What is the real cost of IVF?  As Louise Brown the world’s first “test tube” baby celebrates her 40th birthday – this seminar organised by the Progress Educational Trust  explores not just the economic cost, but also the emotional and psychological costs.  Worldwide there have been 60 million live births as a result of IVF, but it is still the case that over 60% of IVF cycles don't work.

Does receiving fertility treatment confer any benefit to patients, even if there is no baby to take home at the end? Is unsuccessful fertility treatment more devastating than no treatment at all, or is it better to at least have had the chance to try?

The event was held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). You may be interested to read the RCOG scientific impact paper on multiple pregnancies following assisted conception, referred to in the seminar

Chaired by Sally Cheshire, Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority

Speakers

Dr Rebecca Brown Jacky Boivin
Professor of Health Psychology and Chartered Health Psychologist at Cardiff University's School of Psychology

Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Jessica Hepburn
Author of the books The Pursuit of Motherhood and 21 Miles: Swimming in Search of the Meaning of Motherhood

Professor Lesley Regan
President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Photo:  Test tube baby by Brendan Dolan-Gavitt

 

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