IVF in the news again

Another day, another IVF scare story... or at least that's how it sometimes feels.  We're forever being told that this procedure or that type of treatment is risky for us or our future children.  It's not always easy to make sense of what lies behind the headlines or to decide what might be best for you.

The latest story claims that fertility clinics are putting profits before women's safety by opting for traditional rather than mild IVF, which involves lower doses of drugs.  The safety aspect appears to focus on ovarian hyperstimulation, a condition that occurs if the ovaries become over-stimulated after using fertility drugs. Ovarian hyperstimulation can be very dangerous, but specialists usually have an idea of which women are particularly likely to be at risk before they start treatment and tailor drug doses accordingly.  Once fertility drugs are being administered, regular scans can give an idea of situations where the ovaries are starting to respond too strongly - and in these cases treatment is normally halted, at least for a while.  So yes, of course ovarian hyperstimulation is a risk of fertility treatment, and yes, of course you may want to talk to your fertility specialist about how they ensure the dangers are reduced - but don't be completely panicked by another scare story.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of mild IVF,  today's stories go far beyond that.  One talked about the "toxic" drugs used in fertility treatment in the UK and made it sound as if we use completely different, old-fashioned dangerous drugs here when everyone else in the world is using some kind of safe, modern drug. It's simply not true. Talk to your consultant, talk to your doctor or fertility nurse, talk to your counsellor - then make the decisions that are right for you - and take your daily paper with a pinch of salt!

Fertility treatment in the news

There seem to have been a spate of scare stories about fertility treatment in the news in the last couple of weeks, and it can be very hard if you're going through it yourself to know what you should believe or whether you should be worried. When I was having IVF, the safety of using frozen embryos was quite an issue, with many people refusing to even consider the idea, and it seems ironic now as there have been a number of studies suggesting using frozen embryos may actually be a very positive thing. The latest story focuses on ICSI, and is far from the first surrounding the treatment as most experts are clear that there may be risks that we are not yet sure about as ICSI is a far newer treatment than IVF itself. At the same time it is important to stress that the real risks are small and that many thousands of healthy babies have been born after ICSI treatment, which has allowed many men who would never have been able to have their own genetic children otherwise to become fathers, If you're ever worried about any aspect of infertility or treatment, you should always discuss it with your fertility specialist or doctor.