Couples who have received this diagnosis might believe that it means there’s no solution for their problem. But they can take heart. “Unexplained infertility” actually means that the results of all their evaluations and tests are normal.
According to medical studies, up to 30% of infertile couples have unexplained infertility. According to Dr. Said Daneshmand, practice director at the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, “Unexplained infertility is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning that if an infertility patient has undergone all four major diagnostic tests – ovarian reserve, sperm analysis, x-ray to assess fallopian tubes and uterine evaluation – and all tests results are normal, unexplained infertility is used as the diagnosis.”
“In the majority of instances, the underlying cause is decreased ovarian reserve – a decrease in the quantity and quality of eggs. And a considerable factor in this is that the blood tests we use to assess ovarian reserve or egg quality do not always reveal subtle decreases in egg quality,” says Dr. Daneshmand.