The Advantages and Disadvantages of IVF
The process of IVF has many advantages for couples who want to become parents despite having some fertility problems in them. But nothing in this world is unmixed blessings in this world. Everything has its negative sides or side effects or disadvantages. Medical science also is not out of those conditions. Similarly, the process, procedure, or the cycle of In Vitro Fertilization or IVF process has some of its disadvantages and risks for the patient, male counterparts, and the expected baby. Here are the Advantages and Disadvantages of IVF.
The Advantages of IVF
The most significant advantage of IVF is the birth of a healthy baby after a successful pregnancy. Doctors use IVF to help bypass problems with a woman’s fallopian tubes. It is another advantage of IVF. The women who have tubal damages or blockages can yet expect to have a child by this way. When an egg and a sperm fail to create an embryo in a natural way, IVF advantages the couple to make successful fertilization. The couple, who have a history of failure in the IVF process, can take the advantage of Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) which is a method of IVF to bring this type of couple successful pregnancy and a healthy child. ICSI or Intracytoplasmic sperm injection also gives the male counterparts of the couples who have low sperm count or problems in their sperm the advantage of becoming fathers of children with whom they have biological connections. One more advantage of IVF is that the embryologists test the embryos to see whether they have any abnormalities in them before they are transferred into the womb or uterus of the would-be pregnant. IVF also provides the advantages of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) or Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) to reduce the risks of Down’s Syndrome (DS) and Cystic Fibrosis (CF) in the children born through IVF cycles.
The Disadvantages of IVF
An obvious disadvantage of IVF is that there is no guarantee of success in pregnancy and the birth of the baby. All the women who come to take IVF treatment cannot be pregnant successfully. Among them, half of them become successful to get pregnant. Again, not all pregnant women under the IVF process can become successful to give live birth to a healthy baby. Only a quarter of the total number of pregnant women who complete the IVF cycle can successfully give live birth to a healthy baby for which the couples dream for so long time in their lives that the tragedies could be enough to write something like an epic. Hemorrhage, anesthetic risks, and the risks of infections because of the operative risks in the IVF process are the other types of risks. The medications used in the IVF cycle to stimulate the ovaries in order to create multiple eggs through Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) are risky and disadvantageous. In the process of IVF, there is a high chance of multiple pregnancies though many women and couples coming to the IVF clinics are unaware of this fact, and although this fact is still not a matter of disadvantage to many couples, though some couples may consider it as a disadvantage.
It is better to know about the advantages and disadvantages of IVF before a woman or a couple decides to start IVF treatment. Remaining just ignorant of the advantages and disadvantages of IVF will just increase the chances to undergo the disadvantages of this exclusively modern fertility medical service. They can ask the fertility specialists in the IVF clinic about the advantages and disadvantages of IVF and the fertility specialists will inform them the valuable outline of the entire IVF process, and that will help the would-be mother or both of the couple to make the decision regarding this blessing of the latest improvements in the field of medical science.
