Infertility classification

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [2]

Classification

Infertility is grouped into two main categories

• Primary infertility: It refers to couples who have never been able to conceive.

• Secondray infertility: It refers to difficulty conceiving after already having conceived and carried a normal pregnancy. Technically, secondary infertility is not present if there has been a change of partners.

Other Types of Infertility

Combined infertility

• In some cases, both the man and woman may be infertile or sub-fertile, and the couple's infertility arises from the combination of these conditions.
• In other cases, the cause is suspected to be immunological or genetic; it may be that each partner is independently fertile but the couple cannot conceive together without assistance.

Unexplained infertility

In about 15% of cases the infertility investigation will show no abnormalities. In these cases abnormalities are likely to be present but not detected by current methods. Possible problems could be that

• the egg is not released at the optimum time for fertilization,
• that it may not enter the fallopian tube,
• sperm may not be able to reach the egg,
• fertilization may fail to occur,
• transport of the zygote may be disturbed, or
• implantation fails.

It is increasingly recognized that egg quality is of critical importance and women of advanced maternal age have eggs of reduced capacity for normal and successful fertilization.