CHENNAI: Five years of childlessness had put a severe strain on Kavitha’s* marriage. At 28, the family pressure and the depression from not having borne a child yet had been a constant concern for her husband Kathiravan* and herself. Then the couple tried a new sperm selection technique offered by a city hospital. The result? Twins!First of close to 800 couples to try the procedure at Prashath Hospitals, their journey began with a visit to a fertility clinic to see if there was a problem. That is when they came to know that Kathiravan had a very low sperm count. “Initially his count was as low as 1 million/mm, but we managed to raise that to about 10 million/mm with some medication,” explained Dr Geetha Haripriya, chief gynaecologist at Prashanth Hospital. After they attempted a couple of regular fertility procedures as a matter of course, they were all but about to give up.“This was when we procured the technology required to attempt Intracytoplasmic morphologically-selected sperm injection or IMSI as it is called,” said the fertility specialist. Using a high power microscope attached to a computer with a specialised software, they could isolate the healthiest of the sperms in the pool and use these directly to fertilise the egg. This couple was the first to undergo the IMSI procedure 10 months ago and they were fortunate enough to have twins, a month ago.“Not only has this procedure increased the rate of pregnancies, it has also reduced the percentage of miscarriages by a great deal,” explained Dr Haripriya. Though the technology and the technique were developed around 2004, this is among the first deliveries that have been made successfully in the city. “We have administered the same treatment to almost 800 couples after them. All of them are doing very well. Much like IVF, if it doesn’t take on at the first attempt, chances are the second attempt will be very successful,” she added.(*Names changed to protect identity)
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