Hello,
I am not interested in getting in vitro fertilization, but I am facisinated by it and I watch Discovery Health all the time, where desperate couples resort to the treatments and fertility drugs and by luck they finally get a baby. Only thing is most of the couples you see on there are lucky to just get two babies. Take Jon and Kate for example, six babies in one pregnancy and all they wanted was just one more, how and why does that always happen? I read on your site there was 31 percent chance one would transfer successfully, so in order to insure the mother gets a baby do just have to keep putting embryos in to make it work? And how many embryos exactly are there out there, and why are there so many? Why do people believe embryos can lead to cures for diseases like MS and Cerebal Palsy? Embryos are actually human life right, so doesn't freezing them seem wrong too, I mean you wouldn't freeze a human being? I don't know I am very confused by all this so I would like someone to explain it all. Thanks!
Jane
More than 1 baby? Embryonic Research?
2 posts • Page 1 of 1
More than 1 baby? Embryonic Research?
by jane.doe » Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:37 pm
- jane.doe
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:21 pm
Re: More than 1 baby? Embryonic Research?
by reg.finger » Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:17 am
Jane,
Hello, this is Dr. Reg Finger. I will try to answer your questions as best I can. Probably you will have more questions, feel free to keep making posts and asking, but also look at www.embryodonation.org and also at the web site of almost any infertility clinic in the US and you can get some answers there too.
1) One of your questions is why the higher probability of multiple births with IVF compared to natural pregnancy. In natural pregnancy almost always only one egg is released at a time, so usually there is just one baby. Very occasionally two eggs are fertilized (fraternal twins) or the fertilized egg splits (identical twins). In IVF, usually more than one embryo is placed in one procedure (often two to four, depending on age and the woman's history) and if more than one implants, then you may have more than one baby, so the probability of multiple births is higher than in natural pregnancy (somewhere around 1/4 of IVF births have more than one baby). There is a movement in the IVF world, stronger in Europe than in the US, to place just one embryo, at least for younger women, to avoid the high probability of a multiple birth.
2) Many women who do not become pregnant on the first attempt at a transfer (and this applies to ordinary IVF = a couple's own embryos as well as with donated embryos) try again for a second or third time. Our center limits a couple to three tries. Not everyone wants to go through it more than once however.
3) There are about 500,000 embryos out there in the US in frozen storage now, as best we can figure. They took a count of them in 2002 and there were 396,000 then. The reason there are so many is, that the incentive in IVF is to make as many embryos as possible from one egg retrieval, because the couple does not know how many they will need. Then, if the couple is finished with treatments, either because they don't want to continue, or they've been successful and completed their family, they often have embryos remaining. Over the years the total in frozen storage has grown.
4) At our center yes, we believe embryos are human life. We do not see freezing per se as destructive. We see it as saving the embryo to give it a chance later on. There are people in the pro-life movement however who do not think embryo freezing is morally right. Some of them also disagree with IVF altogether.
5) The reason embryos have been attractive to some researchers as a source of cells for treating diseases is that, cells from a very early embryo, at least theoretically, can be made to grow into any type of cell that the body may need. The idea is that using various forms of genetic manipulation, new tissues and spare parts can be constructed, to treat and cure diseases. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that is the basic idea. At our center, we object to this kind of research because to harvest cells from an embryo, you have to kill the embryo, and we don't think that's ethical.
Hopefully those explanations help.
Thanks!
Reg Finger, MD, MPH
Hello, this is Dr. Reg Finger. I will try to answer your questions as best I can. Probably you will have more questions, feel free to keep making posts and asking, but also look at www.embryodonation.org and also at the web site of almost any infertility clinic in the US and you can get some answers there too.
1) One of your questions is why the higher probability of multiple births with IVF compared to natural pregnancy. In natural pregnancy almost always only one egg is released at a time, so usually there is just one baby. Very occasionally two eggs are fertilized (fraternal twins) or the fertilized egg splits (identical twins). In IVF, usually more than one embryo is placed in one procedure (often two to four, depending on age and the woman's history) and if more than one implants, then you may have more than one baby, so the probability of multiple births is higher than in natural pregnancy (somewhere around 1/4 of IVF births have more than one baby). There is a movement in the IVF world, stronger in Europe than in the US, to place just one embryo, at least for younger women, to avoid the high probability of a multiple birth.
2) Many women who do not become pregnant on the first attempt at a transfer (and this applies to ordinary IVF = a couple's own embryos as well as with donated embryos) try again for a second or third time. Our center limits a couple to three tries. Not everyone wants to go through it more than once however.
3) There are about 500,000 embryos out there in the US in frozen storage now, as best we can figure. They took a count of them in 2002 and there were 396,000 then. The reason there are so many is, that the incentive in IVF is to make as many embryos as possible from one egg retrieval, because the couple does not know how many they will need. Then, if the couple is finished with treatments, either because they don't want to continue, or they've been successful and completed their family, they often have embryos remaining. Over the years the total in frozen storage has grown.
4) At our center yes, we believe embryos are human life. We do not see freezing per se as destructive. We see it as saving the embryo to give it a chance later on. There are people in the pro-life movement however who do not think embryo freezing is morally right. Some of them also disagree with IVF altogether.
5) The reason embryos have been attractive to some researchers as a source of cells for treating diseases is that, cells from a very early embryo, at least theoretically, can be made to grow into any type of cell that the body may need. The idea is that using various forms of genetic manipulation, new tissues and spare parts can be constructed, to treat and cure diseases. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that is the basic idea. At our center, we object to this kind of research because to harvest cells from an embryo, you have to kill the embryo, and we don't think that's ethical.
Hopefully those explanations help.
Thanks!
Reg Finger, MD, MPH
- reg.finger
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 2:30 pm
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