What if I Want to Have a Child - For Persons Facing Cancer Treatment (The James)

What if I Want to Have a Child - For Persons Facing Cancer Treatment (The James)

 

Cancer treatment may affect your fertility or change your ability to have children. This problem can happen to both men and women. The reasons may include: your current health condition, age, type of cancer, the kind of cancer treatment you will receive, and when your treatment will start.

Before you start treatment, it is important to talk with your doctor if you desire to have children in the future. This handout has information about the options available to help preserve your fertility. Some of the options listed in this handout may not be offered in your community.

It is also important to talk with your insurance company to see if your health plan has coverage for these services. Financial assistance programs may be available to help with the cost of medicines, ongoing storage fees, and some procedures.

 

Possible Options for Men

 

There are options available both before and after your treatment that may help you have children in the future. Your ability to make healthy sperm and father a child through sexual intercourse may return after your cancer treatment. This can happen at any time, but most men recover the ability to make sperm within 2 to 5 years. Some treatments may cause permanent damage to your fertility. It is important to talk to your doctor about these risks before you start treatment.

  • Sperm Banking (Sperm cryopreservation)

Sperm banking is the process of freezing and storing sperm for future use. This procedure involves collecting samples of semen to get the sperm. This sperm is frozen and can be stored for a long time. It takes 1 to 7 days to complete the process. The semen is normally collected through ejaculation, but surgery, such as testicular sperm extraction (TESE), may also be used if a man is not able to produce the ejaculate or has ethical, religious, or cultural concerns. The amount of time the sperm is stored at a sperm bank does not seem to change pregnancy success rates.

  • Intrauterine Insemination

This procedure involves a man’s sperm being placed into a woman’s womb (uterus) through a fine tube. This is done in the doctor’s office near the time of the month when a woman’s egg is ready (ovulation). This procedure will require at least one menstrual cycle.

 

    Possible Options for a Woman

     

    Woman are born with a fixed number of eggs and this number decreases with age. Cancer treatment may cause your periods stop or make them irregular. Your periods may return after treatment but having a period does not always mean you are fertile. Some treatments make periods stop and cause a woman to go through menopause early.

    Certain cancer treatments may also affect your ability to support a pregnancy. It is important to talk with your doctor about these possible changes before you start treatment.

    After cancer treatment a fertility specialist called a reproductive endocrinologist, can do blood tests and ultrasounds to determine your chance of becoming pregnant.

    • Embryo Freezing (Embryo cryopreservation)

    In vitro fertilization (IVF) is when a woman’s eggs are collected and mixed with sperm in a special container. To collect the eggs for IVF, the woman is given hormones to stimulate the eggs to mature all at once. The eggs are taken from the woman and placed with the sperm in the container to allow the fertilized egg (embryo) to begin to develop outside of the body. The embryo can be transplanted into the woman’s uterus or frozen and saved for when the woman is ready to become pregnant. This method may take 2 to 6 weeks to complete.

    • Egg Freezing (Oocyte cryopreservation)

    As done with embryo freezing, hormones are given to a woman to mature the eggs all at once. The eggs are collected from the woman’s body and frozen without being fertilized by the sperm.

    • Ovarian Tissue Freezing (Ovarian tissue cryopreservation)

    This is a newer procedure which requires surgery to remove pieces of ovarian tissue to freeze for later use. This protects these tissues from the possible effects of cancer treatment. The egg-producing tissue can be thawed and put back into the woman after her treatment to make pregnancy possible. There is a risk that the ovarian tissue that was removed and put back into the woman’s body may have cancer cells. This is more common with ovarian cancer, leukemia and lymphoma.

    • In Vitro Fertilization

    In vitro fertilization (IVF) is when a woman’s eggs are collected and mixed with sperm in a special container. This container allows the fertilized egg (embryo) to begin to develop outside of the body. The embryo can be placed in the woman’s uterus or frozen and saved for later use.

    • Intrauterine Insemination

    This procedure involves a man’s fresh or frozen sperm being placed into a woman’s womb (uterus) through a fine tube. This is done in the doctor’s office near the time of the month when a woman’s egg is ready (ovulation). This procedure will require at least one menstrual cycle. This option may be used if a woman’s cervix is removed or changed as a result of surgery.

    • Surrogacy

    It is possible for a woman without a uterus to have another woman carry a child for her. This is known as surrogate motherhood. This can be done using an egg from the surrogate. In this case, the surrogate is artificially inseminated with a man’s sperm.

    Another type of surrogacy is gestational surrogacy. In this type of surrogacy, an IVF procedure is used and then the new embryo is implanted into the surrogate woman.

    Egg donors may be used with IVF if a woman was unable to preserve eggs or embryos before treatment and is still able to carry a pregnancy.

     

      For More Information

      If you are thinking about preserving your fertility, talk to your doctor about your options before your cancer treatment starts. You may also find it helpful to visit LIVESTRONG Fertility or Team Maggie for more information on this topic.

      For more information on fertility and cancer, we encourage you to visit our video library at http://cancer.osu.edu/patientedvideos.

       

       

      © October 13, 2022. The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

      This handout is for informational purposes only. Talk with your doctor or health care team if you have any questions about your care.