The female is born with her ovular endowment; while the male produces new sperm every two or three months. This marks a fundamental difference between the two. For the male, spermatozoa are always newly created, regardless of any problems they may present.
A woman is born with a finite number of eggs, which means that she is born with all her eggs and as time goes by, the follicular endowment ages and is depleted until menopause, the moment that marks the end of the menstrual cycles.
Hence the importance of assessing the ovarian reserve of each patient in time, to provide a solution such as vitrification of oocytes in those patients who want to delay the time to become mothers.
From menarche (first menstruation) and later with the beginning of each cycle, between 6 and 10 follicles are activated monthly in each ovary from the ovarian reserve, of which only one will mature. With age, the number of follicles provided by each ovary decreases until they disappear completely.
A blood test to determine the AMH (anti-Müllerian hormone) and an ultrasound control to study the AFC (Antral Follicle Count) are the studies we need to know what we can expect from the activity of an ovary at a specific age. The older the age, the lower the AFC and the lower the AMH values. A normal ovarian reserve ranges from 1.2-3 ng/ml and more than 3 ng/ml is a good reserve. All levels below these figures indicate that the ovarian reserve is low.
