In vitro fertilization turns 40 years old

Nowadays, there are factors that lead to a delay in the search for pregnancy, such as the difficulty of reconciling work and home, the need to work outside the home and the desire to have an equal and satisfactory professional career, among others. When nature and society seem to clash, techniques such as fertility preservation appear in the assisted reproduction sector, which represents a great advance and help for all those women who wish to delay the search for a baby.

Important advances in assisted reproduction

Numerous tests that were annoying and costly have now been eliminated and have been replaced by others that are simpler, more reliable and safer. Endoscopic surgery by laparoscopy or hysteroscopy, for example, makes it possible to perform explorations and surgical treatments without anesthesia or with mild sedation, in addition to allowing hospital stays of only a few hours.

On the other hand, genetic study techniques have been developed in patients and embryos that make it possible to diagnose and prevent diseases in the offspring, reducing the possibility of having to resort to interruptions of pregnancies that have already occurred.

Among the great achievements of assisted reproduction is also the creation of medications that make it possible to almost completely eliminate ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and reduce the number of injections required to less than half. Transvaginal ultrasound, which replaces a large number of hormonal controls. Vitrification, an ultra-fast way of freezing embryos, which makes it possible to preserve them with great reliability and safety, thus making it possible to choose more frequently to transfer a single embryo and avoid multiple pregnancies. Prolonged embryo culture, time-lapse technology in incubators, and genetic diagnostic techniques make possible a much more accurate embryo selection and a pregnancy in less time.

Read Now 👉  Fertility Preservation in Women with Cancer

The Law has opened new horizons

Legal changes and the Assisted Reproduction Law have made it possible for older women to have access to donor oocytes and embryos. And single women or women with female partners have access to the use of donor sperm with high health and efficacy guarantees.

Assisted reproduction has thus achieved a success rate that in some techniques is around 50-60%, in some cases reaching 90% of pregnancy per woman treated. All this in a safer, more effective and comfortable way than in its origins in 1978, when after 22 attempts and multiple surgical interventions, the first girl, Louise Brown, was born, thanks to the work of the pioneers, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, awarded the Nobel Prize for the development of “in vitro” fertilization. Forty years of improvement and more than six million children are the result of their efforts and foresight.