DIY fertility boost… from the ‘lab in a matchbox’:
CHILDLESS couples may soon be able to carry out a £1,000 fertility treatment in the privacy of their own home for as little as £40, thanks to the world’s first DIY fertilisation kit.
Intrauterine insemination (IUI), a procedure during which a man provides a sample that is then processed in a lab to filter out non-viable or slow-moving sperm before it is inserted into the woman, thereby optimising chances of conception, is currently carried out only at specialist clinics.
But the inventors of the groundbreaking Baby Home Kit claim their prototype dispenses altogether with the need for laboratory processing.
The matchbox-size plastic box houses a series of tunnels in the form of a maze. The sperm is placed via a syringe into a port in one side of the device.
Sperm with high-quality DNA – and therefore the highest chance of achieving conception – have been found in other research to display particular swimming patterns. They naturally follow walls and turn a corner when presented with the opportunity, while sperm of lower-quality DNA swim randomly and do not follow walls.
The maze inside the Baby Home Kit works on this principle, with a series of turns into tunnels leading to a collection chamber. Low-quality sperm swimming at random are unlikely to pass through.
The resulting sample can then be used for self-insemination using a syringe and a catheter, also provided in the kit.
The whole process takes as little as 30 minutes.
Dr Marion Vollmer initially developed the technology for laboratories, but he later realised it was so simple and cost-effective to make and use that it could be marketed for use at home.
He claims that the resulting high-quality sample will ‘decrease the rate of miscarriages, improve the success rate of assisted reproduction, and ultimately improve the health of offspring’.
One in six couples in the UK – some 3.5million people – is thought to be affected by fertility problems.
About 60,000 fertility treatments are performed in UK licensed clinics per year, resulting in 15,000 births.
Before 2013, up to six cycles of IUI would be offered on the NHS for any couple with unexplained infertility, where either partner had mild fertility problems.
But due to policy changes, the procedure is now offered only if a couple are opting for a donor insemination, if the woman is unable to have intercourse due to a physical disability or a diagnosed psychosexual problem, or if either partner has a condition that means they need help to conceive.
For couples with unexplained infertility or mild fertility problems, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence watchdog now advises that couples must try to conceive for at least two years before other forms of fertility treatment, such as IVF, are considered.
Waiting lists for treatment have been reported to stretch for many months in some areas, so couples often choose to go private at a cost of between £600 and £1,000 per visit. Laboratory IUI processing is done with the assistance of a centrifuge, a machine that spins samples at high speed.
The force this generates causes the fluid to separate, so a more concentrated sample can be used for injection in assisted conception.
Dr Vollmer said of her Baby Home Kit, unveiled this weekend at the Fertility Show in London: ‘It is a completely new way of filtering out viable sperm for use in assisted conception. Sperm prefer to swim along walls and in corners, so the device has plenty of these to guide the strongest sperm to the collection point, from where they are extracted.
‘The geometrical designs within the device were inspired by a woman’s fallopian tubes, and thereby mimic the natural sperm-selection process.
‘Gravity also plays a role, in that the dead cells remain at the bottom of the device, along with unwanted debris in the semen.’
Dr Geetha Venkat, of the Harley Street Fertility Clinic, welcomed the development.
She said: ‘If a man has had a semen analysis that shows borderline problems with his fertility, this might be an option that would save couples attending a clinic.
‘It’s important to note that it hasn’t actually been put to the test so we don’t know if it could increase pregnancy rates, but the theory is interesting, and not something we’ve seen before.’