The United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention conducted research which showed that IVF births were two times more likely to have defects and near five times as likely to have digestive disorders. Bowel disorder risk is increased 3.7 times and cleft lip 4 times.

The study, which caused the UK to issue the health alert to be issued, found that IVF babies will have more heart valve problems too. Additionally, but unusually, there is also an increased risk of genetic disorders which may lead to developmental delays or learning difficulties. Even with relatively low risks, those seeking treatment should be informed of the potential problems as when a child has difficulties it is the parents who suffer as well as the child.

Richard Kenney from the British Fertility Society (BFS) has said that, “IVF treatments carry some risks and patients must be informed. The fact that HFEA is renewing its guidelines is a very good thing but we also must remember that while the risks are there they are relatively small, even though patients must still be told about these risks.”

An estimation by the BFS put the figure at 3.5 per cent of IVF babies will suffer a defect, whereas 2.5 per cent is the figure for the general population. The Comment of Reproductive Ethics group has stated that, “IVF is not where people trying and failing to conceive should automatically go, and more money must be put into funding research into the restoration of natural fertility.”

One theory on why there are increased birth defects is that nature prefers healthy people as their children will have the best chance at survival. For those who don’t meet the requirements nature makes it harder for them to conceive, in a pre-historic environment those with birth defects would not survive so nature prevented their birth.

Modern medicine has overcome nature in this regard and children with birth defects do survive with treatment and the use of modern technology. Although IVF has helped thousands to conceive, it still should be considered as a last resort after all other avenues have been explored.

Related posts:

1. Many women are ‘too’ so they can’t get IVF on NHS Women who have had trouble conceiving naturally are getting denied...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Revealed today around the country were the arbitrary nature  NHS fertility clinics have placed restrictions which show that over 70%  of the primary care trusts ignore guidance from NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence that offers three free cycles of IVF for infertile couples. Five of the trusts do not even provide IVF at all on the NHS and they are West Sussex, North Yorkshire and York, Warrington, North Staffordshire and York.

Even where the cycles are offered to ages 23 to 40, they restrict the number of free ones to one or two, however in Wales women have to wait until the age of 38 and six months before they qualify for treatment in many health trusts and must complete two cycles quickly which is even one less than the three that Nice had recommended.

IVF success rates decline with age and for every 100 women that are aged 35 or younger 20 get pregnant; aged 36 to 38 15 will get pregnant; and age 39, 10 will get pregnant. Nice said in 2004 that couples should receive up to three IVF cycles on the NHS when a woman is between 23 and 39 years old.

The guidelines have never fully been implemented throughout the NHS. The last of the reminders was sent by NHS David Florey deputy chief executive last January. IVF has always had a perception problem that similar to the baldness cure for Wayne Rooney it is a choice of lifestyle. Infertility is usually kept a secret. Couples do not tell many family or friends they have problems with the dreaded sperm or egg counts.

IVF involves harvesting or removing eggs from the woman’s body and then fertilizing them in the laboratory after which they are placed back into the womb after the woman receives hormone drugs in preparation. The first baby born through IVF was Louise Brown in 1978 and she has since had her own baby born naturally.

Related posts:

1. Women very prepared to donate eggs According to a new study for a Bristol hospital, 71%...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Yet despite these results, there are still over 50 couples sitting on the waiting list for egg donations, and it can take 2-3 years to reach the top. This centre carries out approximately 24 treatments a year using donor eggs, and has a 50% success rate.

Women need egg donations to conceive for many reasons. Some suffer from an early menopause, while others have had chemo or radiotherapy and their ovaries no longer function. Some have genetic disorders which they don’t want to pass on. Any woman between the ages of 18 and 35 can be an egg donor, but the general consensus is that there isn’t enough information for potential donors.

The process begins with a chat and a health check. If suitable, the woman will be given hormone treatments to stimulate the ovaries and will be booked in as a day case to harvest them. The eggs are then fertilised using the sperm of the future Father. If they take, the embryos are planted into the recipients Uterus. One donation could help up to 3 couples.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Born in Manchester in 1925, Robert Edwards studied biology and began his research on embryos in mice, first at the University of Wales in Bangor and later at Edinburgh University. His development of the IVF technique began in 1958 at the National Institute for Medical Research in London.

Later he partnered with an English gynaecologist and surgeon, Patrick Steptoe, who had made great advances in the procedure for removing eggs from ovaries. The two, along with colleagues, founded the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, the first in-vitro medical facility in the world.

In the late 1970’s, Leslie and John Brown came to the clinic, after nine years of failed attempts at ‘normal’ pregnancy. Edwards and Steptoe were successful in using their improved methods of IVF with one of Leslie’s eggs, removed and re-implanted after fertilization in the lab.

In 1978 the first “test tube baby” was delivered by caesarean section after a full-term pregnancy. The baby was named Louise, and when she was notified today about the Nobel award she sent her personal congratulations. Louise said, “Me and mum are so glad that one of the pioneers of IVF has been given the recognition he deserves.”

Edwards has said that he and Steptoe were deeply concerned with the couples who were desperate to have a child and couldn’t manage to do so, and that fuelled his determination to develop a viable technology to help them. Today, as many as two to three percent of births in some countries are the result of IVF.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Every year it is estimated that around 10,000 people head across the borders to seek out fertility treatments because the cost within their home country is either too high or the laws governing over who can receive IVF are too restrictive.  There is no other medicinal field that is varied so much in clinical practice which has resulted due to religious and social divides over IVF instead of due to scientific differences of thought.

In Munich it is expected this week that the World Congress on Fertility experts will announce a new code of practice that should be followed when cross border care is provided that will later be published in full by the end of 2010.

Education director of the International Federation of Fertility Sciences, Professor Ian Cooke, stated that every country has its own guidelines when it comes to what acceptable use of IVF is and how well potential donors are screened.  The organization supports patients that want to head abroad for treatments but wishes to mandate a set of national and international standards so that patients are safe.

The main reason that UK patients head abroad for IVF treatments is due to a shortage of potential egg donors with some clinics only able to offer two year waiting lists to patients.  Many UK parents head to the Czech Republic and Spain due to the fact donors are paid and there are a plethora of potential eggs.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Research shows that the shortage in egg donation is now the major reason that couples choose to head abroad for fertility treatment with almost half of all of those who do so from Britain heading to Spain for treatment, where anonymous egg donation is allowed.  Spain also compensates those who donate generously.

The study performed by the Economic and Social Research Council found that women left Britain for the IVF treatment in order to search for donor eggs after dealing with long waits within the UK for the same procedure.

De Montfort University found that the actual costs of fertility treatment were not a significant factor influencing peoples’ decision on where to seek fertility treatment.

Researchers found that in a study of women, most of whom were living with a partner or married, discovered that infertile women are not heading abroad simply because of age limits, due to the fact that most of the women in the study were only aged 38 and already had undergone treatment in the UK.

In fact, most of the people went to the UK due to fact that Spain has policies in place that pay women around 100 Euros in order to donate their eggs, without giving up their anonymity, allowing for more eggs to be available for women seeking fertility.

Next in line for organ donation is the Czech Republic which offers money in exchange for donation as well as anonymity for those who choose to donate.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There is a difference between procedures that are life enhancing and those that are life saving, which most parents seemed to recognize until recently, but now the greedy IVF industry has turned parents into comparing infertility with cancer.

At one time, infertility was referred to as an unfortunate occurrence, but now it is seen as a disease, which means that instead of being perceived as something out of one’s control, it is seen as something that with enough money and technology can be addressed.

As a result, IVF is fostering false hopes, with many clinics promising that conception can be achieved one out of every three times, but the national average is actually quite a bit lower.

The IVF debate has also created a new issue of entitlement as people now think of a child as a right instead of a blessing and as many couples now feel that it is their right to have a child the same as it is their right to live the NHS must provide treatments.

Roughly translated, this means that one in seven couples that face infertility are entitled to receive treatment that costs £2000 a cycle, and usually takes at least three cycles before conception is achieved.

Cynics are raising questions given that the NHS is supposed to help prevent premature death and illness, but the fact that the trusts turns down cancer drugs requests that are too expensive it seems that its focus may be misaligned.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

French scientists looked over the records of about 15,000 children that were born at 33 different fertility centres, and found about four percent of them had a congenital malformation.

Yet, the geneticists compared these findings to the findings of the European Society of Human Genetics, which saw an 11% risk in smaller studies and stated that due to the fact their study is the largest scale study to take a look at the issue. The French researchers believe that their low figures are more accurate.

Dr. Geraldine Viot from the Maternite Port Royal hospital in Paris a clinical geneticist stated that compared to the two to three percent that exists in the general population, the higher rate is part of the increase in malformations of the urogenital system and heart disease.

Dr. Viot stated that the problems were more present in boys and the most common malformations were angioma, and benign tumours that appeared near the skin surface, which were found twice as commonly in girls over boys.

The scientists claimed there are multiple reasons for this although the age of the parents did not seem to be an issue.  Dr. Viot said that the research team needs more time in order to fully understand how the different components could play a role that are involved in IVF.

However, the scientists believe that malformations are a public concern and need to be addressed making it vital that politicians, the general public, and all doctors are aware of the risks involved so that more follow-up after birth can be performed.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Figures released by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) under the Freedom of Information Act show that about 6.5% of women who underwent IVF, either privately funded or paid for by NHS, terminated their pregnancies for various reasons.

The reasons for the high incidence of abortions are being called into question by the HFEA and by doctors at fertilization clinics as well as family planning and health organizations.  A large percentage of women who chose to abort their pregnancy were in the 18 to 34 age group, suggesting that their reasons for termination were probably not related to health issues.

The law in Britain says that in general, abortion is justified only if there is serious risk for the mother or the foetus if the pregnancy continues to birth.  Former MP Anne Widdecombe said that if the law were construed properly, women would not be able to obtain a legal abortion unless those criteria applied.  She feels that many of the reported abortions are for social reasons rather than health concerns.

It is obvious that no IVF pregnancy is ‘unplanned’, and the process can cost thousands of pounds if undertaken privately rather than through NHS, so it’s not a procedure to be taken lightly.

However, some women say they were pressured into having the treatment, or the relationship with a spouse or partner somehow failed along the way.  In some cases, the goal is simply to get pregnant, with no real understanding of the ultimate consequences.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

While this may seem crazy, due to the fact that fertility treatments are not half as fun as the alternative, John Yovich from the Australia PIVET Medical Centre and Cains Fertility Centre stated that fertility treatments are simply much more effective.

At the moment, IVF boosts a success rate that hovers around 40%, but Yovich and other scientists predict that technology will only continue to improve over the next few years.  His paper was created based on the results of a study on cow impregnation given that ranchers already use IVF like treatments in order to create cattle offspring.

The results showed that artificial fertilization is 100 times more effective than simply releasing a bull out into the herd of cows for typical stud duties.  In addition, using test tube technology to create calves aids the ranchers in controlling factors such as the sex of the cattle.

There are of course a few flaws in the comparison, such as the fact that IVF is expensive and thus not available to all socioeconomic classes, human IVF is not as effective as cow fertilization techniques, and the fact that there are ethical questions that come along with choosing genetic factors and basic factors such as the sex of one’s offspring.

However, as levels of male infertility may continue to rise it may be more common for fertility treatments to be used.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.