Ovulation Induction

Fertility medications (pills or injections) are used to help stimulate a woman’s ovaries to develop eggs.  This is helpful for women who have had difficulty ovulating. Ovulation induction may increase the number of eggs produced every month.

Ovulation induction is conducted while monitoring egg production with ultrasounds and/or bloodwork in order to balance the ovary’s response between too few or too many eggs.

How does this work?  

Ovulation is the release of a mature oocyte (egg) from the ovary which generally happens once per month. From the ovary the egg travels into the Fallopian tube for fertilization.

Ovulation induction causes the egg or eggs to prepare for ovulation. Next, ovulation happens naturally or sometimes with the aid of an injectable ovulation trigger medication.

For a successful pregnancy to take place, ovulation induction is followed by a fertility treatment technique which helps insure a sperm-egg union. Intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is generally employed to insure the egg and sperm unite and pregnancy occurs.