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ICI and IUI At Home: Everything You Should Know
The concept of artificial insemination is familiar to most people, but you might be surprised to know the first attempts of the procedure as we know it today date back to 1899. Thankfully, technology and the techniques used for insemination have significantly improved over time, and the procedure is now performed in several ways.
Intracervical insemination (ICI) involves inserting sperm into the cervix while the woman lays down for 15–30 minutes to allow sufficient time for the sperm to travel to the uterus. An intrauterine insemination (IUI) follows a similar process, with 3 differences:
Sperm is inserted directly into the uterus, bypassing the vagina and cervix.
IUI makes use of washed sperm, unlike ICI.
There’s no safe way to perform an IUI at home at this time, so if someone is seeking this method, they’d need a prescription in a clinic.
Couples from all backgrounds are increasingly turning to artificial insemination to conceive. However, they are hesitant to seek treatment in a clinical setting, leading to increased questions about attempting ICI and IUI at home. At this time, however, IUI at home is simply unsafe and there’s no FDA-approved method of performing an ICI at home, yet. Here at PherDal we are aiming to develop the first FDA-cleared, over the counter, sterile ICI kit.
In this post, we explore what’s driving the increase in artificial insemination procedures and compare their conception success rates.