5 million babies have been born as a result of assisted reproduction technologies – namely IVF and ICSF
“It means that this technology has been highly successful in treating infertile patients. Millions of families with children have been created, thereby reducing the burden of infertility.
“The technology has improved greatly over the years to increase pregnancy rates. The babies are as healthy as those from other infertile patients who conceive spontaneously. The technology is available globally in many different cultures. The major barriers to access are economic, and societal in some situations. With these accomplishments as a technology, and with recognition of Professor Robert Edwards as a Nobel Laureate, IVF is firmly established now in the mainstream of medicine.”
“The overall trend in Europe of transferring fewer embryos continues. We found in 2009 that, compared with previous years, fewer three-embryo transfers and more single embryo transfers were performed. As a result of this trend, ART triplets have fallen below 1%, and, for the first time, the twin delivery rate was below 20% (19.6%).”
“Five million babies are a clear demonstration that IVF and ICSI are now an essential part of normalised and standardised clinical therapies for the treatment of infertile couples. Many aspects have changed since the early days of IVF, especially the results in terms of babies born, but there is still room for improvement.
Our objective is the birth of single healthy baby and this can be achieved though the optimisation of both clinical and embryological performance.”
IVF (in vitro fertilization)
In vitroin vitroIn vivo
- The woman’s ovulatory process is monitored
- An ovum or ova (plural: eggs) is/are removed from the female’s ovaries and placed in a fluid medium in the laboratory
- Male sperm are added to the mix to fertilize the egg(s)
- The zygote (fertilized egg) is transferred into the women’s uterus, the aim being to establish a successful pregnancy and the birth of a baby
ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection)