In France, he has been one of the voices of medically assisted procreation (MAP) – also called medically assisted procreation (PMA) – for around thirty years. Professor François Olivennes, obstetrician-gynecologist, was one of the first to use this technique alongside Professor René Frydman, a pioneer in reproductive medicine with the birth of the first French baby born by in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1982.
At a time when the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced “a major plan to combat infertility”, during his press conference on January 16, and where the question of difficulty in procreating enters the public debate, the author of A thousand and one babies (Grasset, 2022) returns to the medical support of women and men affected by PMA, in an interview conducted for the podcast of the World “(In)fertile”.
When a couple is unable to have a child naturally, after how long do you advise them to seek help?
When you are under 35, after twelve months. When you’re over 38, time matters. Certainly, a woman’s fertility does not decline in one month, but I advise consulting, after six months of regular intercourse, her local gynecologist who will prescribe examinations to be carried out to find out whether she should turn to an assisted reproduction center. .
Speaking of “regular reports”, what do you mean by that?
We can consider that three times a week, or every two to three days around ovulation, is already not bad. This is the frequency which almost certainly allows us to find the period when the woman is fertile. On the other hand, it is not useful to have intercourse several times during the same day or, conversely, to hold back in anticipation of the big day. The sperm will not be better, it is even the opposite .
Who are the couples you receive?
In the vast majority, I receive heterosexual couples who have no particular history. Among them, 30% have already experienced a pregnancy, whether carried to term, ectopic or terminated by miscarriage.
Some already have diagnoses that help understand their infertility. For example, a man who had a problem with the descent of the testicles in childhood or someone who may have had a major sexually transmitted infection. It could also be a woman who has had a tubal infection, or who does not have regular cycles. But in any case, before starting the course, all patients must carry out examinations to detect what is causing the problem.
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