For those who are desperate to conceive and for whom family is the very meaning of being, it is logical that they would sacrifice everything they can afford, and even things they cannot afford, in order to fulfill that , which often feels like the most primal human desire. Because nothing else, at least nothing material, is that important.
o When a couple or an individual decides to seek fertility treatment because they need help conceiving for medical or personal reasons, the high costs involved begin to take on both symbolic and economic significance.
They are reworded slightly to measure the breadth and depth of one’s investment in a prospective child. The lengths one will go to for this child. They are rationalized as an investment in hope. A down payment on love.
The companies that offer assisted conception know this. And some of them take advantage of it.
There is mounting evidence that in Ireland, where the IVF industry remains unregulated, more and more assisted reproductive providers are aligning their services to capitalize on people’s desperation, charging inflated prices for tests and services, which are cheaper elsewhere.
Last week one Irish Independent Research by Ellen Coyne found that some clinics are charging up to €450 for routine blood tests, which their GPs could do for a fraction of that price.
Many offer add-ons to IVF at a high price on the grounds that they may increase the chances of taking home a baby, although many of these extras have little evidence to support them.
If you need help having a baby in this country, you’d better hope you’re okay. Ireland is the only country in the EU that does not offer publicly funded IVF. For the one in seven people who have difficulty conceiving, there is no equal access to services. Help is only available to those who can afford it.
Some experts who spoke to that Irish Independent on the lack of regulation in the industry, expressed concern about an interventionist culture in reproductive medicine, in which examinations and treatments are carried out too readily. Hastily try to solve problems that would solve themselves with patience and time.
Immunological treatments, Coyne wrote, are “one of a number of so-called ‘add-ons’ that have been flagged by a UK regulator for lack of evidence”.
According to the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Agency’s traffic light system, which aims to empower patients by providing clear information on which treatments are best supported by evidence and which are not, immunological treatments are flagged as ‘red’.
When I read that, I stopped abruptly. Because a few years ago I almost started immunological treatment for miscarriage myself.
When I had my second early pregnancy miscarriage in my late 30s, the doctor treating me at the hospital (in the UK, where I was living at the time) suggested I be referred to a specialist clinic. This was against formal protocol. My healthy toddler, then two years old, was proof that I could carry a baby to term.
Most clinicians do not diagnose a miscarriage as recurrent until three consecutive ones have occurred. My age was the most likely explanation for this second early pregnancy loss – the first had happened a year before my son was born. After all, miscarriages are very common, and their incidence increases in step with age.
The doctor was kind and acted, I sincerely believe, out of compassionate reasons. A loss of pregnancy is just as distressing as the inability to conceive. And the desire on the part of patients and their doctors to alleviate this suffering with a prescription or treatment is mighty great.
These patients, particularly those in the older age groups, are aware that the clock is ticking and want to act quickly. So I accepted the transfer. After blood tests, I was told the results pointed to an immunological abnormality — an excess of natural killer cells, which are a normal part of a functioning immune system, the doctor said, was the likely cause of the miscarriages.
I was presented with a shockingly lengthy prescription for medications, primarily steroids, and a detailed treatment plan for how to take them the next time I conceive.
But I had concerns about what I felt was an awkward approach. And I was concerned about the list of side effects of steroids during pregnancy, including increased blood pressure – of particular importance to fetal and maternal health.
In my case, it seemed too early for a precise assessment of the cost-benefit ratio. So I decided to leave the prescription blank, opting for a “wait and see” approach for now. Within a year my daughter was born without any intervention.
An anecdote, of course, proves nothing. Maybe I had an underlying condition and my daughter’s birth was the result of a lucky roll of the dice. But it’s another small example that seems to point to the unbridled growth of the industrial fertility complex, both in Ireland and abroad, trying to capitalize on expectant parents’ anxiety.
Only robust regulation can get the industry moving.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/the-hunger-for-a-baby-makes-people-ripe-for-exploitation-41581122.html Hunger for a baby makes people vulnerable to exploitation
