+How They Can Avoid Or Treat Them
•MD, BRIDGE Clinic Fertility Centre
Women who are looking to get babies to face all sorts of humiliation. They’re often the butt of jokes. And they take the blame for Infertility in the family. But, as the Medical Director of Bridge Clinic Fertility Centre, Dr Toyin Ajayi, explains in this interview with City People, the man can also be responsible.
But, what specifically are the fertility problems women face in Nigeria? Dr Toyin Ajayi names 3 and the way out of them. But, who is Dr Toyin Ajayi?
She is the current Medical Director of the Bridge Clinic Fertility Centre, with 4 locations in Nigeria. The clinic was founded by the renowned Dr Richard Ajayi in 1998 as the first focused IVF clinic in Nigeria.
Dr Richard Ajayi is still on the board (as Executive Vice Chairman) but is currently into several other healthcare investments and businesses. Even though they share the same surname, Dr Toyin Ajayi isn’t biologically related to him.
Let’s tell you a bit more about Dr Toyin Ajayi. She is a Senior Obstetrician and Gynaecologist with over 20 years of clinical experience in the United Kingdom, where she was trained. She is a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (U.K) and obtained her MRCOG (UK) in 2014.
She obtained her medical degree (MBBS) at Imperial College School of Medicine, London, U.K, in 1999 and went on to complete her specialist training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in numerous world-renowned teaching hospitals, mainly in London and the Oxford region of the U.K. She is also an alumnus of the Management Acceleration Program (MAP6) of the Lagos Business School.
She is a member of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the Association of Fertility and Reproductive Health, Nigeria (AFRH). She has attended and presented at numerous professional conferences in the U.K and abroad. She is passionate about women’s healthcare and about transforming healthcare in Nigeria. She is currently the Medical Director of Bridge Fertility Clinic Nigeria.
Enjoy the excerpts of the interview conducted by City People’s Contributing Editor, IYABO OYAWALE at Bridge Clinic’s Ikeja GRA office.
So, what are the common fertility problems that Nigerian women face?
So, I think the first thing to say is that Infertility is more common than we think. In Nigeria, 3 out of 10 couples struggle with Infertility. It’s a much higher burden than we think. The important thing to note is that it’s not always the woman’s fault. It can emanate from the woman or from the man with equal severities at 30% each. Sometimes, it could be caused by both of them.
So, it’s actually very similar and the rest is either a combination of both of them having problems (30%) or unexplained (10%). But, if you look at women like you’ve asked, in this particular part of the world, Nigeria, the most common thing that we see is what we call Secondary Infertility. That is when she’s had children before without any issue but for some reason, she’s struggling to have a second child. That’s called secondary infertility. And, one of the commonest reasons that we see again, specific to us, is that some women have problems with their Tubes. If their fallopian tubes are blocked, for instance, you’re not going to get pregnant without help. The fallopian tubes carry the egg to meet the sperm. One of the commonest reasons for the blocked fallopian tube is having had sexually transmitted infections in the past.
But, more importantly, if you’ve not been treated properly in the past, it causes this major problem with tubes being blocked and thus leading to infertility. So, again because of the part of the world in which we are, we know how hard it is to access good and timely healthcare; a lot of times, maybe you’ve had a sexually transmitted infection in the past and you were not able to treat it properly. Maybe you did not know where to go, the doctors did not treat it properly, or you didn’t take the medication properly. When STIs are not treated properly, they can affect the tubes. In Nigeria, we see that a lot.
Another thing that we see for women in this part of the world is Age. What do I mean by that? A lot of the time, we’re hoping on God, we’re so full of faith that this pregnancy would happen at some point, but sometimes, we get help too late. We see a lot of women coming to us; maybe they’ve been trying for 10 years, 15 years, even 20 years! Maybe they’ve been visiting facilities that are unsure of how to manage this. Maybe they’ve really just been in church, praying, all that kind of stuff to try and see if they can get pregnant, so, by the time they come to us, they’re in their mid-40s, late 40s and early 50s. By that time, the chances of getting pregnant are so low, even with the intervention of IVF. That’s another common thing that we see. The delay in coming forward or asking for help sooner.
Sometimes, it’s the issue of an irregular menstrual cycle. To be able to have children as a woman, you need to have a regular menstrual cycle; every month, you should release an egg normally to increase your chances of getting pregnant when you have intercourse. We encounter a condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) which commonly affects a lot of women. They don’t have regular periods; therefore they’re not releasing an egg every month, maybe it’s once every 3 months or once every 4 months. Therefore, their chances of getting pregnant naturally are much reduced.
In summary, these are the 3 main areas; The tubal problem, the age factor and PCOS.
So, what’s the way out? What’s the solution?
The first thing is to identify Why. How do you do that? By going to the right place. A lot of people go around different clinics and hospitals; maybe they’re not sure that these places are any good.
So, I’ll say go and see a proper expert. Go and see a doctor who specialises in fertility at a Fertility clinic. If you’ve been trying for more than 1 year, having regular sex, and you’re under 35, definitely come and see a fertility specialist. If you’re over 35 and you’ve been trying for 6 months, come and see us too. And, as I said, you have to pick the right place to go. We pride ourselves as a trusted fertility centre. We have staff who are competent, in training, we’re very key on our quality to ensure we are delivering quality care. So, come to us at Bridge Clinic and we know where to start with you.
The first thing we do is to identify the problem and you do that by talking to the client, doing some investigations to check what might be the cause and once you have an idea of the cause, you can then offer specific care. Not everybody needs the same thing. With the blocked tubes, there’s no way to treat or cure this condition, so the only option for affected couples is IVF (Invitro fertilization). That’s really the only cure for them. For someone who has the polycystic ovary issue (PCOS), they might just need some tablets to try and help make their periods more regular so that they can then release an egg every month. The most important thing is to go to a clinic that has the expertise to give you an accurate diagnosis of what your problem is. You can then tailor solutions based on your diagnosis.
The Bridge Clinic prides itself as delivering a Quality Management System (QMS)-based fertility service. What’s the meaning of that?
A Quality Management System (QMS) means assuring you that you will get the best quality of care based on tried and tested evidence-based procedures. So, we don’t just do things. “Oh! I heard one day that this would work, let me do it.” We don’t do that here. So, we have SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for absolutely everything. All our procedures are very clear on what we need to do. We also have regular quality audits to ensure that we’re complying. And then again, we’re very innovative. For instance, if we find that this particular way you’ve been doing something has become outdated, we’ll definitely change, based on evidence and update our procedures. So, it’s a question of ensuring that you’ve got policies in place and your staff understand. It’s important to check. You can do things but who’s going to check? We have quality officers and quality managers in all departments who periodically do checks and audits of all our procedures and processes. We put in corrective actions if things need improvement. All these we do as a way to allay any concerns couples might have regarding the quality of care they are receiving.
READ ALSO: WHY I WANT TO BE THE NEXT OGUN CENTRAL SENATOR – PRINCESS OLATORERA MAJEKODUNMI-ONIRU
