The difference between IVF and artificial insemination

In our daily life, there are always some couples who want a baby very much, but they still don’t have a baby after many years of marriage. In this case, many couples will do some examinations in the hospital. Based on the results of these examinations, the doctor will recommend in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination. Although both in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination can fulfill everyone's wish of having a baby, there are many differences between the two methods.

Artificial insemination is mainly used for infertility caused by male factors such as severe hypospadias, retrograde ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, azoospermia, oligospermia, asthenospermia, and semen liquefaction disorder. Artificial insemination can also be used for some female-related infertility, such as vaginismus, small cervix, abnormal cervical mucus, poor post-coital test, etc. In addition, there are some special cases, such as infertile couples due to immunological reasons, both of whom are heterozygous for the same autosomal recessive genetic disease or the male suffers from an autosomal dominant genetic disease, in which case artificial insemination can be used to achieve pregnancy and avoid the birth of unhealthy offspring.

Artificial insemination is a technology that uses artificial injection to deliver the husband's or a sperm donor's sperm into the female reproductive tract to achieve conception. It is a remedy for couples whose infertility is caused by male factors to have children. There are two main types of artificial insemination: one is insemination with the husband's semen. The other is artificial insemination with sperm from a sperm donor or frozen bank. For infertility due to male factors, female cervix, immune or unexplained reasons, the semen can be washed before artificial insemination in the uterine cavity or intraperitoneal cavity, or direct insemination in the follicle.