In Vitro Fertilization
... produce the best pregnancy. The only fallback of blastocyst transfer is the price increase; a single blastocyst transfer costs at least 20,000 dollars. Other prevention methods are basically in the patient’s hands, such as the woman’s age. It is a well-known fact that woman under the age of 35 are more likely to have a successful pregnancy but in IVF this factor comes into play even more, especially to avoid multiple births. If the woman is older than 35 she is normally recommended to have an egg donor, but if she opts not to, the chance of a multiple birth is literally tripled. Other causes of multiple births are the number of embryos implanted in the woman’s uterus, the number of eggs fertilized, the amount of attempts at in vitro fertilization (the more attempts, the higher the risk of multiple births), previous live births, and the reason and length of infertility. Other risks of in vitro fertilization include holes in the heart, one kidney instead of two, brain abnormalities, cleft lips, cleft palettes, and a recent study conducted by John Hopkins and Washington University says that, “IVF children have a six fold increase in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, a rare hereditary disorder which causes malformations and cancer.” During IVF all of these abnormalities have a 1 in 10 chance of occurrence, more than twice the amount of abnormalities in babies conceived naturally. In addition to birth defects, there have been recent studies preformed to determine if IVF is the cause of glaucoma and cataracts in numerous “test tube babies.” The author of Archives of Ophthalmology, Dr. Irene Anteby has recently conducted several studies, confirming IVF to eye sight defects commented: “Since no family history of such conditions was present, one assumption is that IVF is responsible for c...