Page 41Scotland, where three free NHS
cycles of IVF are available to any-
one under 40, and one cycle to 40
to 42-year-olds via a £12 million
dedicated central treatment fund.
David McLernon, a research
fellow in medical statistics, who
led the project, explained its
findings by saying they offered ‘a
message of hope’ for those
undergoing infertility treatment.
‘Our work shows there’s a group
of people who have been
unsuccessful using IVF but who
still might get pregnant naturally,’
he says. ‘It could just happen that
conditions are right for you to have
a baby naturally when you didn’t
with IVF. ‘Our work shows you
shouldn’t give up hope because
there’s still a chance.’SIDE-EFFECTS OF
FERTILITY DRUGS
AND IVF treatment itself is not
without risks, albeit rare.
Sarah Banks, a 37-year-old
former buyer for Marks & Spencer,
conceived her daughter Millie,
three, naturally after a previous
successful IVF treatment led to
the birth of her son Jack, now six.
Sarah and husband Andy, 38,
who runs a digital consultancy
business, had been trying to have
a baby for six years before going to
their GP when she was 30. ‘A year
later we started going through IVF
treatment after being told Andy
had a low sperm count and I had
some ovarian cysts,’ she says.
‘I had one full cycle of ICSI buthad to freeze the embryos because
of ovarian hyperstimulation
syndrome (OHSS).’
This is a recognised, but
potentially fatal, adverse reaction
to the drugs used in IVF to
stimulate the ovaries to produce
many more than the usual one egg
from each monthly cycle, in the
hope of maximising the chances of
pregnancy by artificially fertilising
lots of eggs. It causes life-threat-
ening fluid retention and swelling
of the entire body.
The drugs led Sarah to produce
an alarming 45 eggs.
‘OHSS made me really bloated
and sick,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t stand
up, I was dizzy and constantly hot
and cold. They had to monitor me
very carefully for fluids moving
round the body. For days I could
barely move off the sofa.
‘Before I even had my egg
collection they said I was at risk
of OHSS because so many follicles
were ripening. They said they
couldn’t go ahead with the
embryo transfer procedure
because there was a risk of the
condition getting worse.
‘Everything had to stop
temporarily and the two embryos
were frozen. That was in 2012,
when I was 31. They did the first
embryo transfer two months later
but it didn’t work. Six months
later I was very lucky that the
second transfer worked.’
Sarah’s IVF and the cost of the
two attempts to implant the
defrosted embryos into her womb
were paid for by the NHS. ‘We hadalways said we wanted two
children and I thought I would
have to go through infertility treat-
ment again to have any chance
of another baby,’ she says.
‘I was breastfeeding Jack so it
was a year before I got my peri-
ods back. Two months after
my first period I got pregnant.
‘After six years of failing to
get pregnant naturally and
never having so much as a
positive pregnancy test
result, it was incredible.
I was told that natural
pregnancy after IVF
can happen.’
She adds: ‘No one
ever put my infertility
down to anything
in particular.’
Jo Maidment also
went on to conceive
naturally after suc-
cessful IVF — in her
case the added twist
was that the late pop
star George Michael
stepped in to secretly
fund her infertility
treatment after he
saw her make an
impassioned appeal
on TV’s This Morning
programme in
2010, about the lack
of NHS funding for
fertility treatment.
Jo, 42, a part-time psychol-
ogy student who lives near
Dover in Kent, is now the
mother of Betsy, aged seven,
born after two rounds of IVF,
and Stanley, five, who was
conceived naturally.
Jo, who was only in her mid 30s
at the time, was told she was
ineligible for NHS funding because
her husband Will, 46, an HGV
driver, had a child already. The
couple have been together for 19
years and married for 17.
‘We were contacted after the
TV programme and told that a
businessman wanted to help us.
‘We did write him a letter after
she was born to say thank you
and sent a picture of Betsy, but
we never met him and only found
out it was George Michael after
he died. We couldn’t believe it,’
she says.
‘The “unexplained infertility”
was really frustrating. They
couldn’t say why I wasn’t getting
pregnant naturally, I was told
everything was on my side but
it just wasn’t happening, there
was no medical reason and
nothing diagnosably wrong with
either of us.
‘Nor could anyone explain why
it subsequently happened.’
Like Laura and Sarah, Jo is
immensely grateful for her children
and anxious not to blame fertility
clinics for leaping in prematurely
in offering treatment.
So how are women able to
conceive naturally after long-
term ‘infertility’?COULD IVF SPUR
ON FERTILITY?
THErE is no easy explanation,
according to Dr Samuel Marcus, a
consultant obstetrician and
gynaecologist at Queen Elizabeth
Hospital, London.
In 2016 he carried out an internet
survey of 403 previous IVF patients,
which found that one in threesubsequently became pregnant
naturally. ‘One possibility is that as
fertility treatments have become
more widely available, they are
increasingly utilised for less pro-
longed infertility and for less severe
cases such as unexplained infertil-
ity, mild male subfertility and mild
endometriosis,’ he said at the time.
(Endometriosis is a common prob-
lem where tissue from inside the
womb grows elsewhere in the body.)
It may be that an IVF pregnancy
somehow kickstarts the body’s
reproductive system into action —
or it may be that post-fertility
treatment, couples take more care
of their overall health, suggested
researchers from radboud Univer-
sity in The Netherlands who
looked into natural pregnancy
following IVF in a 2008 study
involving nearly 9,000 women.
Jo has her own theory: ‘I think I
was thinking about having a baby
and wanting it too much. You
think about it constantly when
you want something so much and
you don’t know why you can’t have
it. You think about it when you
wake up and when you go to bed.’
Sarah, who now markets IVF
‘positivity’ journals via her website,
ivfpositivityplanner.com, agrees
that the stress and anxiety associ-
ated with childlessness may
prevent women getting pregnant.
‘I was so upset and anxious all the
time about it not happening but I
was in a much better place
emotionally for it to happen
naturally after we’d had Jack,’
she says.
However, experts say clinics and
couples also need to give the
natural process more time, particu-
larly when there is no obvious cause
for problems. As Jane Stewart, a
consultant in reproductive
medicine at royal Victoria
Infirmary, in Newcastle, and chair
of the British Fertility Society,
explains: ‘People do get confused
about how long you have to wait to
get pregnant naturally.
‘Two years is not unreasonable if
there’s no evidence of a problem,
but there’s no set time.’
In other words, it might take
longer — and it depends on how
often a couple are having sex.
‘About half of our prospective
patients in Newcastle are turned
away. We test them and if they
don’t have a problem we send
them away to carry on trying.’
But she adds: ‘In the private
sector that might not happen. Very
often people don’t get advice first
before they buy IVF treatment.’
Gedis Grudzinskas, an ‘elder
statesman’ of the infertility indus-
try and former emeritus professor
of obstetrics and gynaecology at
St Bart’s and the royal London
Hospital, concurs: ‘It’s a bit harsh
to say IVF is being oversold, but it
is true that the pharmaceutical
industry is in the background
watching its sales and pushing
hard to increase take-up of
fertility drugs.’
He adds: ‘But going through the
process may give couples insight
into what they need to do — that
they should have more sex. It is
surprising how many of them don’t
seem to get that.
‘We know 80 per cent of couples
should get pregnant naturally in a
year and 85 per cent in two years of
trying. Maybe more people need to
hold on to that fact.’THE number of babies
born through IVF has
increased dramatically
over the years.
According to figures
from the HFEA (Human
Fertility and Embryology
Authority), the figures
are increasingdramatically each year.
The number of live births
resulting from IVF given
at NHS and private clinics
across the UK are:1991: 1,226
2013: 15,283
2016: 20,028
THE IVF BABY BOOM
cent) went on to conceive natu-
rally in the ensuing five years.
In other words, 336 — or one in
seven — of the total 2,133 women
treated were quite capable of
having a natural pregnancy.
The research was carried out at
the University of Aberdeen — in
Natural success: Dan and Laura Slattery with Bella and Zack,
above. Left, Sarah and Andy Banks with Jack and MilliePictures: DAMIEN MCFADDENDaily Mail, Tuesday, August 27, 2019