Improving your chances of IVF success

Anyone going through fertility treatment wants to try to maximise their chances of success, and a number of new reports out today suggest that there are some lifestyle factors that can make a real difference.

The first report looked at caffeine consumption, and found that women who drink five or more cups of coffee a day reduce their chances of getting pregnant after IVF by a shocking 50%. Up until now there have been conflicting results from investigations into caffeine consumption, but this new study was a large one, following up nearly 4,000 women who'd had IVF or ICSI. Interestingly, for women who drank coffee but consumed fewer than five cups, the coffee didn't have any effect.  So, there's no need to cut out your wake-up coffee altogether, but just make sure you limit your consumption.

The second study looked at consumption of saturated fats, and found that women who had a higher than average intake didn't have as many mature eggs ready for collection in IVF treatment. This was a far smaller study, but showed that different types of fat had different effects.  The doctors who carried out the research said it was too early to make any firm recommendations to patients, but as it's not good to eat lots of saturated fats anyway, this may perhaps emphasise that healthy eating when you're trying to conceive may make a difference.

The final study looked at smoking, and found that it affected the environment in the Fallopian tube and uterus, which may explain why women who smoke are more likely to have ectopic pregnancies.  The vast majority of women who get as far as fertility treatment have already given up smoking because it reduces the chance of success and increases the risk of miscarriage - but this new research provides yet more evidence of the way smoking can damage your fertility.

All of these research projects are interesting, but perhaps not entirely surprising as they sum up what we may well have suspected already - that moderation, common sense and a healthy diet can make a difference when it comes to IVF success.

We're still trailing behind when it comes to IVF

Anyone who has any personal experience of IVF will know that our funding situation in the UK is patchy at best, but the report released from ESHRE this week showing quite how badly we're trailing behind our European neighbours was still something of a shock. We came third from the bottom in a European table for funding fertility treatment, with only Russia and Ireland behind us. Belgium and Denmark both fund around three times as much treatment per million inhabitants as we do.  Even Slovenia funds twice as much.

I've just been on Radio Humberside discussing the situation, and the presenter seemed not to have considered that infertility might be a medical condition. It always strikes me as odd that if it's your fallopian tubes or your ovaries that don't work, a medical problem becomes  a "lifestyle choice".  Where do we draw the line with "lifestyle choices" and medical treatment? Infertility is not going to kill anyone, people often say. No, it probably isn't, but surely the NHS wasn't set up only to treat people who would drop dead if they weren't helped right away?  Even funding three full cycles of IVF for all those who needed it would be a tiny drop in NHS budgets - and cutting all IVF funding entirely wouldn't begin to solve our financial problems (indeed it could make them far worse, if more and more fertility patients started going overseas and coming back pregnant with triplets).

I think this debate is about something much more than infertility - although our attitudes to families and children in the UK probably provide an interesting tangential discussion. It seems to me that deciding that some medical conditions are unworthy of treatment is the tip of a very large iceberg which rests on our decisions about what the NHS is for. What other treatments might constitute "lifestyle choices"? Hip and knee replacements perhaps? Might people decide that they aren't entirely essential?  Perhaps being able to walk long distances without any pain is a "lifestyle choice" - you don't have to walk far, you can take painkillers.

Cutting IVF funding is easy - some people even think it's a good thing.  People with fertility problems are often so distressed that they haven't told their closest friends and family about what's happening to them.  They aren't going to be outside the local PCT waving banners and shouting.  Just because something is easy, that doesn't make it right - and being oblivious to the longer term consequences of short-term financial decisions seems to be all too common at the moment.

Donor conception - Ken Daniels

I went to a fantastic workshop earlier this week organised by PROGAR about donor conception. The keynote speaker was Professor Ken Daniels from New Zealand who gave an inspiring talk which covered the whole issue of how we deal with donor conception.  If you've ever had any doubts about whether telling a child they were donor conceived is the right thing to do, just a few minutes listening to Ken Daniels talking would leave you utterly convinced.

He showed how being open about donor conception, and telling children from an early age just stops it being an issue at all, and illustrated how difficult it is when there is a secret at the heart of a family.  Some of the stories he told and clips he played were so moving that they left a tear in my eye, but he passed on his information in such a calm, measured way.

There was a really interesting discussion afterwards with two people who had been conceived with donor gametes - and again, their testimony made it clear that telling is just so important.  It can be hard to know quite how, or what, to tell a child but the earlier you do it, the easier it is as it just becomes something that a child has always known rather than information imparted in a formal way.  If you're worried about how to tell, contact the Donor Conception Network, who run fantastic courses on this very subject where you will also have the opportunity to meet up with other parents

Lesley Brown

I hadn't read about the sad death of Lesley Brown, mother of the first ever IVF baby Louise Brown, earlier this month.  It makes you realise quite how long ago it is since Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards carried out the pioneering work that led to Louise's birth in 1978.  IVF is so common now that we may not always appreciate quite how extraordinary it seemed to people at the time, and how much suspicion there was about what Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards had achieved.  It wasn't just the media or the general public expressing fears and concerns - the medical establishment was very unsupportive of what had been achieved.

In the coverage in the papers of Lesley's death, I came across a wonderful line in the Daily Mail which explained that - Two years ago it emerged that Louise was actually grown in a jar rather than a test-tube. The idea that Mail readers - and journalists - had for the past 32 years been under the misapprehension that IVF babies were being "grown" in test-tubes was enough to make the mind boggle, and perhaps illustrates the level of misunderstanding that still exists about infertility and IVF today.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for Lesley Brown with all the fears and concerns about IVF at the time - and it makes it very clear what a brave woman she was - and how much she wanted Louise.

Meeting at the House of Commons

I've meant to tell you about the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infertility for weeks, but am only now finally getting round to it - the picture shows Infertility Network UK Chief Executive Clare Lewis-Jones with the group's Chair, MP for Dartford Gareth Johnson.  Sadly, only one other MP came to join the meeting which was a great shame as it was an opportunity to show support and to help to raise awareness. It was fortunate that so many of those with an interest in fertility who had been invited by the National Infertility Awareness Campaign did turn up - making the meeting feel very well attended.

Clare Lewis-Jones presented the findings of some very interesting research carried out by the National Infertility Awareness Campaign which showed that more than half of all fertility patients had found their GP to be either unhelpful or lacking in knowledge about infertility and treatments when they visited. It must be very difficult for GPs who are expected to be up to date with every health problem and every potential treatment, but one of the problems for fertility patients is the lack of time that they have to give in an appointment when discussing a fertility problem is often difficult and upsetting.

Let's hope that more MPs make time to come along to the next meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infertility to show their support and to help increase understanding.

What are we called?

I was reading a blog post the other day that referred to people with fertility problems as "infertiles" and it made me think about what we call ourselves.

I prefer to think of myself as having a fertility problem rather than an infertility problem - and I tend to talk about fertility treatment rather than infertility treatment.  I know some people feel that using the word "fertility" rather than "infertility" is just evading the issue - but at the same time, most of us are actually sub-fertile and have some chance of conceiving with treatment, rather than being absolutely infertile, with no chance at all.

I'd only ever come across the use of the word "infertiles" to describe people with fertility problems once before, and I don't like it any more now than I did then. To me,  it's just a horrid word. It's so stark and seems to add to the stigma.  What do you think?

Fertility drugs for sale

I just came across a website where fertility drugs were being bought and sold, apparently from one fertility patient to another.  Judging by the number of posts put up in the last 24 hours, it's a popular business. People were reassuring one another that their drugs had been properly stored and that the dates hadn't expired.  Others were posting pleas for cheap fertility drugs, claiming that they needed them urgently.

I can't stress enough how unsafe this is.  If you're putting yourself through the trauma of fertility treatment - and often the expense too - there's really little point in trying to save a few pounds, or even a few hundred for that matter, by buying someone else's leftover drugs.  When you buy fertility drugs this way, you have no idea who you are buying them from or whether they've really been properly looked after - in fact, you can't even guarantee that they are what they say they are.  It's simply not worth the risk that you could ruin your chances of successful treatment by trying to cut costs this way.

Fertility treatment is hugely expensive - and you can save money on your drugs by shopping around - but just make sure you shop around from reputable suppliers rather than people trying to offload their leftover drugs online.