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It has been four decades since Louise Brown became the first person born after conception by FIV, and since then there have been more than one million babies born around the world. But Professor Robert Winston, whose award-winning work on fertility treatments has helped thousands of women give birth to happy, healthy babies, says the 40th anniversary should be the time to re-evaluate its successes. It's a moment to celebrate the great happiness of millions of couples, but this achievement of Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards [who developed the IVF technique] and many other pioneers, is also a moment of very serious thought, "says he
. Expert believes that many couples who struggle to design and bomb thousands of pounds in private treatment are exploited by misleading statistics.
"Most people who go into IVF are over 35 years old and have a lower success rate than the national statistics show," says Winston.But despite this, he describes a "major problem" with private clinics "Selling the dream" to desperate couples, leading people to believe that they are much more likely to get pregnant than they actually are.
He believes that people do not always understand that the odds of getting pregnant from an individual IVF cycle in the UK are only about 21% if you are under 35 – chances are even lower if you're older. [19659002]
"The NHS and HFEA websites [Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority] are quite self-sufficient if you look at them," he notes, "but in reality, people are attracted to IVF without really knowing exactly how "The success rate of HFEA by embryo transfer is low, but this is inherently misleading because a large number of women start a cycle but never reach the stage of embryo transfer, either because their ovaries do not do it. "
About one in seven couples may have difficulty conceiving in the UK – about 3.5 million people.The broadcaster and author, who wrote more than 300 scientific publications, see first – He explains that he spent most of the morning responding to e-mails sent by patients who were desperately trying to understand why IVF can cause negative psychological effects, as well as crippling financial problems. work did not work for them. Through her work with The Genesis Trust (genesisresearchtrust.com), a charity that seeks to improve the health of women and babies, Winston aims to provide women with factual and unbiased advice. He also long criticized the marketing of the treatment.
He says that the private sector is on a "sauce train" with IVF, with some clinics charging up to £ 8,000 for a single treatment cycle, describing the combination of the "desperation" of couples and of "greed" private practices as a "dangerous combination".
Although official guidelines suggest that mothers under the age of 40 should receive three free IVF cycles paid for by the NHS, patients are increasingly only offered one, or sometimes none at all. The number of IVF cycles to which you are entitled is up to the local clinical commissioning groups to decide.
"The first thing we need to change, what we do not do in reproductive medicine, is to consider infertility as a symptom. ", Says Winston." Currently, we view this as a diagnosis and it is fundamentally wrong to offer treatment on the basis of symptoms – because the underlying cause of the symptom will vary. "
He says that infertility could have "50, 60 or 70 causes", and that it is therefore important to study the cause of infertility to offer the best treatment, claiming that it There are often problems that could be solved by less expensive and less stressful methods. " In many cases, in vitro fertilization is not the best [treatment] – but it's the most cost-effective, "he says. "Unexplained infertility is an absurdity, it is a failure to make a diagnosis: people are reluctant to conduct investigations that, in my opinion, are warranted because at the moment so many patients do not fall pregnant with an IVF cycle then become pregnant after the end of IVF.
"One of the important problems is to make a diagnosis and find other more effective remedies, but most clinics are now prepared for IVF. "
Winston says that one of the most common causes of infertility in women is hormonal deficiency, which is usually better treated with drugs – and yet few clinics offer this. it's time to make a change
The 40th anniversary will be a cause for regret if we do not focus on better treatment, which is focused on diagnosis.It is clear that the success of IVF could be significantly improved, but without research … IVF will continue to cause great distress. "
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