Know the facts about the AMH test in assessing your egg reserve
Fertility specialists will commonly request an Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) blood test as one of the first medical assessments for new patients.
There are two main reasons we use this test – firstly as an initial indicator to evaluate a patient’s egg reserve and secondly to test their response to fertility medication.
Importantly, the results of an AMH test is best interpreted by a fertility specialist, and the gold standard test to determine egg reserve is an antral follicle count (AFC) – a transvaginal ultrasound that counts ovarian antral follicles. An AFC is done ideally in the first half of a woman’s cycle, before ovulation.
What is the Anti-Mullerian Hormone test?
Women’s Health Week: Focusing on female infertility
City Fertility supports the Jean Hailes Women’s Health Week (6-10 September) which is dedicated to all women across Australia to make good health a priority.
If you’re currently focusing on your fertility health or planning, then there are plenty of things you can do to enhance your fertility and a range of treatments available if and when you need it.
The desire to become a parent is independent of sex, sexuality or gender identity, and there are also many different paths to parenthood, whether as a couple, shared or sole parenting, and they also include adoption, foster care and surrogacy.
Fathers’ Day – Making plans to be a dad
Planning and starting a family is deeply personal, emotional and exciting. But sometimes it can be a stressful experience when your plans for a family are not going as expected, and days of significance that bring families together, like Fathers’ Day, can be tough.
Future dads, as you know, you’ve got an equally important role to play in achieving a healthy pregnancy, and your sperm needs to be just as healthy as women’s eggs to get the best chances of a pregnancy.
City Fertility would like to warmly welcome Dr Stephen Elgey to our Gold Coast clinic
City Fertility would like to warmly welcome Dr Stephen Elgey to our Gold Coast clinic.
Sharing his time between his Sunnybank practice and his new practice at Robina, Dr Elgey provides specialised care in fertility and gynaecology and is dedicated to giving his patients the best chance to achieve their dream of having a baby.
Genetic embryo testing helping reduce hereditary diseases in newborns
Research suggests that 30 per cent of children’s hospital admissions are due to genetic disorders, however with the help of advanced preimplantation genetic testing of embryos, the number of children born with these genetic diseases can potentially be reduced.
At City Fertility we employ the most advanced genetic testing method currently available called Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). NGS is an extremely sensitive testing method with the analysis including several hundred thousand readings for each chromosome.
Know the facts: Pregnancy and the COVID-19 Vaccine
If you are planning a pregnancy you are probably wondering if it is safe to have the COVID-19 vaccine and if so, should you have it now, wait until you are pregnant or have it after pregnancy?
The advice is that you can receive the Pfizer mRNA (Cominarty) vaccine if you are either planning a pregnancy or if you are currently pregnant.
The reasoning for getting vaccinated is that the potential risk of severe outcomes associated with actually contracting COVID-19 is significantly higher for pregnant women and their unborn baby.
City Fertility Notting Hill Now Open
Melbourne locals now have easy access to a new alternative in fertility care and IVF with the opening of City Fertility’s all-inclusive and state-of-the-art IVF clinic in Notting Hill (near Clayton).
Our new purpose-built clinic has been designed to maximise pregnancy outcomes by incorporating modern on-site consulting rooms, a dedicated day hospital and a world-class IVF laboratory all in the one location.
When am I most fertile?
Knowing when the best time is to conceive each month is an important factor in helping achieve a successful pregnancy. Unfortunately, some patients miss getting this right which is delaying a positive outcome for them sooner rather than later.
Put simply, the timing of conception is critical to success, and by learning to understand your body’s menstrual cycle and the signs of ovulation, it may help you feel more in control.
Ovulation is when the egg is released from the ovary and is a female’s most fertile time of the month.
How men can optimise their fertility: 5 key factors to consider
To all the men out there, listen up…you also play a crucial role in helping achieve a healthy pregnancy, so don’t just leave it to the women. The health of both the sperm and eggs are equally important to optimising your chances of pregnancy.
There are several lifestyle factors you can control that will help enhance your fertility, but take note, for sperm it takes approximately two and a half months to see if changes to your lifestyle have improved your sperm quality.
So what are the biggest factors you can focus on? Here are some of the top priorities I recommend.
Chemicals could be ruining men’s chances of parenthood
An increasing body of research is supporting the belief that the chemicals we come across in our everyday lives are reducing fertility, particularly in men.
A recent book Count Down published in February 2021 by renowned epidemiologist Professor Shanna Swan asserts that the sperm count of Western men has plunged by more than 50 per cent in the past 40 years.
Professor Swan said we can’t keep blaming our fertility problems on delayed childbearing, choice or lifestyle. Chemicals are one of the main causes of fertility issues and they are everywhere surrounding us in our everyday lives from what we eat, breathe to the products we use.
