Artificial insemination is a medical technique of assisted reproduction that is basically used when a couple, due to difficulties associated with infertility, is unable to have offspring through normal sexual intercourse.
Artificial insemination allows, with a reasonable effort and investment, to experience the pregnancy phase, which gives the couple (and especially the woman) the peace of mind of being able to enjoy a gestation process comparable to that of those who do not require assisted reproduction methods.
Broadly speaking, artificial insemination involves the deposition of sperm into the uterus. The semen is treated in the laboratory. It is “washed” or capacitated, to separate the sperm from the seminal fluid, and to recover as many motile sperm as possible. With this washing or capacitation we prevent the seminal fluid from entering the uterus, since it could irritate it, and we also increase the possibility that the sperm will fertilize the egg.
In this way, it is intended to emulate the entry of sperm into the uterus through copulation, which had been unsuccessful, and thus achieve the onset of gestation. Artificial insemination is performed through the cervix in the doctor’s office, using a very fine cannula. It takes only a few minutes.
In order to successfully perform an artificial insemination, the tubes must be permeable and not obstructed. That is why it is recommended to perform a hysterosalpingography or hysterosonography to check their correct function.
Basically, there are two types of artificial insemination, which we will describe in the following subsections. In both cases, it is a matter of exhaustively controlling the woman’s menstrual cycle, so that the semen is deposited in the uterus when the egg is released, at a time close to ovulation. There are, on the other hand, more complex procedures with even greater chances of success, which are used in more difficult gestational circumstances, such as in vitro fertilization and ICSI.
This method is used when the couple’s semen is suitable for procreation, but there is some physiological inconvenience, both for the woman and the man, that makes it impossible for gestation to occur through intercourse.
The causes that may prompt recourse to the TSI are as follows:
As for the TSI process, the treatment phases are as follows:
We resort to this assisted gestational method in cases of male infertility, Rh incompatibility or transmission of hereditary diseases. Therefore, the main beneficiaries of AID are infertile couples, same-sex couples and single mothers.
Apart from the change made in the semen collection, the rest of the steps of the artificial insemination process coincide with those of the AIH. The donors come from our own semen bank, and we also work with collaborating semen banks in case we require a special phenotype that we do not have at that moment. The semen donors are selected in a very rigorous way; the semen samples undergo very demanding quality controls and the donors are studied exhaustively. It is especially important to remember that the sperm donor is totally anonymous in Spain, so neither the patient nor the donor can ever know the identity of the other.
In case of insemination treatment with donor sperm in a public hospital, we can send the sample on the indicated day. There are public hospitals, such as the hospital of the Marina Alta in Denia (Marina Salud), or the Regional Hospital of Gandia (Francesc de Borja), which do not have a sperm bank and have to resort to an external bank like ours. We can give you more information by phone, email, or in our centers in Beniarbeig or Gandía.
After an assisted reproduction treatment, all women are very attentive to any signs or changes that may occur in their bodies that indicate that the
