Contents
- IVF side effects, consequences and risks of IVF
- MYTH 1: IVF guarantees pregnancy
- MYTH 2: stimulation depletes the ovaries and after several IVFs there will be no eggs left in them
- MYTH 3: twins and triplets are always born after IVF
- MYTH 4: children born as a result of IVF are sick and themselves infertile
- MYTH 5. IVF provokes cancer
IVF side effects, consequences and risks of IVF
It would seem that this is the XNUMXst century, the age of space technologies. But innovations in medicine still give rise to a lot of superstitions and ridiculous stereotypes.
IVF is a technology that has been used all over the world for over 40 years. This is exactly the 40th birthday of Louise Brown, the first test-tube child. Millions of women who were previously doomed to infertility were able to experience the happiness of motherhood. However, like any new and complex technology, IVF was instantly overgrown with many myths and misconceptions, which doctors have to refute every day. To debunk (or confirm) them, we turned to a specialist in the field of reproductive medicine.
Candidate of Medical Sciences, gynecologist, reproductologist at the REMEDI Institute for Reproductive Medicine
MYTH 1: IVF guarantees pregnancy
Not really. Any fertility treatment method has its own limit of effectiveness. For IVF, it is the highest of all, but, unfortunately, not 100 percent. Absolutely all modern scientific studies of a high level of evidence unambiguously determine the age of a woman as the main factor in the expected effectiveness of IVF. The older the woman, the less likely a positive result is.
If at the age of 35 years, the effectiveness of one IVF cycle is estimated at 45-55 percent, then after 40 years it is already 3-5 percent. It is critically important to do IVF at a younger age, this will allow you to get excellent expected efficacy and a long-awaited pregnancy.
MYTH 2: stimulation depletes the ovaries and after several IVFs there will be no eggs left in them
Not really. The origins of this myth are quite simple – if the eggs were taken from the ovary, it means that there are fewer of them there. This is not entirely true. To refute this myth, it is enough just to know the mechanism of ovarian functioning and follicle maturation.
In each menstrual cycle, not one, but several follicles, the so-called pool, are consumed. In a normal cycle, one follicle is selected from this pool, which grows and ovulates, the rest die. The IVF program allows you to obtain and use those follicles that would have died in the normal menstrual cycle anyway. Thus, the implementation of the IVF program absolutely does not affect the supply of eggs.
MYTH 3: twins and triplets are always born after IVF
And this is also not true. At the dawn of the IVF method, many aspects were not worked out. In pursuit of the result, there was the practice of transferring multiple embryos into the uterine cavity, which directly increased the percentage of twins and triplets. Multiple pregnancies are now a big problem in obstetrics and gynecology. Many misconceptions about the health of children after IVF were associated precisely with the complicated course of multiple pregnancies.
Nowadays, the practice of refusing to transfer more than two embryos is practiced all over the world. In the Russian Federation, the transfer of more than two embryos is not legally allowed. Ideally, an IVF program should strive for a single embryo transfer. The modern level of development of clinics and embryological laboratories allows you to obtain excellent results when transferring one selected embryo, significantly reducing the likelihood of multiple pregnancies.
MYTH 4: children born as a result of IVF are sick and themselves infertile
Such a loud statement was made not so long ago by a health official. Her words, which sounded like a verdict for many women, are not true. The vast majority of studies with a serious level of evidence did not reveal any statistically significant deviations in the health and development of children conceived with IVF. All world scientific publications that have conducted long-term studies of the long-term consequences of IVF, make an unambiguous conclusion: there is no evidence that IVF can have a negative impact on the health of a child.
There are risks to the child’s health after IVF, but these risks are primarily associated with perinatal complications, primarily multiple pregnancies and premature births.
To date, after the application of the IVF method, more than 4 million people have been born worldwide. According to global statistics, the percentage of infertility in them is absolutely the same as in children conceived naturally. IVF for parents does not affect the infertility of children in any way.
MYTH 5. IVF provokes cancer
Lie. On the Internet and in the media, rumors are really proliferating, because of which people are beginning to be afraid of IVF. This fear is completely unjustified, but because of it women often refuse necessary and indicated medical care. One of the most common horrors is that IVF will provoke an oncological process. After all, Zhanna Friske did IVF – she died of cancer. Anastasia Zavorotnyuk is now dying of a brain tumor.
Many years of research worth billions of dollars have been devoted to examining these risks. During the entire study of the consequences of IVF, there was no short-term or long-term relationship between the use of drugs to stimulate ovarian function and the risk of cancer. Absolutely all international congresses in the field of reproduction in recent years only confirm the absence of this connection.
Modern IVF preparations have practically no side effects, many of them are produced by the method of genetic engineering, in terms of the degree of purification they have no equal. Pharmaceutical companies are constantly improving existing drugs and dosage forms. Therefore, modern IVF from the point of view of pharmacology is a rather comfortable procedure.