Medically Assisted Procreation: the price to pay

Publié le 13 Mar, 2018

The cause of infertility is not investigated in a MAP process – doctors simply suggest how to overcome it. In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) is directly available during the consultation, possibly preceded by Intra-Uterine Insemination, as a matter of urgency. In many cases, parents don’t realise until later that they will have to discard the “poor quality” embryos, leaving them to perish on the Petri dish, or make a decision to freeze or destroy excess embryos. Furthermore, all of this occurs without involving the partner, who is far removed from the creation of life and receives hardly any information on the potential complications associated with this method of procreation (more pregnancies at risk, multiple pregnancies, fewer embryos, etc.). These women often feel guilty: Why me? Why am I failing where others succeed?

 

Infertility is a sign that something isn’t working properly but IVF doesn’t find out why. Natural hormones are replaced by high-dose synthetic hormones (ovarian hyperstimulation often poses a problem). Eggs and sperm are collected (through masturbation in the case of the latter) and combined artificially. They are then examined and sorted based on often eugenic criteria before being injected into the woman’s uterus. But the cause of infertility remains..

 

IVF considerably increases the risk of complications such as pre-eclampsia, ectopic pregnancy or multiple pregnancies. The risk of miscarriage increases by 2.4, the risk of premature birth (in the 33rd week of pregnancy) by 2.99 and the risk of low birth weight (less than 1.5 kg) by 3.78. “Introducing [IVF] merely to increase the risk of an unfavourable outcome is heartbreaking as far as I am concerned”, explains Naomi Whittaker, an instructor at FertilityCare.

 

And the success rate? The birth rate per IVF cycle was 22.3% in 1995 compared to 33% in 2003 and 31% in 2015 (CDC). According to the Cochrane database, in 2015, 1/3 of IVF treatments were performed on undiagnosed, infertile women. She admits that IVF treatment is “invasive, expensive and fraught with risks”. However, “studies have not confirmed any improvement with IVF versus no treatment at all”. In cases where infertility has been diagnosed, no Controlled Randomised Trials (CRT) have focused on PCOS[1] or endometriosis,[2], which are the two main causes of female infertility. As regards male infertility, the Cochrane reports have not found any male hypofertility treatment to be more effective than the rest, regardless of whether these involve IVF, intrauterine insemination (IUI), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)[3] or regular sexual intercourse with an ovulation predictor kit.

 

In 2015, 1.2% of infertile American women sought recourse to IVF without gamete donation and 0.2% carried their babies to full-term. The others were undoubtedly put off by the cost, the fear of invasive side effects or by a personal refusal to discard embryos.

 

NaproTechnnology offers a very different solution to infertility because it investigates the causes and concentrates on treating these, such as ovulation problems and surgically corrected endometriosis, etc. The live birth rate recorded varies from 38.4 % to 81.8%, depending on the cause. Even if no pregnancy is achieved with NaproTechnology, the woman’s health improves significantly (pain due to endometriosis, pre-menstrual syndrome, cure for PCOS, etc.). In the case of pregnancy, there is no increase in the risk of complications such as deformity, miscarriage, multiple pregnancy, freezing or destruction, etc. NaproTechnology often helps women to recover both physically and emotionally following IVF treatment.

 

[1] Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is caused by a hormonal imbalance which leads to complex endocrine problems that disrupt the menstrual cycle and even prevent ovulation.

[2] Sites of unusual endometrial proliferation (ovaries, peritoneum).

[3]  Injection of a sperm into an egg.

MercatorNet 26/02/2018

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