Struggling IVF couples may have more luck if they give up

WOMEN struggling to conceive may enjoy better success if they give up having fertility treatment, a study suggests.

Many couples claim to have become pregnant unexpectedly after abandoning the hope of ever having children. But until now there has never been any evidence to suggest that is true.

Scientists at Greenwich NHS Trust, Imperial College and King’s College London followed up 403 couples six years after they had undergone fertility treatment. Ninety-six of the couples had failed to conceive and believed that they could never have children. But three in 10 had become pregnant naturally within the coming years.

In the study, the authors found that 87 per cent of the “spontaneous conceptions” occurred within two years of finishing the infertility treatments.

Thirty-one per cent of women who had failed to conceive through treatment went on to have a child naturally. Nearly a quarter of women who had successfully had children through IVF or other methods also had more children without the need for treatment.

Dr Samuel Marcus, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in London, and the lead author of the study, said there was “no easy explanation for spontaneous conception after long-standing subfertility”. He suggested that one explanation is the wider use of treatments for cases of “less prolonged infertility”.

Prof Allan Pacey, editor-in-chief of the journal Human Fertility where the study was published, said: “This is really useful information that doctors can use to counsel patients about their chances of pregnancy after undergoing assisted conception.”