In last week’s The Sunday Times (of London) journalist Emma Barnett spoke about her experience with infertility and how in the end, IVF gave her and her husband the child they had been pursuing for a number of years.
The target of Ms Barnett’s article was, however, a warning to couples who are in this predicament.
As she very correctly states, these couples are desperate, and every monthly bleed needs to be accepted, overcome and the goal pursued again. Not everyone can cope with this, month in, month out.
This situation makes these couples particularly vulnerable, and ‘unproven methods’ of fertility treatment are springing up all the time. This is true both in non-medical fields but also in specialised infertility centres.
Anyone who has been through this will have heard of special types of glue, serial imaging of the embryos and other procedures which have not been shown to be of any real benefit.
In Malta we have had an IVF service in place for some time and this has now become a government funded service under the guidance of the Embryo Protection Authority. However, many couples look to specialised clinics overseas hoping that their first IVF cycle will be the only one they will have to do.
These couples are the ones who usually will be keen to accept these add-ons for this very reason, bringing the total cost of this treatment to a much higher value that it really needs to be.
Information of this nature (realistic rather than over-optimistic) tends to travel slowly so I would like to invite couples who seek this route to think things through carefully before accepting any add-ons.
It is also important that the doctors who assist these patients be fully conversant with all the therapies that their patients are offered as they will be asked their own opinion on these issues.
Unfortunately the expression ‘all that glitters is not gold’ applies very well to some fertility establishments, and it is the duty of the local medical profession to direct patients to the right places for the correct treatments.