Infertility affects women and men of all ages and there are many reasons surrounding infertility. While female infertility is more common with advancing age, men are less likely to be affected by it. There can be many issues other than infertility that need to be examined or underlying causes of infertility are to be examined. For this, various tests and scans have been designed that help to reach the root cause of any reproductive issue. One of them is a Transvaginal ultrasound.
What is Transvaginal ultrasound?
A Transvaginal ultrasound refers to the ultrasound done through a woman’s vagina. The wand is covered with the condom and the lubricant gel is spread over it.
The transducer is then, handed over to the woman to insert it gently into her vagina more comfortably. After that, she hands over the handle of the transducer to the technician who performs the ultrasound. The transducer releases sound waves which are not audible to the woman but these sound waves are capable of reading and understanding the internal organs of the woman and translating them to graphic images.
The Transvaginal Ultrasound Color Doppler is generally performed to have a detailed investigation for fertility treatment and test it accordingly. This is because it is capable of providing even better images of the woman’s vagina than the abdominal ultrasound. The tip of the transducer is positioned just below the cervix which makes it as much close to the reproductive organs as possible.
What is investigated?
The fertility treatments generally take help of Transvaginal ultrasounds. The very first Transvaginal ultrasound is performed when the woman is menstruating and it may cause some uneasiness. However, the woman need not be ashamed of or embarrassed about anything and the technicians are quite OK performing the ultrasound.
Follicle growth is the prime focus while performing the ultrasound of a woman undergoing fertility treatment and these all are performed Transvaginally. This is because the doctor needs to examine the follicle growth and accordingly decide the dosage of medicine.
Depending on the follicular growth, the IVF and IUI treatment continuity is determined. In the IVF treatment, if the woman is having no or very less follicle growth, her treatment is aborted.For the IUI treatment, excessive follicular growth calls for discontinuing the treatment.An acceptable follicular growth helps in scheduling the injection of HCG or egg retrieval.
While all this relates to a woman as she is the one who undertakes the entire fertility treatment, men may be infertile too due to erectile dysfunction, low sperm count or unexplained reasons. There are different tests to examine their infertility and the treatment cost varies accordingly.
Overall, the Transvaginal ultrasound is a very effective tool to examine the reasons of the infertility of a woman as well as to help with the effective application of infertility treatment to bless a woman with motherhood and the couple with parenthood.