Access Millions of academic & study documents

Endometriosis (1)

Content type
User Generated
Showing Page:
1/3
Endometriosis and Fertility
Wondering about the causes of infertility? Endometriosis is one of them. You may have
heard the word a lot of times but what exactly is endometriosis? Let’s have a look. The
inside of the womb is lined by a special layer of tissue called endometrium. It is the same
layer which sloughs off during your periods and is expelled with the blood. In endometriosis,
lining which is supposed to line inside of the uterus grows out to line the outside of it and to
line the ovaries, fallopian tubes and other pelvic tissues. As a consequence of this structural
abnormality, the patients suffer from two major issues. One is infertility and the other is a
pain in pelvis. Menstrual abnormalities often accompany this pathology and there can be
symptoms related to bowel and urine as well. However, in quite a number of cases, there
can be no symptoms at all. In Australia, 30% of women who have infertility do have
endometriosis as well.
Effects on fertility
Now let’s have a look on how endometriosis can affect your fertility. Structural and
pathological changes brought about by endometriosis can adversely affect fertility.
Inflammation is one of the pathological change in which swelling of internal organs occurs.
When endometriosis causes inflammation of the ends of the fallopian tubes, they enlarge
and do not allow the egg to reach its destination.
Furthermore, this inflamed environment also destroys the potency of both the egg and the
sperm rendering them incapable of fertilization. As the disease advances, inflammation of
all the involved tissues leads to the process of fibrosis and adhesion formation between
them rendering the whole system incapable of housing a pregnancy.
Effects on pregnancy
The next question which might come into your mind is once you conceive, is your pregnancy
a normal one. Well, in many cases it is, but it should definitely be taken as a high-risk
pregnancy because depending upon the severity of your endometriosis, you may have
structural and functional abnormalities which may predispose your pregnancy to a risk.
Some studies have shown an increased risk of miss carriages associated with endometriosis.
Endometriosis can even lead to an ectopic pregnancy in the first place. But all you need to
do is to be a little bit more cautious if you have endometriosis and you conceive. With
proper medical care and ante natal follow ups during the pregnancy, there is nothing much
to worry about.

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
2/3