasz Sroka, a specialist gynaecologist-obstetrician from the InviMed infertility treatment clinic in Poznań. - "With each passing month, the state of ovarian reserve decreases and the quality of the egg cells deteriorates, further reducing the chances of pregnancy. After your fortieth birthday, it really isn't worth wasting time on ineffective methods or - even worse - waiting idly," the doctor adds.

Sometimes, at one stage of extrauterine fertilisation, a cause of infertility that has so far remained undiagnosed, such as slow embryo development, can be grasped. This means that in addition to its therapeutic role, IVF can also have a diagnostic function, although - of course - this is only a 'bonus' and not its main task.