‘Aggressive’ IVF clinics are exploiting older women

OLDER women are being exploited by IVF clinics despite poor chances of having a baby, the fertility regulator has warned.

Sally Cheshire, head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), said some clinics are ‘trading on hope’ and using aggressive sales tactics to talk middle-aged women into IVF.

Since 2004, the number of women in their forties having fertility treatment has doubled. There were 10,835 women of this age undergoing IVF in 2017.

But using her own eggs at 44 years old, the chances of a woman having a baby are just one per cent.

Mrs Cheshire, 50, says she was herself offered fertility treatment as she attended Manchester Fertility Show last year.

She told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I would like our clinics to be honest about success rates. They are catering to a bunch of vulnerable women. What the clinics shouldn’t be doing is trading on that hope.’

The NHS only offers women IVF up to the age of 42, following guidelines from health watchdog Nice. But the British IVF industry, which is worth £320million, has no such constraints.

The Daily Mail has previously revealed

‘Trading on hope to vulnerable women’

clinics offer fertility treatment for women up to 55, provided they use donor eggs from younger women to conceive.

Mrs Cheshire has expressed concern that some centres are charging four times as much as they should, at up to £20,000 per IVF cycle, with parts of the sector becoming ‘incredibly commercial’.

She said ‘blatant’ sales tactics are being used to exploit a vulnerable market and hide the true chances of having a child.

Describing her experience at Manchester Fertility Show, she said: ‘I was wandering around with a colleague ... both women of a certain age. They offered us both treatments. ‘I said, “Do you realise I am the chair of the HFEA? You really shouldn’t be offering this.”’

Mrs Cheshire, who is the only head of the HFEA to have been a fertility patient, says there has been a ‘massive increase’ in single women seeking fertility treatment. However, most women still seek IVF with a male partner, and two-thirds are under the age of 37.