Back to Basics: Commonsense Approach to Optimizing Fecundity.

Abstract

The field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility has made massive advancements in the recent past in terms of offering comprehensive fertility care to individuals seeking to start or expand their families. Developments in, and increasing access to, assisted reproductive technology (ART) options has allowed opportunities for biological parenting for a multitude. Technological improvements in the field of cryopreservation have contributed to an increasing consideration of embryo, and now oocyte, cryopreservation as “procreative banking” strategies. The past decade has witnessed a meteoric expansion in technological options for genetic analysis of embryos, allowing to a certain extent, mitigation of aneuploidy-related pregnancy wastage on one hand, and enhancing the likelihood of conceiving a healthy child free of inherited disorders, on the other. Despite such innovative progress in the infertility arena, success rates for ART have remained stagnant for over a decade, with per cycle pregnancy rates of 42-48% for young women undergoing fresh autologous embryo transfer. While remaining the most successful and increasingly used treatment to overcome infertility, access to ART is far from equitable; personal perspectives, financial constraints, and service access are some of the challenges that limit utilization of effective fertility treatment options among communities. It is no surprise that women, couples, and providers have more than ever begun to question, “What can we do to improve natural fertility?” It is rare to meet a couple seeking fertility treatment who has not already scoured the Internet or elicited the advice of family and friends searching for natural methods of boosting his or