July 14, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 8:02 pm
Fertility treatment waiting lists that utilize egg donations have increased in the UK since laws were changed that prohibit women from donating eggs on an anonymous basis.
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.
June 29, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 2:48 pm
Women over forty may now be able to seek IVF treatments on the NHS; the organization has taken this decision in order to avoid being sued for ‘age discrimination’ according to new reports.
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.
June 23, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 4:14 am
Doctors have warned that couples that want to have children through IVF should be aware of the small risk of malformation in the child.
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.
June 9, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 1:55 pm
Medical professionals as well as the general public have been shocked to discover that an average of 80 abortions per year are carried out by women in England and Wales who were pregnant through IVF.
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.
May 28, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 12:32 pm
According to a new report by Popular Science, scientists believe that sex with the purpose of reproduction may soon go out of style. While sex will still be a part of life, due to advancements in embryology instead of getting busy with traditional baby making those with, or possibly without, problems will simply skip ahead to invitro fertilization.
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.
April 28, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 2:05 pm
The United States has a flourishing egg donation business that sees young women being paid for donating their eggs, often to pay for things like university tuition. There are also of course women in difficult financial situations who also self their eggs to clinics in order to supplement their day-to-day living.
In the UK the situation is very different as it is completely illegal for anyone to profit financially in any way from egg donation, in this country is seen very much as a selfless act of generosity rather than a business.
But now they public consultation by Nuffield Council on Bioethics is to look into the whole issue of donations, including not only eggs but organs and tissues as well. At issue is the donation of not only renewable resources such as eggs, sperm and blood was also non-renewable donations such as hearts and eyes.
This possible change of heart has come about because of a drastic shortage of all kinds of donations, currently there are over 1000 patients waiting on various transplant lists, but in 2009 there were only 3550 transplants.
There is currently a need for 500 additional sperm donors and well over 1000 egg donors per year. As the law stands at present donors are only permitted to claim very small amounts in expenses, and absolutely no kind of direct or indirect payments.
The study will look into the possibility of payments, but will also consider other, non-financial payments, such as basic thank you letters sent from recipients to the donor. However it seems that there is simply a change in official attitudes towards all kinds of donations and in particular eggs
April 17, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 3:00 am
Fertility scientists from the US have said that air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide may affect the outcome of invitro fertilization.
The US team said that it studied the outcomes of the first IVF treatments of 7,403 women at the Hershey Medical Center at Penn State, Shady Grove Fertility in Maryland, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at the New York Columbia University over a seven year time span stretching from 2000 to 2007.
Penn State Professor Duanping Liao stated that they found that there are significant links that show air pollution may increase the risks of blood-clotting and inflammation. These two factors are linked with reproductive health along with many other ill human health effects such as chronic conditions, mortality, and cardiovascular disease.
Researchers from the study feel their findings could be used to show how air pollution may damage human reproduction in general because IVF allows scientists to take a look of air pollutants on reproduction in a controlled setting.
Liao continued to say that the findings from the study could be used to look at how air quality plays a role in fertilization, delivery, and pregnancy due to the fact that IVF is a highly timed process with a high level of control allowing them to see the time of exposure to air pollutants in relation to reproductive factors.
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 2:59 am
The UK’s first clinic that stands alone in that is solely focused on getting new sperm donors has opened as a merger of two sperm banks the Louis Hughes Sperm bank and the London Women’s Clinic bank. The new partnership will be called the London Sperm Bank which is fully licensed by the fertility watchdog organization the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
Dr. Kamal Ahuja, the scientific director of the LSB, stated that the new partnership will offer revived hope for the many women who otherwise may have trouble receiving fertility treatment due to a shortage of proper donor sperm.
The goal of the LSB is to extend its stock of available sperm vials up to 10,000 so that women will have both a wider choice when seeking donors and a speedier service overall.
At the present the LSB will serve all of the London’s Women’s Clinics but hopes to broaden its audience to other properly licensed fertility clinics throughout the UK by the year 2011.
According to the LSB website, the goal of the institution is to give all UK women the best choices among donors without worrying about spending money to travel abroad. Additionally, the website said that the LSB is supportive of the anxiety of the HFEA of women taking a chance by getting sperm from unlicensed sources.
One reasons for the current shortage of sperm donors may be the fact that donor anonymity was removed back in 2005 and the new right that children conceived using donor sperm may now request the information of the donor when they reach age 18.
March 18, 2010
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 3:06 am
The Bridge Centre fertility clinic in London has teamed up with the Genetics and IVF Institute in the U.S. to offer more British women a chance to get pregnant. The basis for the cooperative move is to provide healthy eggs from female donors in the U.S. to women in the U.K. To promote this alliance, an egg is being raffled in London, with the winner to receive £13,000 in free treatments in the U.S. provided by GIVF.
Under present law in Britain it is illegal to sell human eggs for profit; the maximum allowed for expenses to donors is £250. In contrast, donors in the U.S. can receive up to $10,000 (£6,600) for a single egg. One result of this these policies is that more women in the U.S. are willing to donate eggs, and the joint venture circumvents British law by offering treatments in the U.S. to recipients of eggs from U.S. donors.
Egg donors are rigorously screened for health, stability and intellectual capacity, among other characteristics, and the actual process of donating an egg or eggs is not easy. It involves taking drugs to increase ovarian production, and has been described as a long and painful procedure, with potential harmful results to the donor’s health and future fertility.
Critics of the programme claim that it is taking advantage of donors’ financial need, and that most of the U.S. donors (all graduates or students at American universities) are motivated by the money they are paid. A spokesman for the Bridge Centre said that the decision to raffle an egg is one that was made by the Americans.
Filed under: IVF — Alan @ 3:03 am
The risk of stillbirth is increased in women who undergo fertility treatments, specifically IVF or ICSI.
However, whether the increased risk is due to the fertility treatments is still under investigation.
A study conducted by scientists at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark indicated that the risk of stillbirth is four times higher after fertilization by IVF and ICSI than with other fertility treatments or ‘natural’ childbirth. Based on their study of 20,000 pregnancies between 1989 and 2006, researchers found a risk factor of 4.3 per thousand births overall, but that factor increased to 16.2 per thousand among women who had received either IVF or ICSI treatments.
The leader of the Danish study, Dr. Kirsten Wisborg, noted that they also found results to be similar in circumstances where the couple was fertile or just took longer to conceive, or after other fertility treatments. This led to the suggestion that some aspect of IVF and ICSI technology or another unknown factor may be the cause of increased risk.
While the risk of stillbirth is relatively very low, researchers agree that much more study is needed to determine the actual causes and whether they are related to specific methods of fertilization or to other physiological variations in the individuals.
The idea that infertility alone may not be the contributing factor in the higher risk category is one that interests other researchers very much, and will hopefully lead to more conclusive findings in further studies.
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