£3,000 ‘natural’ IVF fails in 90pc of cases
Expert raises concerns over ‘kinder’ fertility treatment
A FERTILITY treatment promoted as a more natural form of IVF is successful in just one in ten cases, leading some experts to question its growing popularity.
Hundreds of British couples every year pay up to £3,000 a time for natural-cycle IVF. It has been growing in popularity – up 30 per cent between 2012 and 2013 – because it does not use drugs and hormones to stimulate the ovaries and is said to be kinder to a wom- an’s body. For many women it offers their only hope for a baby.
Conventional IVF success rates have more than doubled over 40 years. A quarter of the 60,000 cycles carried out annually in theh UK result in a live birth, or one in three for women under 35. But there are risks involved, including ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can cause kidney failure and, in rare cases, death.
Many clinics now offer natural IVF and around two per cent of all cycles are performed this way. It involves tracking a woman’s cycle and harvesting the single egg.
But new data uncovered by embryologist Professor Simon Fishel showed that since 2010, the average live birth rate was 11 per cent in couples using the method. That dropped to four per cent in women over 38.
The figures emerged following a Freedom of Information request by Prof Fishel to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. He said: ‘ I’d be concerned that some clinics might use t the natural method a as a hook, and that patients will eventually need convent tional IVF later.
‘Are patients being strung along with smoke and mirrors without being well enough informed?’ He said the cheaper price tag – standard IVF costs around £5,000 – was attractive to some couples.
Professor Geeta Nargund, who runs Create Fertility clinics, said natural IVF was offered to women who would not benefit from standard treatments. She said they were always told of the success rates, which at Create varied from 25 per cent to under ten per cent.
Prof Nargund added: ‘ Standard stimulated IVF cannot be compared with natural IVF. Natural IVF is a different method of treatment offered to different patient groups – women with low egg reserve where stimulation carries no benefits. It is an essential option for many who wish to try for a baby using their own eggs.’