‘How to preserve your fertility’

Dr. Abayomi Ajayi
Dr. Abayomi Ajayi is the Managing Director, Nordica Fertility Centre. In this interview, the fertility expert speaks on the causes of infertility, when couples should seek fertility treatment, and why women should store their eggs, among others.
Excerpts:

What is your assessment of infertility in Nigeria?

Infertility seems to be on the increase everywhere in the world, and Nigeria is not an exception. Some people may say it is difficult to make such a categorical statement, in the sense that there is no population based study, but we can see what is happening in other parts of the world where they are keeping figures especially for male infertility whichappears to be on the rise.

If you look at our own experience in Nigeria, all the indices appear to be showing the same thing. We did a study in my clinic where we looked at the sperm count of men who came to the clinic in 2004 compared to the sperm count of those who came in 2014, that is a 10-year range, and discovered a decline of about 30%. So this points to the fact that sperm count is decreasing.

What are the major causes of infertility?
Male factor infertility appears to be number one. We don’t know why male infertility is on the rise but there are many likely factors that affect sperm count, such as lifestyle, contaminants in the environment like from industrialization, global warming, and what we use day to day.

There are some habits and lifestyle factors that both men and women can avoid to prevent infertility such as obesity, cigarette smoking, excessive exercise, use of drugs, and even some vocations.

When should a person or a couple seek fertility treatment?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines infertility as the inability of a couple to achieve conception within one year. So ideally, it should be after one year.

However, we know that fertility and infertility are age-related especially for women.

So we now say that a woman who is less than 35 should seek treatment after one year, but if she is more than 35, it should be six months so that she can have time to benefit from the things technology has made available today.

Some of the things that we thought belong to the realm of science fiction a few years ago are now possible with technology.

We want everybody to take advantage of the things that are available, but we can only do that if you report early and if you go to the right place.

Aside IVF what other treatments are available for infertility?
The first thing we do when a couple comes to us is to do a proper assessment. We then proffer solution from three points of view; drugs, or surgery, before we talk of assisted conception.

One form of assisted conception is In vitro fertilization (IVF). That is mature eggs are collected from your ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab. The two are put together outside your body.

There are still no sperm boosters for majority of men with fertility challenges; that is when the sperm parameter is not okay, drugs have not been proven to be of help. It only helps perhaps about 5% of people who have some form of hormonal disorder.

The fertility challenge of about 10 to 15% of women involves problems with ovulation, so if you are dealing with ovulation disorder, drugs work very well.

You can get up to 75 or 80% success using drugs for those who have ovulation disorder alone.

The two main causes of infertility in Nigeria is low sperm count and blocked fallopian tubes.

And the only way to treat those two, that makes sense, is to do assisted conceptions.

How many people has your clinic assisted to conceive since inception?
It is almost 2,000 people now.

There has been a general misconception about IVF babies, what is your advice on this?
My advice for people who have IVF children is that they should walk tall and proud that they have such children because they are normal children.

I know some people hide how they got their children. For those people, let me tell them that they have not