ivfwaladocisms

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Triplet ‘waiting in freezer’ born 11 years after sisters

One of three triplets conceived on the same day through IVF was born last month in Britain — 11 years after her twin sisters who say she was waiting "in the freezer" to be born.The girls, daughters of Lisa and Adrian Shepherd, all come from the same round of fertility treatment and it is believed there is no other known case where such an age gap exists.

The British couple began treatment in 1998 after Ms Shepherd was diagnosed with medical conditions that made her chances of her becoming pregnant naturally slim. During the treatment at the Midland Fertility Clinic near Birmingham, doctors successfully fertilised 14 eggs with Mr Shepherd’s sperm. Two embryos were implanted with the remaining 12 placed into freezer storage.

Soon afterwards scans showed Ms Shepherd was expecting twins. The girls, Megan and Bethany, arrived six weeks early and weighed less than 8lbs between them but made a great recovery.

When the girls were nine, the couple started to consider another baby. "We had been so busy raising the twins that it wasn’t until then that we stopped to think about having another one," Ms Shepherd said.

"We asked the girls what they thought about having another addition to the family and they really wanted it."

So last year, they returned to the clinic for another cycle of IVF, using the embryos stored 10 years previously. "We didn’t know if it would work… It was one last chance, and if it was meant to be, then it would happen."

And so it was meant to be with Ryleigh was born last month, weighing 7lb 10oz.

"The girls are thrilled to have a sister — and they know that she was conceived at the same time that they were, but has been in the freezer," Ms Shepherd said.

"She’s a really happy baby and has got a really good appetite — it’s as though she’s making up for lost time."

Sunday, January 2, 2011

One-embryo transfers have better outcome in IVF

Infertile women undergoing IVF are much more likely to end up with a healthy baby if they only have one embryo transferred during the procedure, according to new research. One of the most controversial issues surrounding IVF has been the number of embryos that are transferred into a woman’s womb. In the hopes of increasing the chances of having a baby, doctors often place more than one. But that also increases the chances that women will end up having twins, triplets or higher numbers of multiple births. And babies born in multiple births are much more likely to have complications, putting both the mother and the babies at risk.
In the new analysis, researchers at the University of Aberdeen in Britain and elsewhere analyzed data collected about 1,367 women undergoing IVF, including 683 who only had one embryo transferred and 684 who had two. In a paper published in the British medical journal BMJ, the researchers reported that 27 percent of those who had only one embryo transferred gave birth to a healthy baby, compared with 42 percent who gave birth to a healthy baby after getting two embryos transferred.
But when the women getting one embryo transferred followed that up with a second embryo that had been frozen and then thawed, that boosted the chances of successfully giving birth to a healthy baby to about the same level — 38 percent. And those women were also less likely than those who had gotten two embryos transferred to give birth prematurely or to give birth to babies who were underweight, the researchers found. In fact, women who opted for the one-embryo option were almost five times as likely to carry their babies to full term.
Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that that approach be adopted by more doctors.