Monday 7 November 2011

Is 57 too old for fertility treatment

I spent an hour reading the papers at the hairdressers today - a rare treat - but was sad to read the story in almost every paper of the pensioner IVF mother who says she now thinks that there should be an age cut-off for fertility treatment. She'd had a first child in her late fifties after fertility treatment at an overseas clinic, but a London clinic had offered to treat her again to try for a second. One of the reasons her case was said to be different was that her partner was considerably younger, but now they've split up and being a single mum in her sixties is clearly a pretty tough job.

Apparently she now says she thinks that 50 would be an appropriate upper age limit for fertility treatment, and as someone rapidly approaching a half century myself, I think she's right. There are so many women in their twenties, thirties and forties who desperately need donor eggs and it seems only fair that they should be treated rather than women in their fifties, who can hardly have been unaware that they were leaving it rather late to try to get pregnant.

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