In Vitro Fertility Goddess
In Vitro Fertility Goddess is "a fantastic book", "a page-turner", "a great read!"... All Reviews Here »
Then take a look at In Vitro Fertility Goddess, my international best-selling and critically-acclaimed book - see reviews - which details my own brushes with insanity on the speculum-lined path to having a child - scroll down this page to read a Free Excerpt.
You can also instantly receive a Free Copy of 'Herbs and IVF' valued at $29.95, the ground-breaking fertility eBook by the world famous "Baby Maker" and "Fertility Guru" Stacey Roberts. It's free upon purchase of In Vitro Fertility Goddess and available within seconds.
You may also join my Forum, read up-to-the-minute Fertility News or some of my published articles on: IVF Infertility Fertility Herbs Miscarriage Pregnancy by pointing your cursor on any of the left hand link topics above. Enjoy your stay! Jodi Panayotov
Dr Penny Adams, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Channel 9 
."IVF Goddess is so funny…this book has it all in a very light hearted way. It's fantastic!"
Fran Kelly, Presenter ABC Radio National “Breakfast”"In Vitro Fertility Goddess takes the indignities and disappointments of infertility and turns them into a touching, achingly-funny journey into eventual motherhood. This is much more than a story of baby-making: Jodi has produced a page-turning, laugh-aloud adventure story."
More Reviews of In Vitro Fertility Goddess Here »
'When trying to conceive becomes a battle to stay sane'
Article by Jodi Panayotov, author of In Vitro Fertility Goddess, published in The Australian
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I knew there was something wrong with me when I began frantically pulling everything out of the rubbish bin for the third time. Or should I say something else wrong with me. I already knew I had endometriosis, hyperthyroidism and that my hormones were out of whack (all under the infertility umbrella of afflictions), but this? It felt like something in my brain had gone into overdrive and was compelling me to do previously unimaginable things obsessively and repetitively.
How did it get to the point where I was on my knees rifling through salad scraps like a hungry street person? Except instead of food I was looking for one of a dozen discarded pregnancy tests, just in case a second line had shown up in the hour since I'd shoved it to the bottom of the bin in disgust.
This condition, like an obsessive disorder, had snuck up on me in the year since my first miscarriage and had become more pronounced in the year since my second miscarriage. My husband and I had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive for a few years and at some point recently it had taken over our lives and in particular mine.
At the time of the rubbish incident I was on herbs to correct my various reproductive ailments. This had involved temperature taking every morning and charting it which may have been useful for my herbalist but was doing my head in. I'd taken to setting the alarm so I could get an accurate reading by taking it at the same time every morning. A temperature too high and I'd failed to ovulate, a temperature too low and I wasn't pregnant.With shaking hands I'd reach for the thermometer and depending on the reading of my basal temperature, I'd either leap out of bed happy or retreat under the covers. I became Linda Evangelista-esque in that a number dictated whether I got out of bed or not, although for her there was a dollar sign in front of the number while my number had a small elevated circle after it.
As for the temperature chart, I'd taken to studying it instead of the papers throughout breakfast, analyzing the little peaks and troughs as if it was a stock market graph. Did they mean I was ovulating or was I perhaps, oh God please, pregnant? And my mood would swing in peaks and troughs accordingly.
I realized how dependent on temperature taking and charting I'd become when on one weekend my husband and I went away to the mountains and as we were halfway to our destination I remembered I'd left the thermometer and chart by the bedside. ‘We have to go back!' I screamed. There was no way I could face a weekend without it. It was as if my very existence now depended on that thermometer, it so dictated my days and moods that I wouldn't know what to feel without it.
At dusk we finally arrived at our destination, a villa tucked away in the mountains. The next morning was one of the mornings I wanted to stay in bed like Linda but breakfast was included so I dragged myself out to face a sumptuous buffet. At first it looked very inviting, laden as it was with fresh and home-made local mountain products. Then as I moved along with my plate the items started to turn into something else before my eyes. The plump dried figs became shrivelled ovaries, the berry jam endometriotic clots and the poached eggs blighted ova. I knew that I needed help but I wasn't sure whether to call a gynaecologist or a psychiatrist.
As it happened I ended up seeing both. After that weekend I called my gynaecologist in Sydney and booked an appointment for IVF. I really didn't trust things to be left in my own hands any more, not when I was capable of turning a breakfast buffet into a dysfunctional reproductive system. And through a friend I found a ninety-year old one-legged psychiatrist who had more empathy for how my fertility problems were affecting my life than anyone in the medical fraternity.
The medical fraternity are all, ‘Swallow this, have another blood test, take this, try this,' but they seem completely oblivious to the emotional side of what you're going through. For instance, not once in any medical report do they say, ‘There are many side-effects to infertility beyond the physical ones. Some common ones are:
Homicidal thoughts towards pregnant women, Homicidal urges towards people who mistreat their children, Temperature Charting obsession, Repetitive Pregnancy Test taking to the point where you consider taking shares in the company who manufactured them, Extreme mood swings, Bursting into tears at someone else's pregnancy news, for example Liz Hurley's. And the less common: When foodstuffs remind you of faulty reproductive organs.
If I thought IVF would be the answer to both my reproductive issues and my mental issues I was very mistaken. Yes, it produced a baby but the emotional toll took ages for me to recover from it. On the one hand it took the onus from me and placed it in the hands of a medical team but on the other hand I had to play a far greater role in it than I had with my herbs.
Everyone knows IVF involves injections but what I didn't realize was that there would be a plethora of blood tests that left my inner arms looking like that of a junkie and these were carried out at obscure hours in the morning. Sometimes these were paired with internal ultrasounds, after which I'd spend until mid-afternoon obsessively awaiting the results and whether we would continue the next day. It was like doing an exam every day that you had no way of studying for.
I'd thought my mental state was pretty ragged until I started the IVF drugs. To put them in perspective, I seriously believe that one day, some lawyer will say: ‘My client was under the influence of Lucrin and Puregon when she killed him, Your Honour,' will be a valid defence in a trial. It's like PMT tripled. And coming on the tail of the years of trying to conceive stress it can be a force to be reckoned with. I think that for the first time in his life my husband was scared of me when I was on those drugs.
The day I got the positive pregnancy result from the IVF clinic it was like being let out of jail, a mental prison that I'd been in for the past three years. But I was on parole until after the scans that showed a viable pregnancy. Suddenly I didn't know what to do with myself. I put the thermometer away, the charts, tipped out the herbs and thought, ‘what now?' It was as if I had to invent a new life for myself, which I did, although I had some scares during pregnancy which had me back in a state of high anxiety for a while.
Now when I look back on the diary I kept during the infertility years, which I've since turned into a book, it's not the procedures, the drugs, the temperatures that predominate but the insanity which accompanied them all.
Friends who've read the book are taken by utter surprise and say they had no idea what had been going on. Yes, they knew of the herbs, the IVF etc but they had no idea what was going on with me. It wasn't as if I was going to ring them and say, ‘Can you believe it, I've just spent an hour trawling through my rubbish and the pregnancy test still says negative,' or ‘I really think that figs look like ovaries, don't you?'
You see, when people speak of infertility nobody mentions that it has an insanity clause.
Jodi Panayotov, author of IVF Goddess
In Vitro Fertility Goddess Book Excerpt Have just been on another infertility site with other equally fanatical women, if nothing else it's good to know others have obsessive infertility compulsive disorders. And equally reassuring is that relative to many of them I am actually quite sane. For instance, have not got M on brazil nut and green-leaf tea diet whilst alternating placing of penis from left to right in silk boxer shorts then expecting him to impregnate me when I'm hanging upside down in batlike fashion from a beam that I had him install in our bedroom. How women on these sites endlessly discuss all manner of bodily fluids in micro detail, their entire sex lives with partners etc. is truly amazing. Men would never go near them again if they read this stuff. Imagine if with every Playboy centrefold instead of saying: ‘I like to rub myself nude against a man whilst wearing only a collar and Blahnik stilettoes by an open fire. Once I made love to three men at a time doggy-style behind a sand-dune' they said: ‘When I ovulate I produce a lot of egg-white stringy mucous, this is when I'm most fertile but men find it a turn-off when it goes pasty and yellow and smelly during my luteal phase. I love my nipples as they have blue spider veins on them when I have PMS but don't come near me then as I fart a lot and get crampy and bad-tempered.' …. Back at work after the failed conception trip to Paris, one thing I seem unable to avoid is Fertility Goddess workmates. There used to be one on a flight per week, but all of a sudden there seems to be at least one on every flight. Is like lambing season in the air, with protruding stomachs wherever you look. The main culprit (besides the husbands) is the Olympic Games which are fast approaching and nobody wants to fly during them. Girls have actually postponed/timed their families around the event to avoid it! And worse, they've succeeded. The joke is that the maternity uniform is actually the official Olympic uniform. Almost every flight I find myself working with a pregnant fertility goddess and the most annoying attribute is their perception that because they are glowingly pregnant everyone else must be pregnant or at least trying. Worse, the ones who know I've been to Paris get all ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink' with me, throwing meaningful glances at my stomach and making comments like "Oh Paris is the city of lurve. My friend went there and it was so romantic she got pregnant!" What do they think, the sight of the Eiffel Tower and all that Haussman architecture turns you into rabbits bonking day and night for weeks on end? And, like women in the newly engaged state who are incapable of discussing anything but wedding dresses and engagement rings, these pregnant women are incapable of talking about any topic save for ultrasounds and baby names. Is totally excruciating! This morning I was on the end of a trolley with one such girl and by about halfway through handing out the trays, was practically at the point of forcibly opening an aircraft door mid-flight and getting self sucked into the upper atmosphere. The morning sickness, the cravings, the veins, on it went. Then she interrupted herself to throw in, ‘Oh, what about you then? You've been married for years now, when are you going to have a baby?" With every bit of self-control I could find, I stopped myself just in time from inducing an aisle birth by way of trolley. "Actually I just lost one, miscarriage, you know." She went slightly green but it could have been her morning sickness. There, I'd said it. Shouted it, actually, at thirty-nine thousand feet. The entire rear of the plane simultaneously looked up from their turkey rissoles and this was strangely liberating. Back in the galley the no-longer-smug girl apologised and the other girls went all quiet and seemed to whisper for the rest of the flight. Later as we were leaving the aircraft a non-pregnant girl attached herself to my side and confessed that she too had had a miscarriage last year and I was the first person she'd told outside of immediate family. "What is it, why don't we talk about it? It's like there's a hidden code of silence or something. I've never in ten years of working here heard of one miscarriage. And I've heard all about every birth." "They're all proud of their births, nobody's proud of having miscarriage." "But we don't deliberately cause our miscarriages." What was wrong with women that they felt so ashamed to talk about their reproductive failings and so compelled to flaunt their fertility to each other? … Am off to IVF meet tonight, will be only 'single' there amongst other couples. These people are like the living dead, wandering from appointment to appointment, being herded here, shifted there, referred elsewhere then experimented on. Is like a bad Singles Club or tragic dating agency that have been forced to join in act of desperation. Am now officially one of them, being controlled by major outside force, having surrendered to it. No longer feel attached to society, walk around with cloudy film between me and them, the 'haves' and the less visible 'have-nots'. Another thing these couples had in common besides obviously having money was all were aged thirty-to-forty-something. Would be good characters for new show, "Infertility and The City." Could be based on number of couples who meet regularly at doctor's rooms, clinics, day hospitals etc., and none of them have sex as they're all over it, the women frequently have hormone-induced emotional outbursts and all wear expensive shoes/drive expensive cars. Only sex scenes on show consist of men masturbating in white rooms with glass containers and piles of worn centrefold magazines. None ever achieve baby as then show over would be over like when Sex and The City girls all meet husbands). Certainly is not case of "Yahoo, hip hip hurrah, here I am at the IVF hospital!" Oddly enough they served beer and wine as freebies and people were getting stuck into it as if we were all at strange bar somewhere. Unlike normal bars where patrons shout at each other, at this one everyone spoke in hushed tones. I had thought they wouldn't be condoning alcohol with people trying to fall pregnant but maybe they thought, 'oh none of them have any hope let's at least get them relaxed and happy, poor things.' Was looking around room thinking, which 70% of people here will be the ones who pay thousands for the beer and wine they're drinking? We all sit here now in hope but a lot of us won't succeed. Who will walk away with a baby and who will walk away empty-handed-and-pocketed? Will I be a lottery winner or loser? Also the whole wine and cheese thing is a bit odd in this setting. Is a false social premise to make people relax and chat? If so it failed miserably. It's not as if we're here to meet new friends and partners. What do people at what is essentially an infertility club talk about? "Hi, pleased to meet you and what brings you here? Low sperm count? Oh, I see, the old polycystic ovaries. Yes the woman in red has the same thing - you should meet her. Hobbies? Oh, temperature taking, mucous checking…Chlomid? No given that away, got a bit hooked…"
Alex Bernard, Presenter Afternoons, 4BC Radio"I'd recommend In Vitro Fertility Goddess to anyone having fertility problems or thinking about starting a family…it's really a fantastic read!"
Michael Jacobson, Books Editor, Weekend Bulletin"…In Vitro Fertility Goddess is entertaining, enlightening and much more than a memoir. It's a love story, an adventure and a mystery. And just as their little girl was the gift the Panayotov's craved, IVF Goddess is another gift, one with a message for the hopeful parents making their own difficult journey."
"IVFG is laugh out loud funny" More Press Reviews Here »
Carlie Jordan, Gladstone, Australia."What a great book 'In Vitro Fertility Goddess' is. I'M LOVIN IT!!!
Husband and I are going through second cycle of IVF and when told of your book I thought of nothing worse than having a laugh at this situation, but I was wrong. You are right in everything you say in the book and it is humorous the way it is written. It has made me feel a little better in that I am not the only person going through it as I know NO ONE going through the same thing.
I will definitely recommend In Vitro Fertility Goddess to anyone going through this (when people actually start to talk about it) as it is not a shamefull thing. I think I am actually going to get my pregnant friends to read it as they don't understand what I'm going through and hopefully they will have a better idea."
Simone P., Sydney, Australia"I just wanted to say I 'L O V E D' In Vitro Fertility Goddess with a capital L.
I myself have had 3 miscarriages this year and I am at it again for the fourth time this year. I don't know what I would of done if I hadn't of read this book because in a way it has saved me and slowed down the tears. No-one around me really and truly understood my pain but when I read the book I knew someone did - at last! You've got no idea how truly grateful I am Jodi to read your most deepest feelings about the horrendous memory or memories of miscarriage.
Thank you just doesn't seem to cut it but it's all I can say."
Naomi G., SA, Australia"Can I just say that In Vitro Fertility Goddess was hilarious - I literally could not put it down.
I loved the funny and sarcastic take on those who are not fertility challenged and appreciated that the book gave me a chance to have a good old fashioned belly laugh about such a sensitive subject. I literally feel like I have ‘snapped out' of my self pity and learnt to get on with it!
I think Jodi has done a wonderful job to capture the frustrations and irrational thoughts that you have while struggling to conceive - and makes you laugh at yourself, and realize that you are not as crazy as you think you are, and its ok to think horrible things about ‘smug pregnants' hahahahaha. I am surrounded by them, everyone is in a baby boom but us, so I immediately felt understood when I ready Jodi's book.
Great therapy for anyone who is feeling a little sorry for themselves and needs to feel normal again!!"
Stacey C., OH."It's great to hear others tell their stories about IVF in such a positive way!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Jodi's Tips for Dealing with Smug Pregnants and Fertility Goddesses
1. Buy and carry an extremely cute puppy. As there are more dog lovers than kid lovers in the world you will instantly attract attention away from smug pregnants and their cute toddlers.
2. Introduce the dog in a gushing cutesy voice as ‘my/our baby' which will stop people asking the whereabouts or existence of a real baby. Nobody ever said to Paris Hilton, "Nice dog but when are you having a baby?"
3. Consider having a T-shirt boldly emblazoned with the name of your fertility clinic, e.g., Monash IVF and wear it. That way people will instantly know where you're at without asking or else they will ask about what it means and you can tell them. Either way you will be educating a group of ignoramuses and that can't be a bad thing. Also guaranteed to give instant immunity to birth/baby story viruses.
4. Arm yourself with phrases like "Of course for our next trip to Paris we'll be staying at the Ritz. It's far more convenient to those fabulous magasins (shops) off Rue de Rivoli, the ones where Katie Holmes shops." or "What have I been up to? Well in between learning mandarin, setting up my art studio and planning my volunteers trip to Nepal I've hardly had time to scratch myself."
5. If there is somebody who is particularly insensitive, rude and goes on and on about their children and their pregnancy, organize to have a morning tea with people you meet at the IVF clinic. Invite the insensitive person and have them sit there while you all endlessly discuss injections, egg extraction etc. Exaggerate if you wish. Lord knows the fertile do.
6. If someone says, "So when are you starting a family?" simply reply, "Good question. I have no idea but let me consult my herbalist, fertility counsellor, gynaecologist, clinic nurse and God. If any of they can enlighten me, I'll get back to you."
7. In response to the oft and thoughtlessly repeated phrase, "Having children makes you less selfish," do not choke on your hors d'oeuvre or spit out your drink, as much self-restraint as this will require. Calmly point out that you find this puzzling because you always see evidence to the contrary. When asked what you mean, roll your eyes, laugh and say, "Where do I start?" before launching into how this morning alone you have been run over by two wide-bodied prams without apology, viciously cut off by an oversized vehicle driven my a ‘selfless' mother and at lunch your table and others at the café became a de facto playground courtesy of a nearby group of mothers who were busy enjoying their lattes in a selfless manner…
Jodi Panayotov
LATEST FERTILITY NEWS
NOVEMBER 2009
OCTOBER 2009
Deny Fertility Treatment to Smokers and Obese
Stem Cell Infertility Breakthrough
Scientists have turned human stem cells into early-stage sperm and eggs in research that promises to give doctors an unprecedented insight into the causes of infertility.
The work will allow researchers to study human reproductive cells from the moment they are created in embryos through to fully-mature sperm and eggs.
Understanding the details of how sperm and egg cells grow will help scientists develop treatments for people who are left infertile when the process goes wrong. The research may also lead to treatments that can correct growth defects before a child is born.
Genetic glitches that happen early on in the growth of sperm and eggs are a major cause of infertility in men and women. The process has been practically impossible to study until now though, because the sex cells form early on, before an embryo is two weeks old.
"This achievement opens a new window into what was only recently a hidden stage of human development," said Susan Shurin at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which part funded the research.
A team led by Renee Reijo Pera at Stanford University in California developed a technique that turned human embryonic stem cells green when they started growing into sperm and eggs. After isolating the reproductive cells, the scientists worked out which genes made them grow properly by switching different genes on and off.
Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists describe how that one gene, called DAZL, is involved in the formation of sex cells from the start. Two related genes are switched on later to steer the cells to full maturity.
The main significance of the work is not to attempt to generate gametes for couples who do not produce them naturally. Rather, the work describes a system in which various aspects of germ cell development can be studied in a dish. In the current study, they have gained insight into the function of three genes in which they specialise."
Darren Griffin, a geneticist at the University of Kent, said the work was important because it gave researchers a way to study human sperm and egg development in a dish, instead of having to rely on tissues taken from animals or "removing bits of people's gonads".
"In future, a range of genetic and environmental factors could be studied, including the effects of pollutants on our fertility. Only through understanding such factors at a basic scientific level can we hope to develop novel diagnoses and therapies. The potential is enormous," he said.
Allan Pacey, an andrologist at Sheffield University, said: "Ultimately this may help us find a cure for male infertility. Not necessarily by making sperm in the laboratory – I personally think that it unlikely – but by identifying new targets for drugs or genes that may stimulate sperm production to occur naturally. This is a long way off, but it is a laudable dream.
British IVF Clinics Publish Success Rates Online
SEPTEMBER 2009
First Baby Born Using New Egg Screening Technique
AUGUST 2009
Simple Test to Detect Endometriosis
Male Infertlity Linked to Obesity
Giving Up Alcohol and Caffeine As Good As IVF
Murder Hunt for Inducing Miscarriage
JULY 2009
World's Oldest IVF Mother Dies
→ 72 Year Old Spends Fortune On Fertility Treatment
IVF Success Rates Soar in Europe
JUNE 2009
Older Women Opt for Risky Fertility Treatment Abroad
Britain's Oldest Mother at 66 Brings Baby Boy Home
IVF Mother at 66 Sparks Fierce Debate
No Fertility Treatment for Mother Because Husband Already has Children
MAY 2009
IVF Multiple Birth Increase Risk Following New IVF Budget Cuts in Australia
Infertile Couples Big Losers in Australian Federal Budget
12 May, 2008
Treasurer Wayne Swan has announced a major reform of the Medicare Safety Net which means payment will be capped for specialist services such as IVF and obstetrics.
From January 1, 2010, safety net payments will be capped at $200 for the planning and management of a pregnancy, $30 for a pregnancy consultation and $550 for the planning and management of an IVF pregnancy.
The 30 per cent private health insurance rebate will now be means tested once an individual earns more than $75,000 and a couple earns more than $150,000.
It is completely removed once someone earns more than $120,000 and couples earn $240,000.
Sarah Williams
IVF Incubator Malfunction Destroys Embroyos
Britain's IVF Watchdog Unsuitable
Secondary Infertility: My Guilt
APRIL 2009
Coffee Increases Risk of Miscarriage
How Your Job Can Affect Your Fertility
Stem Cell Cure for Female Infertility
IVM: The Cheaper Alternative to IVF
IVF Over 40: Success Rates Double
IVF Failure Caused by Rogue Bug
Australian Government Urged to Spare IVF Funding from Budget Axe
MARCH 2009
Why IVF is Money Well Spent
Friday 27 March, 2009
The following article is in response to Jill Singer's column where she argues that government funding for IVF is wrong because it "means that we are paying to create a faulty gene pool, turning Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest on its head. What other species would be so foolish as to encourage this form of un-natural selection?"
I suggest you read Jill Singer's article 'The IVF Revolution is money badly spent' first here » before reading my response below:
My goodness it must be pick on the Infertile month. Why else would a writer such as Jill Singer (clearly a fertility goddess) feel the need to write an article pointing out the evils of IVF treatment and the devil spawn it produces? Well why not, after all taxpayers are subsidising, shock, horror! taxpayers who dearly want children more than anything but have fertility issues that require treatment and this costs money. If they are lucky after spending truckloads of their own money as well, they will eventually have children who will find themselves in loving stable homes with parents who went to great lengths to have them. And that's something that should clearly not be encouraged; in the long term we may have to close ever growing departments such as DOCS if such an outrageous waste of taxpayer funds keeps occurring.
The argument put forth by Jill is that we are subsidising the creation of 11000 much wanted children a year, which considering the amount of IVF cycles undertaken is a poor return on the outley. Yet the only way we are going to improve the return is to maintain or increase funding for infertility, not cut it. It is thanks to the large amounts of money that over the years have gone into the infertility industry, plenty of it out of the pockets of the infertile, that the ‘returns' have improved greatly and, for instance, we now have a situation where in most cases one embryo is implanted.
She also feels that we should slash funding because a higher percentage of babies born to infertile couples are premature and therefore have the associated medical and health costs. Yet these figures surely are skewed by the fact that a lot of infertility treatment occurs in women who are over thirty-five who, due to age and regardless of treatment are more prone to premature and multiple births. And although premature babies do have catch up to play, by the time they are seven the majority have reached normal levels of development.
But the suggestion that almost had me biting off my arm at the elbow was that IVF is a form of ‘unnatural selection', before going on to ask ‘what society is stupid enough to promote the survival of the unfittest?'
Well we as a society have already been doing just that since the Whitlam introduction of the welfare state thirty five years ago. Like IVF it was something born out of the best of intentions. Yet nobody walks into one of the burgeoning numbers of impoverished third generation welfare dependent suburbs with high rates of crime, unemployment, substance abuse and single parenthood and goes, ‘Right, we the taxpayer are sick of subsidising you lot to keep popping out flawed children every year and neglecting them. We will therefore be limiting the number of children we will support. If you are a real no-hoper we may cut reproduction funding altogether and it will be entirely up to you to pay for them. Sorry while we love your children we are finding that the cost to the taxpayer is far too high in terms of what we get in return: drug addicted and foetal alcohol syndrome babies, the bulk of the country's foster children, dole youths, prison inmates etc. It goes against both Darwin's theories and tax reform and it needs to stop.'
Oh and Jill, whilst on the topic of neglected and abused huge-cost-to-taxpayer children, at last count what percentage of the tens of thousands of children currently in foster care (cost per child of up to a million dollars a year) are IVF children?
But I digress. You see I thought I should confess that I am the older mother of an IVF child. Like some I had a troubled pregnancy during which I was on bed rest for much of it and even had an emergency four day stay in hospital not to mention a wicked caesarean birth. Yes I can see the dollar signs starting to blind you but hey I did have private cover as do a large percentage of infertile women.
And my goodness but if the result of all this, my beautiful kind loving daughter didn't top her class last year, with a parting comment from her teacher, ‘If every student was like her the world would be a much better place.'
I'm sure that my daughter, like the three quarters of children who didn't require ‘expensive tax payer funded neonatal care' will have repaid the few thousand dollars of tax payer money that contributed to her creation a thousand fold in her life, if that is Jill's criteria for the outcome we should expect from taxpayer-funded conception. And for the children who require ongoing care, I'm also sure that with further input and the dedication of a parent who put themselves through hell and high water to have them, the majority will also grow up to be a happy functioning member of society. After all how do we measure worthiness and put a price on a member of society?
At the very least these children are deeply loved and as all studies have shown, being loved and cared for is the most important ingredient creating a well-adjusted happy human being.
If this is unnatural selection surely we need more of it. Jodi Panayotov
Miscarriage: Lack of Information and Support
Single Embryo Implant Most Effective for IVF Treatment
Australia Plans To Means Test IVF Treatment
IVF Birth Defects Risk Warnings
Infertile Women Can Regain Their Fertility Thanks to New Hormone
American Fertility Patients want Final Say on Embryos after IVF
The Fertility Doctor Behind the Octuplets
New IVF eSET Procedure and Multiple Birth Risks
Wednesday 6 March, 2009
Pictures of the frail Suleman octuplets, born nine weeks early at weights as low as 1½ pounds, have been beamed into lounge rooms around the world. The newborns who came from six embryos, two of which split into twins, have sparked a heated debate as to whether the US should follow the cue from lead of Sweden and Belgium and replicate their laws that limit the number of embryos that can be transferred during IVF.
Lawmakers in two states have already introduced bills to limit embryo transfers: Missouri will demand that fertility clinics follow American Society for Reproductive Medicine or ASRM guidelines which allow for one or two embryos in patients under 35 and up to five in women 40 and over. Georgia has upped the ante by limiting women under 40 to two embryos and those +40 to three.
Pictures of the frail Suleman octuplets, born nine weeks early at weights as low as 1½ pounds, have been beamed into lounge rooms around the world. The newborns who came from six embryos, two of which split into twins, have sparked a heated debate as to whether the US should follow the cue from lead of Sweden and Belgium and replicate their laws that limit the number of embryos that can be transferred during IVF.
Lawmakers in two states have already introduced bills to limit embryo transfers: Missouri will demand that fertility clinics follow American Society for Reproductive Medicine or ASRM guidelines which allow for one or two embryos in patients under 35 and up to five in women 40 and over. Georgia has upped the ante by limiting women under 40 to two embryos and those +40 to three.
But a growing number of women who have concerns about multiple births are opting for a relatively new approach called elective single-embryo transfer or eSET.
While 10 years ago, transferring a single embryo would have been deemed inappropriate given the slim success rates, progress made since then have significantly improved the chances of younger women achieving a successful pregnancy with only a single embryo transferred. The journal Fertility and Sterility recently reported that eSET patients had the same pregnancy rate (65%) as those who transferred two embryos. But the big difference was that while only 1% of eSET patients had twins compared with 44% of the women who had received two embryos.
But the incentives faced by American patients to transfer more than the recommended number of embryos are too great to be ignored because large numbers of IVFers lack appropriate insurance for a procedure that costs about $12,500 a cycle. Many view twins as "two for the price of one" or see multiple transfers as increasing their chances of conceiving at least one healthy baby. And for fertility doctors, there's the incentive to boost transfer numbers in a bid to increase their success rates and their clinic's appeal to future clients.
Barbara Collura, the executive director of the infertility group Resolve, believes there is necessity to encourage women to take out insurance first because restricting embryo transfers without first addressing the insurance issue "is going to create more trauma and more problems. When you get to the point where this is covered by insurance, you have a completely different attitude, you're not as desperate."
Sean Tipton from the ASRM says that in Connecticut, health plans that cover maternity care must pay for IVF, but they can limit the number of embryos transferred to two. Governments can also intervene directly as is the case in the Netherlands where while there is no strict legislation on the number of embryos transferred, the government says that the transfer of more than two embryos shouldn't be reimbursed by national healthcare. And that's a strong disincentive.
Resolve urges women to consider their health and their baby's health when contemplating the transfer of more embryos than recommended by the ASRM.
But that is easier said than done as it's often hard to deal with them in a rational way when they're in perhaps the biggest crisis of their life.
And at the end of the day, while some fertility clinics support eSET, it's not always the case because fertility doctors only have to deal with patients up to the time they become pregnant, that's it. After that, they are out of their hands and they don't have to deal with the consequences of multiple births.
Sarah Williams
Fertility Clinic Makes Designer Babies a Reality
FEBRUARY 2009
Do Not Rush Into Fertility Treatment or IVF
Sydney Fertility Clinics Fear Sperm Donors Will Be Revealed
Infertility Link to Testicular Cancer
Frozen Baby in Australian First
How to Avoid a Fertility Fiasco
IVF Lesbian Couple Wins Compensation for Second Child
Fertility Treatment Under Attack
JANUARY 2009
Chemicals May Harm Fertility in Women
IVF More Effective fior Women Under 35
DECEMBER 2008
IVF for Over 40s Big Strain on Public Purse
IVF Mother at 44 Has No Regrets
Change to Fertility Legislation in Victoria Gets Mixed Response
Passive Smoking Increases Fertility Problems and Miscarriages
NOVEMBER 2008
Hairspray Link to Birth Defects and Infertility
Miscarriage Impact on Relashionships
Birth Defects Linked to Fertility Treatment
Big Business Moves on Victoria's IVF Clinics
IVF Treatment for British Prisoners
New Fertility Test to Tell Women How Long to Delay Having Children
Fertility Problems Caused by Chemicals in Plastics
Cut Price IVF for British Sperm Donors
No Link Between IVF and Breast Cancer
Nicole Kidman Show her Baby off to the World
Frozen Embryos Make for Heathier Babies
Tuesday 11 November 2008
Source: American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Using frozen rather than freshly collected embryos produce healthier babies, new research has found.
Three separate studies published this week found that children born from frozen embryos before they are transferred to the womb are less likely to be underweight, premature and recorded lower rates of stillbirth or early death than those conceived during fresh treatment cycles.
Scientists in Australia, the US and Finland have also dismissed the myth that cycles using embryos are more risky.
Their findings are very significant at a time when women are encouraged to use just one fresh embryo at a time. This means they can now rest at ease knowing that their frozen embryos can be safely stored for later use, hence avoiding the urge for multiple implants and risky multiple births.
But the findings pose an important dilemma for parents and fertility clinics because fresh cycles result in more successful pregnancies: 31% for women under 35 compared with only 20.1% for frozen cycles.
While the studies have failed to find conclusive evidence as to why babies born from frozen embryos are healthier, they have advanced several hypotheses.
One possibility is that some frozen embryos generally fail to survive thawing which weeds out those that are of poor quality. Another reason could be that women who generate a large number of good quality embryos are more likely to have frozen cycles and also have a lower risk of complicated pregnancies.
Another explanation could stem from the fact that women using fresh embryos could still be under the influence of hormonal drugs used to stimulate their ovaries into producing extra eggs. Either of these hypotheses may interfere with the endometrial lining of the womb and the formation of the placenta, therefore increasing the risk of experiencing a complicated pregnancy.
But using frozen embryos doesn'only benefit the baby, it also has health benefits for the mother as it means she will avoid ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome or OHSS which is triggered by the powerful drugs used to stimulate the ovaries, a condition which can be fatal in rare cases. Fertility doctors usually abandon an IVF attempt using fresh embryos if a patient begins to develop symptoms because the hormonal disruption of pregnancy can make OHSS worse.
Sarah Williams
IVF Success Rate Doubled for Older Women Aged 37 to 42
Monday 10 November 2008
Source: Oxford University and Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine
Fertility-challenged couples could double their chances of a successful IVF pregnancy and cut the rate of multiple births thanks to a new embryo quality screening technique developed by British and American scientists.
Previous techniques only allowed for about half of all of the embryo's chromosomes to be counted.
But this new method, called comparative genomic hybridisation or CGH, allows for all the chromosomes to be tested.
And given that defects in chromosomes are thought to be the biggest cause of miscarriage particularly in older women, getting the right embryo implant is vital.
The first trial of the procedure achieved outstanding results.
Of 23 women to have their embryos genetically screened with the new technology, two have given birth while another 16 are currently pregnant and have passed the point at which miscarriages typically occur, while another two became pregnant but miscarried.
The 78% success rate is that much more remarkable given all the women were not only aged between 37 and 42, they all had a history of failed IVF attempts and/or miscarriages.
Lead researcher Dagan Wells from the University of Oxford has applied for permission from HFEA to offer the test at the Oxford Fertility Unit at a cost of about £2,000 per screening.
Dr Wells said after the release of his study that "the pregnancy rates we've got so far are absolutely phenomenal. The probability that one embryo leads to a pregnancy is doubled which means that you've got a much better chance of a pregnancy if you do a single embryo transfer."
The new procedure, developed with researchers from the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, also removes some of the risks associated with existing pre-implantation screening as it involves testing IVF embryos when they reach the blastocyst stage of 100 to 150 cells, allowing for extra cells to be removed for genetic analysis, therefore increasing the accuracy of such a test.
Mandy Katz-Jaffe, of the Colorado centre, said: "This is still a trial, and we don't offer it yet as a clinical procedure. But this is very promising."
Sarah Willams
CVC Offers Fertility Treatment Discounts
Bad Oral Hygiene Link to Miscarriage
Early Fertility Treatment Call for Younger Women
World First Ovarian Transplant Beats Infertility
New Test to Determine Early Menopause
OCTOBER 2008
IVF Parents Select Baby's Gender in their Droves
One Embryo Test to Screen for 15,000 Diseases
Staff Buy Employee IVF Treatment as Wedding Gift
IVF Mothers Have Problems Adapting
Fertility Biological Clock Tics for Men Too
IVF and Acupuncture A Perfect Match
Miscarriage Support Non-Existant
Male Health Impacts on Baby's Own Wellbeing
India's Fertility Tourism Boom
Fertility-Challenged Couples Aren't Seeking Help
Weight Determines Sex of IVF Baby
Doctors Insensitive to Miscarriage
Male and Female Fertility Diets Match Up
Extraordinary Births After a Miscarriage
Dramatic Drop in Male Fertility
Endometriosis and Bowel Disease
Lack of Sunlight and Cell Phones Damage Male Fertility
Criminal Checks for IVF Couples
IVF Success Thanks to New Fertility Wonderdrug
Australians Ignorant of Fertility Issues
Is Fertility Increased After a Miscarriage?
Successful Birth for Miscarriage Toilet Mother
Fertility Reform Held Up in British Parliament
Avoid Miscarriage with Statins
Miscarriage Can Harm Next Pregnancy
London Fertility Clinics Best in the Country
Peek Fertility has a High Voice Pitch
Controverial Fertility Bill Becomes Law in Victoria
IVF Successful Births Tops 10000 in the UK
Tragic Toddler Death Was IVF Miracle
IVF for Lesbians and Single Mothers Wins Government Backing in Victoria
SEPTEMBER 2008
Anti-Depressants Impact on Male Fertility
Tuesday 30 September 2008
Source: American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Certain anti-depressant drugs can harm male fertility by damaging the sperm's DNA makeup.
US scientists at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York looked at 35 men who were prescribed the anti-depressant drug Paroxetine, also known as Seroxat in Britain and Aropax in Australia, over a period of five weeks.
And only four weeks into the trial, they discovered the men's sperm had twice as much genetic damage as at the start of the study with the amount of genetic fragmentation in sperm rising from about 14% before the trial to over 30%.
Lead researcher Dr Peter Schlegel explains:
"If you look at normal sperm counts and motility, the standard measures of fertility, you saw no changes, but if you looked at sperm DNA, the genetic material in more detail you actually found dramatic changes in almost half of the men, normal men, who are on this drug".
The findings reinforce previous research which has already found a link between male infertility and the consumption of certain drugs. The same researchers reported two years ago that the antidepressants citalopram and sertraline reduced sperm counts in men and that their sperm counts returned to normal once they stopped taking the drugs. Other research has also found environmental factors such as exposure to certain chemicals and heat sources can impact on men's fertility.
But the new findings come with a word of caution from psychiatrists who believe male patients to not abruptly stop their medication and seek professional advice before doing so.
Sarah Williams
Multiple Miscarriage Risk and Obesity
Fertility Cure? Embryo's Implantation Secrets Revealed
Tuesday 30 September 2008
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Scientists have made another significant breakthrough which has the potential to offer treatment for hundreds of thousands of couples who suffer from so-called unexplained infertility.
A team from Oxford University have for the first time been able to explain and film why some embryos don't implant in the womb.
The researchers discovered two distinct proteins which play a key role in the embryo's latching to the womb. What they found is that once the embryo comes into contact with the womb, chemical signals are sent which allow the embryo's cells to invade the womb and then make connection with the mother's blood supply to form the placenta.
Professor Helen J. Mardon who led the study says that with "many women, attachment and implantation doesn't happen and this is a major cause of infertility. The embryo and womb lining talk to each other, molecularly speaking, which allows them to interact. When the embryo lands on the surface of the uterus wall, it triggers a cascade of signals in both the embryo and uterus. The resulting changes allow the embryo to invade the lining."
The two proteins involved in the crucial latching process belong to the family of Rho GTPases proteins and are called Rac1 and RhoA. Professor Mardon described how they both work: "The first stimulates cells in the womb lining to move and allow the embryo to invade and implant properly while the second inhibits this. We believe this controlled balance of the two proteins is critical for successful implantation of the embryo."
Professor Mardon concluded that if the balance between these two proteins is altered, the cells of the womb lining won't move aside to allow for implantation.
Now that the process behind implantation and its potential failure have been discovered, it could lead to the development of drugs that help embryos implant properly.
Sarah Williams
Mobile and Cell Phone Impact on Male Fertility
Fertility Waters Made Nicole Kidman Pregnant
Miscarriage Risk From Down Syndrome Test
Sons of Infertile Men Themselves at Risk of Infertility
High Infertility Stigma in India
IVF Success Rates Improve For Women Over 40
Natural Fertility Methods More Successful than IVF
Miscarriage Cure?
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Source: Human Reproduction
A new scientific breakthrough has the potential to prevent millions of unexplained miscarriages worldwide after the discovery that up to a third of them are caused by an excess of immune cells in a woman's uterus.
Researchers in Britain will soon start trials involving a steroid drug which will be administered to women who have suffered recurrent miscarriages.
Professor Siobhan Quenby from the school of reproductive and developmental medicine at Liverpool University who led the study says the treatment should be able to prevent up to 3000 miscarriages a year in the UK alone once it's available to patients in 5 to 10 years time.
Professor Quenby also hopes to develop a screening test to determine if certain women are at risk of miscarriage before they fall pregnant.
30 out of 40 of her patients who were suffering from multiple miscarriages have already given birth to healthy babies after receiving the steroid drug called prednisolone.
The research focused on the discovery of a link between excess blood supply and the failure of a foetus to implant in the womb which is thought to be caused by a type of immune system cell in the womb that promotes the growth of blood vessels.
This in turn creates an over supply of blood and oxygen undermining the foetus' ability to become implanted into the wall of the womb, leading to miscarriage.
But leading fertility expert Professor Lord Robert Winston warned that it was difficult to know how affective the treatment is until a full clinical trial had been completed.
He said: "It is a very important area, but a difficult one. There is always the chance of this being caused by the placebo effect."
Sarah Williams, IVFG Reporter
Luxury IVF Holiday Resort to Open in Australia
38 Year Old Naomi Campbell Suffered from Infertility
Republicans Fear Super-Fertile Sarah Palin Could Become Pregnant Again
59 Year Old Gives Birth to Triplets via IVF
Perfumes Toxic to Pregnancy and Can Lead to Infertility in Boys
UK Fertility Clinics Call for Single Embryo Implant
Wednesday 3 September, 2008
Source: British Fertility Society
Experts from the British Fertility Society and the Association of Clinical Embryologists have called on fertility clinics to mainly use single embryos for women younger than 37 to reduce a rate of multiple births.
The call is aimed at helping Britain's fertility clinics meet the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's three-year target to cut multiple pregnancy rates by more than half over the next three years. Currently, there were 11,262 children born through IVF treatment last year of whom 4,000 were twins.
Multiple pregnancies and births are the single biggest risk for women during fertility treatment because they increase the likelihood of premature birth miscarriage, long-term health problems for the child and can also endanger the mother's health.
Out of the more than 3.5 million babies born worldwide using assisted reproductive technology in the past 30 years, most since have been born to women aged between 30 and 39.
The move for single embryo implantation in Britain follows is not an isolated case as some European governments have already legislated to outlaw multiple implants reduce pregnancy risks.
The HFEA wants women younger than 37 who produce high quality embryos to only receive a single transfer during their first cycle and to freezed the other embryos for use later.
Sarah Williams, IVFG Reporter
Australian Didgerido Can Cause Infertilty in Girls
IVF Barcodes to Avoid Mix Ups in Britain
Expert Tells women to Abort if Baby is Wrong Gender
Fertility Gene Masterswitch Disovered
AUGUST 2008
Fertility As Much About The Mind Than About The Body
IVF and ICSI Treatments Induce Gene Mutations
Heated Car Seats Linked to Male Infertility
IVF Mother Sues Over Fertility Treatment Delay
Male Infertility Linked to Gum Disease
Wednesday 21 August 2008
Source: Bikur Holim Hospital, Jerusalem
Men suffering from fertility problems should make an appointment with their periodontist immediately after scientists discovered a link between poor sperm gum infections.
Israeli researchers from Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem found that infertile men are more likely to suffer from chronic gum infections than those with healthy sperm
After studying 56 men aged 23 to 52 who came to the hospital's fertility clinic lab for sperm analysis, they discovered that 65% of those with low sperm counts suffered from gingivitis, an early stage of gum infection, compared to only 48% of men with normal sperm. Their sperm also had less mobility. Meanwhile half of those survey with no sperm had chronic periodontitis.
Dr. Oshrat Shonberger, director of the hospital's fertility clinic, says periodontal treatment is not only good prevention against infertility in men but that eradicating gum infections may improve semen quality.
Gum infections have already been linked to heart disease, stroke, premature births and low-birth weight.
Early Drinking Impacts on Fertility Later in Life
Wednesday 20 August, 2008
Source: Alcoholism, Clinical & Experimental Research
Women who were heavy drinkers in their teens and early 20s may pay with their fertility later in life.
A study published in the journal Alcoholism, Clinical & Experimental Research says women who were early alcoholics had children at an older age.
Lead author Dr Gillian Lockwood believes that it is biologically plausible that alcohol's impact on fertility is because many reproductive hormones rely on cholesterol which is made in the liver.
Dr Lockwood says that her findings should send a warning to young women to consider what impact their drinking could have on their fertility later in life and that those who are considering having children should give up drinking altogether.
But some experts say the results should be viewed with a grain of salt as the study did not distinguish between cause and effect, that alcoholic women may have more difficulties finding a stable partner which delays them having children.
Steve Hillier, professor of Reproductive Endocrinology at the University of Edinburgh, told the Daily Telegraph that: "As always, the results of any study involving retrospective socio-demographic analysis like this need to be treated cautiously. However, if nothing else they are valuable in alerting us to the potentially deleterious impact of alcohol abuse on the female reproductive system."
Other fertility experts also believe that the emotional distress associated with fertility problems could mean that those women with fertility problems could be inclined to drink more to ease the pain.
Lesbians Win Right to Fertility Treatment
Number of Childless Women Over 40 Doubles
First IVF Ice Baby for Britain
Clomid Versus Sexy Lingerie
Thursday 7 August 2008
Source: University of Aberdeen
What's wrong with this sentence? ‘Fertility Treatments may not produce more babies'.
Well for starters, as the reproductive equivalent of ‘Osama Bin Laden may not have caused September 11', it instantly upends everything those of us struggling to reproduce have believed until now.
In news out of Scotland, Aberdeen to be specific, researchers studied 580 couples and came to that conclusion. But how did they go about it?
They divided the group into three.
First a placebo group who received no treatment, except, and I can hardly stand this, they were counselled on "the need to have regular sex".
‘And what, doctor, do you mean by regular sex?'
‘You know, sir, the, ah, penis in the, how shall I put it? Er, vagina..yes, vagina. That method.'
Stunned silence as couple look at each other, thinking, who would have thought?
So there was a second group who took Clomid and the other who had IUI (artificial insemination where the sperm is sent kicking and screaming into the womb via syringe).
At this point it must be pointed out that all of the couples had been diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility', otherwise known as ‘the too-hard-basket'.
It was the results that surprised, well, everyone. Especially the doctors: there were 26 babies produced with the help of Clomid, 43 by IUI and an encouraging 32 produced by the people who'd apparently forgotten to have sex until they were reminded.
According to Allan Pacey, from the University of Sheffield, secretary of the British Fertility Society and king of the understatement, "It's not in the realm that you would expect it to be if these treatments were really performing."
Still, he conceded that IUI was useful in certain situations, especially with donor sperm.
Could this mean the end of Clomid as a fertility treatment? No, as it has long been linked to the successful pregnancies of women who have problems ovulating. Yet for others it may be more useful to spend the money on lingerie instead of filling a Clomid script.
IVF is Big Business in Australia
Older Women Responsible for Australia's Baby Boom
Cause of Endometriosis Discovered
Woman Told to Become Sterile Before Being Allowed to Give Birth
Sunday 3 August, 2008
The Australian state of Victoria is facing a major legal quagmire after a woman, who wants to carry a baby for her infertile sister, must be sterilised along with her husband before she can undertake the surrogacy procedure.
Indeed, the radical step must be undertaken under Victoria's outdated surrogacy laws whereby both the altruistic woman and her husband would have to become sterile before she would be allowed to become a surrogate mother.
The news has renewed calls for the state's decades-old fertility laws to be over overturned.
The Infertility Treatment Act states that only infertile individuals can access IVF.
The would-be mother who is infertile and in her in her early 40s slammed the laws describing them as mad.
"My sister kindly offered to be my surrogate - she already has a family - and we didn't think it was any big deal," said the woman, who did not want to be identified. She added that "our families are 100 per cent behind us and so initially we thought 'there's no reason why we can't do this".
The woman said her sister, aged in her 30s, and brother-in-law, should not have to contemplate sterilisation, given the sacrifices they were making.
Leading fertility experts agree, saying the changes to the state's fertility laws, first drafted in 1984, couldn't come soon enough as they discriminate against people who want to do surrogacy.
Meanwhile, Victoria's Law Reform Commission has recommended an overhaul of rules governing the state's assisted reproductive technology.
*Read Robyn Riley's excellent editorial: Surrogate Laws make No Sense
Egg Donor Numbers Rise in Tough Economic Times
Sunday 2 August, 2008
As the economic downturn starts to bite, an increasing number of American women are supplementing their income by donating their eggs.
One woman quoted by ABC news openly admits that her motivation for donating her eggs isn't altruistic but purely financial.
"Michelle", who is a mother, student and egg donor has done it twice and both times she's given her eggs for money. In some cases, donors can earn up to $7000 to endure such a long and painful process.
And it appears the number of egg donors is soaring. The Reproductive Science Center in San Ramon, CA, get about 120 per month from women people asking to be a possible egg donors. Last month, that number jumped to over 155.
The Center says the increase is due to the growing number of college-aged students who are seeking to boost their incomes.
"We're going use it to put aside and pay for books and everything as we go along because we're both in school, my fiancé and I both," Michelle told ABC news.
Mother Suffers a Miscarriage after Car Crash
Jools Oliver to Have Fertility Treatment for the Third Time
JULY 2008
IVF Treatment Proven to Be Safe
Thursday 31 July, 2008
Source: The Lancet
Newborn babies conceived through IVF are much more likely to die at birth than those conceived naturally, according to new research.
But Dr Liv Bente Romundstad from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim who led the study insists that complications associated with IVF are due to underlying fertility problems in the parents and not the fertility techniques used during treatment.
The study focused of more than 1.2 million births in Norway and found that there was an increased risk of still birth low, premature birth and low birth weight after fertility treatment.
The research published in the latest edition of the medical journal The Lancet discovered that infants born after fertility treatment were on average 25g smaller at birth, were born two days earlier and had a 31% increased risk of stillbirth.
But when the team took a closer look at a subgroup of 2,500 women who had had babies both naturally and through fertility treatment, they found no major difference in outcomes.
This suggests that the increased chance of complications may be due to the factors causing the fertility problems in the parents rather than in the fertility technology itself.
However, the study didn't look twins and triplets as they are known to be at increased risk of premature birth and low birth weight.
Dr Romundstad says that the results are reassuring on the basis that the IVF technology is safe.
But she believes that more research was needed to harness a better understanding of the causes behind infertility which may lead to problems during pregnancy and birth.
She suggested those problems could be related to hormone disturbances or inherent genetic defects in the parents, although those particular factors could vary for each and every couple experiencing fertility problems.
Sarah Williams
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