Fertility treatment

• Some women have low levels of FSH which prevents their eggs from maturing. To help this they can be given a pill with FSH and LH to allow the eggs to mature and be released.
• IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) has 5 stages.

  1. Woman is given FSH and LH to stimulate egg to mature and release
  2. Egg is collected from ovaries and fertilised by sperm of father in the lab (if a man has a low sperm count the sperm will be injected into the egg cell this is called ICSi)
  3. Now the eggs are incubated to grow into embryos
  4. One of more of these embryos will be inserted into the mothers uterus
  5. Baby should grow
• Pros and cons of IVF?

  PROS: Infertile couples can have children

  CONS: Physically unpleasant, stressful, only 1 in 4 works, Leads to multiple births more frequently
• Some people are against IVF as it results in unused embryos
• Recent advancements in microscope technology have improved the success rate of IVF. We can now remove single cells from an embryo and genetically test them (for diseases and characteristics).
• Some people are worried IVF could lead to people picking the embryos they like most.