Better than sex - IVF clinic claims to beat nature at its own game

Scientists have unveiled a new form of IVF which they claim is "better than nature" at getting some women pregnant and does not need high doses of potentially harmful hormones.

The method, which involves harvesting immature eggs and growing them outside the body, reduces the need to pump women with hormones to mature the eggs internally. It has resulted in 400 healthy babies in Denmark and won the backing of Bob Edwards, the British scientist behind the first test-tube baby.

In vitro maturation (IVM) could drastically cut the risk of side-effects for the mother and reduce the drug bill, which in the UK is mostly met by the patients.

Although the method has been discussed for years, the Danish doctors were the first to use it successfully on a large scale and track the results. A healthy 30-year-old woman who has regular periods has a 20% chance of getting pregnant through intercourse each month, but the group who received the new treatment had a success rate of 30%, they found.

The eggs are removed from the woman's ovaries before they...