About one in every six people in New Zealand will experience infertility. This is when they are unable to conceive a baby after one year of trying, or when the woman has been unable to carry a pregnancy to a live birth. In about half of the cases, the cause of infertility is due to a problem with the woman and, in the other half, the problem will be with the man. There are now many treatments available for infertile clients and, in many cases, these treatments will result in a successful pregnancy. Doctors with a special interest and expertise in this area will provide the best opportunity for treatment. Local support groups and societies can be of help during the stressful time of having tests and treatment.

There are several health and lifestyle changes you can make that are proven to influence or enhance your chances of getting pregnant both prior to and during treatment. It is important to know that by the time you get referred for IVF treatment, the cause of your subfertility (reduced fertility) is usually out of your control. But for factors you can influence, read more here.

Ovulation Induction (OI) is for women who may or may not ovulate regularly and who have normal fallopian tubes and male partners with normal sperm quality. The treatment involves stimulating the woman’s ovaries with ovarian stimulation medication and the follicular growth monitored with blood tests and possibly ultrasound scans for timed intercourse. This is a common first step along the fertility treatment journey. For more information please click here.

Repromed offers lipiodol uterine flushing fertility treatment for clients with unexplained infertility or endometriosis-related infertility. It is only offered to women that have no existing damage to the fallopian tubes. Lipiodol tubal flushing is a procedure that bathes the uterus in lipiodol (poppy seed oil). The doctor uses a technique where a fine catheter is inserted through the cervix and the lipiodol is injected into the uterus and fallopian tubes, under x-ray guidance. For more about lipiodol please see our website.

Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) is for clients where the man’s sperm and the woman’s fallopian tubes are normal but they are still unable to conceive naturally. The treatment may or may not involve the stimulation of the woman’s ovaries with ovarian stimulation medication and the follicular growth monitored with blood tests and an ultrasound scan. This allows the ovulation to be either predicted or induced with a trigger injection. The man will then produce a sperm sample at home or at Repromed that is washed in the laboratory for insemination to be performed at Repromed. This treatment is often a second line of fertility treatment before options such as IVF are considered. For more about IUI please see our website.

For some people, their only hope of having a child is with the aid of sperm, egg or embryo donors. These altruistic people make it possible for others to fulfil their dreams of parenthood. The decision to have a child, or to help someone have a child with the aid of donation is a complex lifelong decision. In New Zealand donor services are tightly regulated to safeguard the welfare of the child, the donors, and the couples or single clients who want a family. If you are considering donating or looking for a donor, Repromed offers donor service options including sperm, eggs and embryos. See our website for more details.

In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) refers to fertilisation outside of the body. Eggs are collected and mixed with sperm in the laboratory. At Repromed we offer three different types of IVF treatment: Standard IVF Intra-cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) Physiological Intra-cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (PICSI) Once embryos are created they are grown (cultured) in the laboratory where their development is observed, a single embryo is the transferred into uterus. For more detailed information about in vitro fertilisation, please click here.

At Repromed our embryologists freeze high quality embryos following a fresh embryo transfer. These embryos will remain in storage until clients would like them thawed and transferred, a procedure known as a frozen embryo transfer (FET). For information about this process, please click here.

Male infertility accounts for around 50% of the infertility cases we see. But with Intra-cytoplasmic Sperm Injection technology (ICSI), we can often find sperm to use even in very severe cases. ICSI involves the insertion of a single selected sperm directly into the cytoplasm of a mature egg. This procedure can overcome many barriers to fertilisation which can include failed fertilisation from previous use of standard IVF and severe male factor infertility, such as very low sperm counts and/or motility, high number of morphologically abnormal sperm, utilisation of surgically retrieved sperm. For more treatment options please see our website.

A range of genetic testing options can be carried out at different stages of your fertility journey, starting even before you become pregnant. One of the most common causes of unsuccessful pregnancy is chromosomal abnormality (known as ‘aneuploidy’), which means there is a loss or gain of one or more chromosome. Repromed is proud to be the first in New Zealand to offer Pre-implantation Genetic Screening (PGS also known as PGT-A) using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) which involves screening embryos for chromosomal defects during a standard IVF cycle, in a process called EmbryoSelect. Embryos with the correct number of chromosomes can then be selected for transfer which improve the chances of pregnancy and the development of a healthy baby. We also offer Genetic Carrier testing, Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and Prenatal Testing (NIPT). For more information about these tests click here.

We understand, value and welcome sexual and gender diversity for our clients and staff. We’re proud that Repromed was the first fertility clinic (in fact, the first health care provider) in New Zealand awarded with Rainbow Tick certification in 2016. Repromed offer services including donor sperm, eggs, embryos and surrogacy. Click here for more details.