Some infertility treatments attempt to get a pregnancy started without intercourse. Artificial insemination, the oldest of these treatments, has been used for more than a century. All inseminations are performed around the time the woman should be ovulating, either naturally or after priming with a fertility drug. Electrical stimulation can be used to help them overcome this problem and the ejaculate is collected and inseminated in their wives. Fresh semen was once used for all inseminations and still is, as a rule, for AIHs, but because of concern about AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, it is now recommended that anonymous donor semen be frozen for at least 180 days before use.
Some women become pregnant with one insemination.
More often, repeat inseminations over the course of four to five menstrual cycles are required. And there are women who after a year or more of periodic insemination still do not conceive. Depending on the nature of the couple's infertility, studies show success rates between 50 and 65 percent. It can be used, for example, in women who have a uterus and at least one ovary, but whose fallopian tubes are damaged, missing or diseased. The woman is prepared for this procedure with fertility drugs that ready several of her eggs for fertilization and the lining of her uterus to support a pregnancy.