Archive for category 'General'. Page 1 of 1

  • 24th
    Apr
    2012

    How did you feel about needing infertility treatment?

    What were your feelings when you realised that having a baby wouldn’t be as easy as you expected? Frustrated? Helpless? You’re not alone. A new survey conducted by researchers at Oxford University indicates that many couples are often unprepared for infertility and uninformed about their options.

    Through interviews with both women and men aged between 25 and 40, it seems that many couples wished they had known the toll infertility treatment was going to take on them both physic...

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  • 22nd
    Feb
    2011

    Embryo Screening - More Research Needed

    There has been much reported in the media about a new technique which is said to improve the success rates of IVF.

    Comparative Genomic Hybridisation (CGH) is a new method which checks the viability of embryos before implantation, by analysing its chromosomes.

    Cells are checked five days after fertilisation, once the embryo has reached blastocyst stage, allowing only embryos which have the correct numbers of chromosomes to be implanted, thus helping to reduce the risk of miscarriage caused...

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  • 11th
    May
    2010

    Need Donor Sperm? It's better from the UK

    I’ve recently seen a patient who was considering donor sperm insemination. Before coming to us, they had been to see an alternative infertility clinic which imports all their donor sperm from the European Sperm Bank. And who foots the bill for shipping it over? You do, the patient...

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  • 17th
    Mar
    2010

    Human egg raffle - should a child be the ultimate prize?

    A London IVF clinic has sparked controversy this week by offering childless couples the chance to win an American donor egg of their choice. Paying egg donors for their eggs is illegal in the UK, but the clinic is offering the winner free treatment in America to sidestep existing European laws. The winner also gets to select an egg based on race, upbringing and education, even being able to look at photographs of donors as children to pick which they like the look of...

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  • 8th
    Mar
    2010

    When is the right time to tell a donor conceived child where they came from?

    If you need the help of donor sperm or a donor egg to have a baby, then one day you’re going to be faced with telling your children how they came to be born. It’s one of the many things we discuss with our patients during their counselling sessions. It’s not an easy question to answer. Is it a matter of choosing the ‘right age’ to tell them, so they will understand? Or is it a case of the sooner the better?...

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  • 5th
    Mar
    2010

    Asda IVF Drugs - Is it the supermarket steal it seems to be?

    The news this week that supermarket chain ASDA is to sell IVF drugs at reduced rates might at first glance seemed to be the supermarket deal that hundreds of couples undergoing private IVF treatment have been waiting for. ‘ASDA to sell IVF drugs with £820 discount’ said the headlines, boasting that its pharmacies would be selling the IVF drugs at cost price, unlike other pharmacies who sell the drugs at a profit...

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  • 23rd
    Feb
    2010

    Why can't we choose the sex of our baby?

    A recent Channel 4 documentary, Eight Boys and Wanting a Girl, raised some interesting questions about whether people should be given the right to choose the sex of their child. In the UK, gender selection is not allowed if you simply want to balance your family out. Only in the most extreme medical circumstances – such as passing on a genetic disease that only affects boys – will it be considered....

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  • 3rd
    Feb
    2010

    How to get IVF treatment on the NHS - will your Local Authority pay?

    Anyone who has ever sought NHS-funded fertility treatment will tell you that it’s often down to where you live – not your fertility problem – that dictates whether you get IVF. Treatment for infertility varies widely across the country. In the present economic crisis, few Primary Care Trusts in England will offer the recommended three cycles of IVF on the NHS – others don’t offer any at all.

    Last year, MP Grant Shapps said a ‘postcode IVF lottery’ operates, which not only depen...

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