Do you know how follicles (eggs) in women are developed? How long it takes for them to develop? Women are born with millions of follicles. These follicles stay in the cortex of ovaries where they will develop and some of them will be mature and released.
This is a long process and it takes about a year for an egg to develop and to be released. The original follicles are preantral type of follicles. These follicles are in deep sleep stage. Some of them will wake up and be recruited to develop. This is preantral development which is a slow process and it takes about 10 months. This process is hormone independent. After 10 months of development, some of them will be selected to develop to dominant follicles. It takes about 2 months for these dominant follicles to develop to a preovulatory stage. This stage is hormone dependent. And then one of the follicles will be mature and released in 15-20 days which is highly depending hormone balance.
Sperm production in men is different. Sperm production and maturation takes about 74 days. Sperm production takes place in testicles where temperature is lower than body temperature. This process is hormone dependent and follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) and Luternizing hormone (LH) are involved in the process. This process takes about 60 days. Sperms produced then mature in epididymis where they obtain motility and it take about 14 days.
From follicle and sperm production, we can see that it will take about a year to get new eggs and about three months to get new sperms. We can also understand why some of the treatments such as acupuncture for improving fertility take very long time to be effective.
If you are having difficulty to conceive, what could go wrong? Things could go wrong either in women or in men or both. About one-third of infertility is caused by women’s problem. Another one third is due to men’s problem. The remaining one third is caused by both women and men.
