Who Needs IVF?

I think it is right to define who needs a particular service and in this case IVF. Let me take you through memory lane with a scenario that will bring this into focus.

In 1978, the first successful IVF in the world was done in the UK. It was the case of a woman whose fallopian tubes were blocked. She had eggs, and her husband had normal sperms. The condition of the blocked fallopian tube meant that the entry point for which the sperms could meet the egg to make fertilization possible has been tempered with. Therefore, conception for her became an impossible thing.

Science went thinking, what can be done? Of course, an answer was found when a group of Physiologists and Gynecologists found a way to retrieve eggs from the woman and fertilized it in the lab with her husband’s sperms, thereafter transferring the embryo to the uterus – achieving implantation and pregnancy eventually. This was the first recorded successful IVF in history, and the child Loiuse Brown who is about 44 years old now and married, became the first IVF baby in the world. I met her in person in 2019 at the British House of Commonsduring a deliberation on the safety of Assisted Reproductive Technology.

The fact is, certain medical or genetic conditions could be responsible for the inability to conceive spontaneously (the normal cycle). From the case of a blocked fallopian tubes as we saw above, to abnormalities in the womb and other reproductive organs of the woman, or the case of low or no sperms in the male partner as a result of certain disease conditions or developments.

The IVF procedure serves as one of the most efficient means through which conception can occur in any of those cases. This could be done using the gametes of the couple, getting donor gametes, oreven involving a surrogate as the case may be.

Parents who are carriers of certain genetic traits like the sickle cell, will need IVF as the only means to eliminate the possibility of having offspringwith sickle-cell. This is through a kind of advanced procedure where relevant diagnosis are done on the embryos before transferring them to the uterus.

In the case of singlehood, or the mere desire to keep shape and not experience any of the bodily changes pregnancy and child bearing comes with; IVF might just be the only means to conception.

In a nutshell, certain medical conditions as well as social reasons puts people on the row of those needing IVF as a means to conception.

Are you having a hard time with conception as a couple? Do you or your spouse identify with any of the aforementioned medical conditions or organ abnormalities that makes conception a somewhat impossible thing? Then IVF could be just what you need.