Health Report: Leaving it too late?
Leaving it too late?
As ever-more women struggle to conceive longed-for
babies, Nicola Gill looks at the newest research helping to turn
their dreams into a happy reality
Children were always a part of Mia Calvert's plans for the
future. But after graduating at 21 and being accepted on to a major
investment bank's fast-track programme, she a
rrived at her mid-30s with a
great salary but a career that left little time for concentrating
on relationships - or babies. She says, "Circumstances just
never led me in that direction, and long hours and frequent foreign
trips meant I didn't spend much time pondering my fertility.
Besides, I never thought I needed to."
But three years down the line, Mia, then 38, met Theo and they knew they wanted a family together. She quit her high-flying role to concentrate on marriage plans and, hopefully, a new life as a mother. "Because I was then 38 we decided not to use contraception, but six months after our honeymoon, I still wasn't pregnant." So, after 18 months of trying and now nearing 40, Mia headed to a well-known London fertility clinic where she found herself surrounded by dozens of other well-groomed women of a similar age who found they may have left it too late to complete the last and suddenly most important part of the jigsaw puzzle.
Nearly 37,000 patients were treated at in-vitro fertilisation
(IVF) clinics in 2007 according to the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority (HFEA), the highest figures recorded. While
there are other contributing factors to the increase, the vast
majority of cases are down to women leaving it later to try to
conceive. Last year, the number of UK women in their 30s having
children overtook those in their 20s for the first time, and the
number of women giving birth in their 40s has doubled in ten years
to 27,000.
Private clinics are booming as free fertility treatment on the NHS
is patchy. The UK's ongoing financial crisis means several
trusts are planning cutbacks or are axing IVF funding entirely. But
of those who do offer the treatment, eligibility criteria - such as
age or being too overweight - block many women from signing up.
Cutting edge treatments offering the highest success rates are
usually only available at private clinics too. Demand for clinics
is so high the HFEA now ranks them by results so couples can see
which get the best results before parting with their cash.
The good news is that since the first 'test tube baby',
Louise Brown, was born in July 1978, the science behind fertility
treatment has grown up fast and has seen a "constant
refinement and improvement of techniques that has led to much
higher pregnancy rates today," says Tim Mott, spokesman for
leading London fertility clinic The Bridge Centre. "It's
been a huge learning curve, but the science of fertility is a
rapidly maturing one, and I believe continuous small improvements
to the methods we have now are the future of infertility
treatment."
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