What Does Home Insemination Entail?

The specialty team at Rocky Mountain Fertility Center, led by Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr. Deborah Smith, offers a wide range of highly effective services to people who are struggling with infertility. Our patient-focused care includes state-of-the-art treatments delivered at our beautiful facilities in Parker, Colorado, and Rapid City, South Dakota.

As part of our commitment to helping you achieve the dream of parenthood, our team also provides expert guidance regarding the option of home insemination.

What is home insemination?

For fertility purposes, insemination is the process of implanting healthy sperm into the woman’s body without sexual intercourse. Also known as artificial insemination, the procedure can increase your odds of becoming pregnant by making it easier for sperm to reach and fertilize viable eggs.

It’s a fairly simple process overall that requires you to collect sperm and then introduce them into the uterine cavity via the vagina using a syringe. The most important factors for successful home insemination include perfect timing of the process, the quality and quantity of the sperm sample, and your age and hormone levels.

Who benefits from home insemination?

Single woman and same female sex couples who desire to achieve pregnancy benefit most from home insemination using donor sperm.  Additionally, couples in which intercourse has not been possible may benefit from home inseminations.

Artificial insemination is not for everyone because its success depends on what’s driving your infertility. Home inseminations does not benefit women with irregular cycles, unexplained infertility, or couples having regular intercourse for one year and not achieving pregnancy. When your circumstances fit, however, Dr. Smith provides intrauterine insemination here at the office as a fast, painless, and frequently successful first-line fertility treatment.

Dr. Smith offers telehealth visits for women who wish to try home insemination, to review whether other fertility factors are at play and should be evaluated before you try a home insemination. Also in women who have tried 3 inseminations a consult may be helpful to evaluate whether some testing should be done before proceeding with further inseminations.  Women also do a telehealth consult to discuss the process and obtain help in ordering sperm samples and timing the insemination.  The  convenience and cost savings of at-home insemination is why most women consider this option..

Improving home insemination success rates

Home insemination is gaining in popularity, especially here in the United States, and Rocky Mountain Fertility Center  can provide an amazing amount of information regarding the process, through a telehealth visit.  Some of the information provided on the internet may be less reliable and based on myths rather than facts. To help improve your odds of success with home insemination, Dr. Smith offers expert guidance that includes a $100, one-on-one telehealth consultation regarding the procedure. 

During the visit, you can expect to discuss:

• Your health and fertility history
• Timing, which greatly influences successful insemination
• Appropriate technique and positioning during insemination
• Choosing a sperm donor, which may include using a sperm bank
• Steps to take before, during, and after insemination to improve success
• Maintaining a sterile environment during the procedure

Dr. Smith also provides practical information about the process of collecting sperm from your partner, insemination kits she typically recommends for home use, and how to calculate your fertile period. If previous attempts at home insemination have failed, she can also explore factors that might have contributed to that. 

For more information about home insemination, including the platform we use for the telehealth consult, call Rocky Mountain Fertility Center today at 303-999-3877.