Taking on the Baby Gods

July 4, 2007

IVF is expensive and harrowing, and carries significant health risks. That is why some fertility experts are turning to an alternative method called ‘mild IVF’, which they say is cheaper, safer and equally effective. But Britain’s most powerful fertility doctors remain to be convinced. Sarah Boseley reports . . .

Just two days after she started fertility treatment, Temilola Akinbolagbe, 33, collapsed at a bus stop in south London. She was rushed to hospital but suffered a massive heart attack. Five days later, they switched off her life-support machine. Temilola had been a healthy young woman. All she had wanted was a baby, but her body suffered a fatal reaction to the drugs she was given to stimulate her ovaries.

She’s not the only woman to die as a result of IVF. In August last year, 37-year-old Nina Thanki died at Leicester Royal Infirmary after problems developed while eggs were being retrieved from her ovaries. Her devastated husband said they never imagined for a moment that she might not survive the treatment. “If the hospital had told me there was even a 1% risk of Nina dying I would have said no, we are not doing this,” Rajesh Thanki told the Daily Mail. “All we wanted was a child. How could this happen?” (Guardian)