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Hello I'm Dr John Jain and today I would like to talk to you about Ovarian Reserve. So the
term ovarian reserve means egg inventory, how many eggs are left in the ovary. When
a woman starts menstruating as a teenager she has about 500,000 eggs in her ovaries,
and over time batches of these eggs will be released every month. So by the age of 30
a woman only has 10% of her eggs left, and at age 40 she only has 3% of her eggs left.
That sounds rather alarming, but the good news is fertility is still quite good when
a woman is in her 30's. In order to test or estimate ovarian reserve we can do a variety
of tests. One test is an ultrasound, which is performed when a woman is on her period
during which we count the resting eggs. If we see 8 or more eggs in the ovaries that
means the ovarian reserve is still good. Blood tests for ovarian reserve are Day 3 FSH & Estradiol
and the Anti Mullerian Hormone test. The purpose for testing ovarian reserve is to plan fertility
therapy. Fertility therapy is based on recruiting more eggs and making more embryos in order
to increase the chance for a pregnancy. For women with a low ovarian reserve they tent
to make less eggs and therefore we see less embryos and lower pregnancy rates. But low
ovarian reserve does not mean that a woman can't get pregnant, in fact if she is ovulating
and in her 30's there's a good chance that she can get pregnant. If you have any further
questions about ovarian reserve please contact me at info@santamonicafertililty.com. Thank
you.