In Vitro Fertility Goddess.
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 fresh (9 August 2008) 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 twenty-six babies produced with the help of Clomid, forty-three by IUI and an encouraging thirty-two 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.
