In women, fertility means the ability to become
pregnant and have a baby. The woman's reproductive years begin when she
starts her menstrual cycles during puberty (around age 13 years). The
ability to have a child usually ends around age 45, although it is
potentially possible for a woman to get pregnant until your menstrual cycles
end with menopause (around age 51).
When a baby girl is born, you already have in your body about 400,000
immature eggs (oocytes). They are stored in their ovaries in very small
bags, filled with fluid, called follicles. When the girl enters the
reproductive age, begins to have monthly menstrual cycles. During each
cycle, the ovary releases an egg that can be fertilized when joined with the sperm of man and
it can initiate a pregnancy.
The development and release of the egg depends on a delicate balance of
hormones: chemicals that signal to the organs to perform specific
activities. Some of these hormones are produced in the ovaries. Others come
from two glands in the brain, the hypothalamus and pituitary.
Fertility in Men
In men, fertility means the ability to impregnate a
woman. For this, the man's reproductive system must produce and store sperm.
He also needs to transport sperm out of your body, so that they can enter
the reproductive tract of women.
The organs that produce sperm are the testes. Normally, a man has two
testes, located in the scrotum, the pouch of skin that hangs behind the
penis. Within each testis, there are many delicate organs, called tubules.
This is where sperm develop.
Unlike a woman, born with all the eggs she will need throughout their life,
a man makes new sperm continually. When an individual male goes through
puberty, their reserve of sperm is renewed every approximately 72 days.
Infertility is the diminished or absent capacity to produce offspring. The
term does not imply a complete inability to have children, and should not be
confused with sterility. Clinicians have introduced physical and temporal
elements in the definition of infertility. Infertility is thus often
diagnosed when, after 1 year of sex unprotected, there is no conception.
