To some people, conceiving, carrying and giving birth to a healthy child may seem routine. But for women who are facing cancer, having a baby is much more complicated. Cancer treatments can disrupt the process of conception and affect a woman’s ability to have children.
If you’ve yet to begin cancer treatment, talk with your doctor about fertility. Different treatments can have different effects, but there may be ways to save or protect your fertility before, and possibly even during treatment.
Cancer and fertility: Things to consider
Before moving forward with fertility-saving treatment, your physician must try to answer the following questions:
- Has the cancer spread?
- Is there a high risk of the cancer returning to the same areas or organs?
- Is pursuing a time-consuming method to preserve fertility going to delay treatment of a fast-growing cancer?
- What are the chances of success? (Most fertility procedures are less successful for women over age 40.)
Cancer and fertility: Options you may have
When it comes to starting or continuing to build your family, you do have choices. In fact, you and your doctor may attempt to preserve your fertility by using more than one option. These may include:
- Freezing sperm for men
- IVF to freeze embryos
- Egg freezing (stimulating the ovaries to retrieve mature eggs)
- Surrogacy
- Surgery
Helping you overcome every obstacle to fertility
At Reproductive Gynecology & Infertility, we’ve been helping couples bring children into their lives for more than 25 years. If cancer has interrupted your plans to have a baby, our experienced physicians will explore every option with you, including fertility preservation in Canton, Akron, Columbus, and Youngstown, Ohio.
Surgery is one of the most successful methods for correcting infertility due to cancer treatments or other challenges. Our surgeons expertly and gently perform a range of procedures, including minimally invasive laparoscopic and microscopic surgical techniques, which can shorten both down time and recovery time. To learn more, reach out today. Our caring, dedicated team of specialists is here to put their whole hearts and minds into making pregnancy and parenthood possible.
To schedule an appointment, call 866-537-2461 or use our convenient online form to request an appointment.