Physiology of Eggs

Unlike males who have the ability to produce sperm from the time of puberty onwards, the human female is born with the total number of eggs she will ever have already in her ovaries. At birth the ovaries contain about 1 million eggs and these are continually activating and dying with about 200-400 being lost every month. This should not be confused with ovulation which begins at puberty and lasts till menopause, the time when all the eggs have died or been released. Ovulation is merely the process under the control of your pituitary gland that allows the ongoing development of a group of activated eggs leading the ultimate release of one during a monthly menstrual cycle.

Not only the number but the quality of the remaining eggs declines each year. Thus female age is another major factor affecting fertility.

Finally the women will enter the Oopause, approximately a 10 year period preceding her natural menopause (occurring on average at age 52 years) during which her tests of ovulation are initially normal, she has regular cycles but the only problem is that her chance of conception is very low and the chance of a live birth even lower due to a significant increase in the miscarriage rate.

Pregnancy rates as low <5% can occur and this leads to a great deal of frustration as the system appears to be working but no live births occur.