STDs, Women, and Infertility
Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
Sexually transmitted diseases, namely, gonorrhea and chlamydia, may be associated with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and can cause damage damage to a woman’s fallopian tubes. PID is an infection and resulting inflammation that involves the internal reproductive organs. It could result in infertility. Your health care provider can detect PID with a pelvic exam and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
If you have infertility and don’t recall ever having PID, your doctor may be able to see scarring or blockage of the tubes during an X-ray procedure called a hysterosalpingogram or during a diagnostic surgical procedure called laparoscopy.
Infertility and In Vitro Fertilization
Today, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is practically a household word. But not so long ago, it was a mysterious procedure for infertility that produced what were then known as "test-tube babies." Louise Brown, born in England in 1978, was the first such baby to be conceived outside her mother's womb. Unlike the simpler process of artificial insemination -- in which sperm is placed in the uterus and conception precedes otherwise normally -- IVF involves combining eggs and sperm outside the body in...
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