Female fertility

Knowing and tracking your ovulation cycle will be the first step to natural conception. Monitoring your ovulation cycle also called ovulation tracking plays an important role in the fertility treatment process which helps with examination as well as treatment. A transvaginal ultrasound will be performed to evaluate the uterus & ovaries to look for abnormalities to understand the difficulty in getting pregnant.

Knowing the details can make it easier to predict the ovulation timing, and you can schedule intercourse so that it can coincide with the ovulation time. This can be done either during the natural cycle without any medication or during an ovulation induction cycle using fertility drugs. Observing your natural cycle may be the simplest form of assisted conception.

Sequential ultrasound monitoring of ovarian follicles and assessing the uterus’s endometrial thickness is called follicle monitoring. The purpose of the follicular monitoring test is to obtain important information about the size and number of follicles that support your growing eggs. The mature egg will ovulate and make sure it is achieved safely.

Menstrual cycles(periods) might vary from one month to another, so tracking over 2 or 3 ovulation cycles might require precise evaluation. The process includes a regular transvaginal ultrasound to monitor the ovaries and track how follicles are growing in the ovaries.

During each menstrual cycle, a group of 10 to 15 antral follicles begins to grow. As estrogen accumulates around the egg, these antral follicles look similar to small fluid-filled cysts. Usually, each follicle holds an egg and is enclosed by granulosa cells. The Granulosa cells surrounding the egg produce follicular fluid, estrogen and support egg development.

They grow at 2 mm per day, and on the fifth or sixth day of the menstrual cycle, most of these antral follicles are affected by Atresia and grow only one. Every day this growing follicle can be observed with the help of transvaginal ultrasound – this is called follicular monitoring test or follicle examination.

The follicle study starts from the 8th to the 10th day of the cycle until the follicle ruptures. Usually, the follicles rupture after reaching 20mm size and in women who have regular menstruation, it ruptures 14 days earlier than expected.