Hyderabad|India|September'2011: Infertility, the inability to have children affects one in every seven couples of fertile age. The infertility rate is increasing as a result of increased stress, competitive work environment, hectic and fast paced imbalanced and erratic lifestyles, obesity, irregular body cycles, urbanisation, environmental toxins, delayed marriage, prolonged family planning, priority to career advancement over commencing family informed Dr. H. Narmada Devi, Gynaecological Endoscopic Surgeon and Fertility Specialist at Narmada Fertility Center. This is evident from the fact that Hyderabad city has well over 20 Fertility Centers, Reproductive Medicine centers and Assisted Conception services.

Addressing media men on the occasion of the second anniversary of Narmada Fertility Center and on her completing 25 years in the profession Dr. H. Narmada Devi revealed a interesting IT sector-infertility link. The city-based Fertility Specialist who is trained in USA for infertility and high risk pregnancy is taking a serious look at the increasing number of software professionals who come to seek help at her infertility clinic. She is putting together her experience of assisting hundreds of Information Technology couples. Over the years the problem is increasing alarmingly, she says.

Out of 100 couples, at least 15 per cent need treatment for infertility. Of these, 40 per cent is due to male infertility. Dr. H. Narmada Devi is a city's well known and most sought after Fertility Specialist who served in Gandhi Medical College earlier teaching Gynecology for 12 years, spent 7 years in Iran. The Fertility Center which she started three years back is frequented by many software professionals with infertility problems.

Couples walking into infertility clinics and asking about assisted methods of reproduction is common these days unlike in the past. This explains the rising number of infertility clinics everywhere. The IVF industry, is also registering growth of 20 to 30 percent with around 40,000 IVF cycles done every year, informed Dr. Narmada. Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term added Dr. Narmada.

Narmada Fertility Center, a specialty clinic for women which Dr. Narmada has been running for the past couple of years is a single window one stop centre for infertility treatment, IVF treatment and assisted reproduction, providing world-class technology and professional care at an affordable cost with outstanding pregnancy rates. She has attended to hundreds of patients.

We keep reading newspaper headlines frequently report about rising inflation. It is time for them to write about Infertility, which Dr. Narmada says that it has been on rise at alarming pace in India. As if rising rate of public health challenges such as diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart disease were not enough, statistics reveal more and more couples in India are finding it difficult to procreate. Medical case studies, evidence as well as the rising number of infertility clinics in urban areas of the country are pointing to the fact that infertility is becoming a health challenge in the country she said. Especially it is growing at an alarming pace in the cities.

Out of around 250 million individuals estimated to be attempting parenthood at any given time, 13 to 19 million couples are likely to be infertile. Close study of national census revealed that infertility has risen by 50 percent in the country she informed. Nearly 30 million couples in the country suffer from infertility, making the incidence rate to 10 percent.

Earlier childlessness in a couple used to be talked about in hushed tones, with the problem, without doubt, being attributed to the women. Today, infertility is no longer recognized as only a female problem. In fact, the term infertility is a broad term, often loosely used. It actually refers to a range of disorders some of which affect the male, and some the female, and contribute to childlessness in a couple. There is also something called unexplained infertility, where doctors fail to come up with a medical explanation for the couple's inability to conceive. Study reports suggested that male infertility is almost as high as female infertility. One in every five healthy young men between the ages from 18 to 25 suffers from abnormal sperm count. In every 100 couples, 40 percent of the males suffer from infertility compared to 50 percent women. In the remaining 5 percent, the causes are common to both men and women.

Stating further, Dr. Narmada added interesting and untold information such as for instance most of the time men who work on laptop at home keep it on their lap and work. Due to the heat it produces for a prolonged time and radiation it generates adversely affects the production of the sperms. High pressure information technology jobs, erratic work and sleeping schedules, long hours of working, working in nights sleeping during the days adversely affect hormones is the another reason why high-pressure infotech world is taking a toll of the fertility of its professionals, she said.

Some common causes of infertility in men are irregular sperm production, hampered sperm delivery due to either erectile dysfunction or early ejaculation, presence of medical conditions such as obesity that may hamper sperm production, certain infections such as Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), and lifestyle conditions such as diet imbalance, addiction to smoking or alcoholism, sedentary existence, or mental and emotional stress, all of which contribute to poor sperm count she said. In women, hectic lifestyle and job stress contribute to conception problems. A very common cause is polycystic ovary disease (PCOD), a condition characterized by excess production of hormones and lack of ovulation.

There is also delayed marriage and deferred childbirth among couples; by the time the new-age, career-oriented urban Indian woman is ready to have a child, her biological clock has already slowed down, and she needs the help of artificial and assisted technology for childbirth. I am shocked to see some couple who approach her for abortion at 32 years.

Advanced fertility treatments include IVF or in vitro fertilization, in which case the eggs are removed from the woman's ovaries and fertilized with sperms in a fluid medium before transferring it to the woman's uterus; IUI or intrauterine insemination, which is a treatment used to increase the number of sperms reaching the fallopian tubes, therefore increasing the chance of fertilization.

"With advances in technology, the success rate of artificial reproductive technology has steadily increased in the past few years; today the success rate with all of these are around 35 to 40 percent, she said. The treatment costs are also drastically coming down.

Dr. H. Narmada Devi is a member of I.S.A.R - Indian Society For Assisted Reproduction; Gynecologic Endoscopy Surgeries of India and Life member of Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI). She just completed 25 years in her profession and shared her experience for the benefit of the society at large.