Is acupuncture during the IVF an effective method or the placebo effect?

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Published on Monday, 22 July 2013 14:15

Needle therapy, which is used as an additional or supportive therapy during the IVF, may be useful, as scientists reported in the medical school of the University of Maryland. The same conclusions had been previously made by scientists from Germany as well, according to whose study, women, who used the needle therapy along with IVF, had twice more chances to get pregnant than women who did not use acupuncture. However, a year after the German study, another group of researchers from the UK and Netherlands, has denied these results by showing that the effect of acupuncture is comparable with placebo, and there is no significant benefit for IVF, and no harm as well.

So, acupuncture, or, as people say, needle therapy is not new, but quite fashionable today procedure. They believe that it has a positive effect on the vegetative system of the person, so it is often used as an alternative treatment for psychosomatic diseases. But not so long ago in the United States acupuncture has become a popular procedure among women who are getting prepared for in vitro fertilization. Here is information I have found in the web site of one acupuncture clinic in Moscow: "The purpose of acupuncture during the IVF is to maintain a high level of perfusion and the ovaries’ functioning, and the preservation of women’s mental tranquility throughout the course of IVF... One of the features of acupuncture is a complete absence of side effects ... there is no risk of overdose ... ".

Cryopreservation is a difficult and still not efficient method for preserving eggs

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Published on Thursday, 18 July 2013 13:48

One of the leading Russian publications «MedDaily» has recently left my comment, dedicated to the cryopreservation of oocytes. I believe that it could be pretty interesting for those who are currently undergoing or intend to undergo the procedure of IVF:

By Sergei Lebedev | Sweetchild Group President, Member of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology tells whether the procedure of eggs’ cryopreservation during the IVF has a negative impact on the child.

"If we talk about the cryopreservation of female genetic material (oocytes), then I will say that along with its undeniable advantages, this method has two major disadvantages. First of all, inconvenience for a woman who decides to use this method (I mean stimulation of superovulation with all its known consequences. The second is a lower reliability of this method in comparison with cryopreservation of sperm or embryos.

Dura lex sed lex

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Published on Friday, 19 July 2013 12:04

I’ve already written that India had revised its laws on surrogate motherhood: back in December 2012, the Indian authorities have announced the toughening of requirements for genetic parents. Now services of surrogate mothers are available there only for heterosexual couples who are married for at least two years. However, the main difficulty that foreign parents face, is the fact that now everyone who uses the services of surrogacy in India is required to obtain a special medical visa, whereas before the normal touristic visa was enough. The law started on July 1, and the other day it became known that at once four Israel couples who had not managed to make necessary visas before this time, were unable to return to their homeland with newborn children.

The families who managed to leave India only in the middle of July, blamed in an accident, not only the Government of India, but the Israel Foreign Ministry as well, which, in their opinion, "didn’t give the proper assistance in the soonest resolution of situation." The representatives of the Israel authorities, however, didn’t agree with the charges against them, since, according to their words, "made an extraordinary effort to help Israel parents overcome the objective difficulties related to the new Indian law." Yigal Palmor, a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Israel also underlined that "couples who go to India for surrogacy procedures should understand that this is a bureaucratic process which takes at least a month, and sometimes more. But process can take even longer if the couple came to India without fulfilling all necessary formalities in advance.”

Israel: donor eggs are rising in price.

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Published on Wednesday, 17 July 2013 09:04

The other day, the Commission of Health of Israel adopted an amendment to the law on egg donation, unanimously voted to increase donors’ rewards. Earlier the payment for eggs’ donation was limited by 10,000 shekels (which is approximately $3,000 USD), but now this amount is increased to 20,000. However, added 10,000 will be charged not from a woman who needs donor biological material, but will be paid by the state. The Commission of Health was forced to take such step because of reducing of those who wish to become donors: last year only 7 women have donated their eggs.

Egg donation in Israel has become paid only 3 years ago. Before couples could only rely on a limited number of eggs that had remained unused after a successful in-vitro fertilization in IVF clinics. Charging for biomaterial was illegal, which forced many couples to look for it in foreign clinics. Now Israel authorities hope that increased fees for deposited biological material will attract more donors and partially solve the problem of shortage of eggs. The only concern on this matter has expressed the deputy Orly Levy-Abukasis: "Now women, tempted by high payments, will put their health at risk...".