IVF ‘creating an infertility timebomb’
(cz) Britain is facing an infertility timebomb because the increasing use of IVF means that couples with inherited fertility problems are able to have children and pass the condition on to the next generation, scientists report today.
Other factors contributing to future infertility include increases in obesity, sexually transmitted diseases and the number of women choosing to have children later in life. Couples who conceive using IVF pass on their genetic fertility problems to the next generation.
If the situation continues unchecked, within 10 years one in three couples will struggle to have children, compared with one in seven today.
Around one per cent of all births in Britain are the result of IVF or donor insemination and around 11,000 babies are born annually after fertility treatment. Each cycle of IVF costs between £4,000 and £8,000 and success rates are almost 30 per cent for women under the age of 35.
Writing in the British Medical Journal today, Prof Jens Peter Ellekilde Bonde, a professor of occupational medicine at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Prof Jørn Olsen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, said: “With the advent of assisted conception, subfertile couples may have as many children as fertile couples, so that genetic factors linked to infertility will become more prevalent in the generations to come.” more…
From: »The Daily Telegraph«