Postponing Motherhood Places Too Much Faith in Reproductive Science: Experts
By Sharon Kirkey, Postmedia News,
Montreal Gazette
| 11. 17. 2011
The growing numbers of women postponing motherhood are placing too much blind faith in science to help them conceive when they're ready to have a baby.
That's the warning being issued by this country's pregnancy specialists.
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada — which has just issued new guidelines to doctors on "advanced reproductive age" and fertility — worries that women are overestimating the success rates of artificial procreation.
Short of using a younger woman's donated eggs, no assisted baby-making technology today can get around the reality that the supply and quality of a woman's eggs shrinks over time — and that by the time a woman reaches her early to mid-30s, each egg offers less chance of pregnancy and a higher risk of miscarriage.
More women over 40 are now seeking treatment for infertility — even though the failure rate for that age group is close to 90 per cent, fertility experts say.
"Fertility treatments aren't a sure-fire route to pregnancy — their rates of success are greatly influenced by age-related declines in fertility," Dr. Allison Case...
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