Female fertility testing - Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic (2024)

There are many natural ways to increase female fertility, helping to increase your chances of getting pregnant. Here are just a few:

1. The secret is in the timing
   Many people are unaware that there are only about six days each month when you may get pregnant – the best chance being on the day of ovulation. For women on a regular 28-day cycle, the day of ovulation is normally about 14 days after the start of a period.
2. Reduce alcohol intake and stop smoking
   Both alcohol and smoking can have a negative impact on fertility and reproductive health. Stopping smoking and drinking less can help to improve your chances of becoming pregnant.
3. Keep to a healthy weight
   Body Mass Index (BMI) is calculated using height and weight, and can be an indicator of health. Ideally, your BMI should be below 25. Excess body fat can reduce your chances of becoming pregnant.
4. Eat well
   Eating a healthy, balanced diet has many advantages. It helps maintain an ideal body weight, aids the regulation of hormones, and improves your fertility health and wellbeing.

Foods such as green leafy vegetables (folic acid, calcium and iron), eggs and dairy (calcium), nuts and seeds (vitamin E, zinc and selenium), and citrus fruits (vitamin C) contain key nutrients needed for healthy fertility.

Find out more on how to improve your fertility naturally.

There are many treatments available for female infertility and the treatment you require depends greatly on what diagnosis you receive.

If you’re not ovulating, the first recommendation will be to have ovulation induction (OI). This treatment ensures you are releasing eggs at the right time, ready for fertilisation, through support of your own menstrual cycle.

There are a number of reasons you may currently not be producing eggs. However, regular ovulation can usually be restored using fertility drugs (pills or injections). Around seven out of 10 women taking these drugs will ovulate, and four out of 10 will conceive in the first three months. The choice of drug will be made by our experts after careful assessment. Fertility drugs stimulate the development and ovulation of mature eggs to be released ready for fertilisation.

Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is another treatment option which involves bringing the eggs and sperm together at the right time. You will have an initial consultation with one of our fertility specialists to agree your personalised treatment plan. You will be closely monitored by regular ultrasound scans and blood or urine tests. Depending on the number and size of your follicles, and the thickness of your endometrium, an injection may be given to induce ovulation. The sperm is carefully washed and prepared, and IUI is performed at the optimum time to achieve a pregnancy.

Other treatment options include:

• IVF – for more information on this please visit our designated IVF page
• ICSI – Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is a lab technique that may be appropriate for you if your sperm need a bit of extra help to achieve successful fertilisation. Your embryos, created using the ICSI technique, are then transferred in exactly the same way as in standard IVF
• Blastocyst culture – This is a scientific term for when your embryos are kept in our laboratory incubators for longer. This ensures they undergo critical developmental changes before being returned to the uterus
• Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) – If you had embryos frozen during a previous cycle, they can be thawed and placed in your uterus, avoiding the need to go through another IVF cycle
• Surrogacy – In some cases, potential parents need the help of another person to carry and deliver their baby for them

The cost of self-funded fertility treatment varies greatly depending on what diagnosis you receive. For information on specific treatments, please see our fees and funding page. You can also use our fee calculator to get a more accurate estimate of your treatment costs.

To find out more, please contact our Patient Services team to learn more about the options and processes involved.

There are a number of treatments available to same-sex female couples, including: IVF (in vitro fertilisation) and IUI (intrauterine insemination).

Whatever route you choose, you will need a sperm donor – we can help you find a donor, or you can find one on your own (with our support and advice).

We’re also pleased to be able to offer a Shared Motherhood package. This treatment is where we fertilise the collected eggs from one of you with donor sperm, and then your partner receives the embryo and carries the pregnancy. Learn more

Egg freezing is one way of preserving your fertility so you can use them later on for more fertility treatment. You might want to consider freezing your eggs if:

• You have a medical condition or need treatment for a medical condition that will affect your fertility, such as cancer (in this case NHS funding may be available depending on where you live).
• You’re at risk of injury or death (for example, you’re a member of the Armed Forces who is being deployed to a war zone).
• If you’re a female transitioning to a male, you may want to preserve your fertility before you start hormone therapy or have reconstructive surgery. Both treatments can lead to the partial or total loss of your fertility.
• You don’t want to have leftover embryos after IVF treatment for ethical reasons.

At our East of England clinics including Cambridge, Colchester, Norwich and Wickford, ovarian function and reserve tests, sometimes known as an ‘egg count’, involving blood tests and ultrasound imaging of your ovaries, tells us a lot about your fertility.

Women are born with a finite number of eggs thatare stored in the ovaries. Over time, these are released until the stock runs out (the menopause). The quality of the egg also diminishes as stock levels decline.

In order to gain an accurate picture of your stock of eggs, we perform a number of blood tests and an ultrasound assessment of your ovaries.

The blood tests measure Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) – to provide guidance on natural conception, your potential egg count from fertility treatments, and how well your ovaries are likely to respond to different medication regimes – Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), Luteinising Hormone (LH), and Estradiol. Progesterone (P4) is also measured to assess whether the eggs are being released at the right time.

The ultrasound assessment tells you how many immature follicles – structures containing potential eggs – are visible in the ovary, giving an estimation of stock levels. While we are performing this test, we will also evaluate any problems or abnormalities in your uterus and its lining, as well as around your reproductive organs.

For more information about our female fertility tests, please contact our one of our East of England clinics, including those at Cambridge, Colchester, Norwich, and Wickford.

Shared motherhood is where we fertilise the collected eggs from one of you with donor sperm, and then your partner receives the embryo and carries the pregnancy. Shared motherhood is a wonderful way for you to share the experience of pregnancy as a couple and for you both to play an essential role in your family journey.

This process would involve both partners undergoing scans, appointments and a stimulation process, with one partner going through the IVF process to produce eggs. These are then fertilised with your donor’s sperm in the embryology laboratory, before the embryo is transferred into the womb of the other (female) partner to carry the pregnancy.

There are four different options for you:

Shared motherhood:one partner provides the eggs and the other carries the pregnancy.

Shared motherhood and egg-sharing:one partner provides half their eggs to the other and shares the remainder with others wanting to start a family.

Shared motherhood with both partners egg-sharing:both partners share and both have the opportunity to carry the pregnancy.

Dual donation:one partner provides the eggs to the other. She, then, donates her eggs to others wanting to start a family.