It is very common for people to wonder: I have been trying to get pregnant for a while and I have not yet achieved it. Will I have a problem? How long should I wait to see a doctor?
A completely normal couple can take as long as a year to get pregnant, without any problems. This is because human reproduction is inefficient. We wouldn’t believe that this is the case when we see how the world’s population has grown …… 7 billion! How is this contradiction explained?
To begin to understand this, it’s worth explaining why human fertility is inefficient in the short term. Each month a woman produces a mature egg, about 12 to 14 days after menstruation. This egg emerged victorious from a selection process that began with a thousand candidate eggs that began to mature in the ovary. The mature egg is expelled from the ovary and, if you are lucky, it is trapped by the fallopian tube. Only the eggs that reach the tube can be fertilized and only 4 out of 10 expelled eggs succeed. So, in 10 months there are really only 4 fertile months for the woman and 6 non-fertile months in which the egg did not reach the tube. In addition, sperm must swim from the vagina, where they are deposited, to the tube where fertilization occurs. This is a marathon equivalent to a man swimming 35 kms. Only a few sperm make it, and there are even times when no sperm make it to the egg. Finally, when fertilization has occurred, the embryo must travel to the cavity of the uterus and find a place to nest. Only 3 out of 10 times does the embryo manage to nest successfully. All these difficulties mean that out of 100 couples who try to get pregnant this month, only 20 succeed. That is, an efficiency of only 20% per month.
However, in the long term, humans are very successful at fertility. Couples who fail to get pregnant in the first month usually persist in their efforts in the following months. We see then, that just as 20 out of 100 get pregnant in the first month, in the second 16 of the remaining 80 get pregnant, and in the third month 12 out of 64 and so on, ending the year with 80 pregnant couples out of the 100 who started. That is, an efficiency of 80% per year. Hence the recommendation that a couple should not worry during the first year, since pregnancy can occur in the first month, but also at any time in the following 12 months.
The situation changes after a year. At this time, the probability of pregnancy falls to 5% per month because this group of people is the one in whom medical situations appear that make pregnancy difficult. The recommendation is that you consult your doctor if after a year of looking for a pregnancy is not achieved. An exception is in women over 35 years of age, who are recommended to consult after 6 months of searching.
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GroupArticle for the blog of El Colombiano Hablemos de Fertilidad
