after Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVFdoctors warn that women and their babies who use in vitro fertilization may face major health risks – and young cancer patients If fertility clinics stop using frozen embryos, they may lose the chance to have a future family.
Dr., a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Mass General Fertility Center in Boston. “It is a possible reality,” said Irene Dimitriadis. “It makes me sad to think that because it means we’re kind of going backwards in medicine.”
A court ruled last week that IVF-created embryos are considered children, raising concerns that destroyed or damaged embryos could lead to civil liability. Now some Alabama fertility clinics are going out of businessClinics and doctors in other states are leaving patients in emotional limbo for fear of similar rulings or legislation.
Doctors say they have been using frozen embryos for more than 15 years because it is the safest method. Women trying to conceive through IVF.
“The reason we freeze embryos is to ensure the health of the woman, the pregnancy and the babies,” said Columbia University Fertility Center fertility expert Dr. Zev Williams. “There are many cases where freezing embryos is healthier for the pregnancy, the future child and the mother.”
Embryo freezing for IVF became standard practice after the development of vitrification, a rapid freezing process that is safer for the embryo. Although there is still a risk of damage during the thawing process, doctors say using fresh embryos has fewer complications than the only other option.
About 2% of babies are conceived using assisted reproductive technology According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some studies suggest that using frozen embryos has better success rates, but doctors say the evidence is inconclusive.
One of the great benefits of embryo freezing is that it allows doctors to transfer one embryo at a time into the uterus. Before freezing technology was improved, many embryos were often transferred at once in the hope that at least one would implant and become a pregnancy. However, this increased the risk of triplets, quadruplets or more in some cases.
Head of reproductive endocrinology and infertility department at Northwestern Medicine. “Most people in this situation will either give birth prematurely or these fetuses will not survive because the womb is not designed for multiple children,” said Emily Jungheim. “High-grade reproductions will always take time in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
Jungheim said many premature babies face serious risks, such as blindness, intestinal damage and other long-term disabilities. Mothers with multiple pregnancies usually need a caesarean section.
“By putting that kind of stress on the mother’s body, we’re learning what it can do to her later in life,” he said.
Doctors say freezing embryos also gives a woman’s body time to heal before the embryo is implanted. IVF cycles involve taking drugs and hormones to stimulate egg production, which harms the body.
“When going through an IVF cycle, the lining of the uterus sees higher levels of estrogen, which creates an atypical environment,” Williams said. “If you return the embryos to that environment, the risk of complications is higher. It is better not to transfer immediately. It’s better to have a new, healthier lining there.”
Medications used for IVF also put women at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which causes the ovaries to become swollen and painful. Getting pregnant in this condition is dangerous and can lead to blood clots, pulmonary embolisms and even death, Dimitriadis said.
“If I can freeze the embryos and bring it back later, it’s safer,” Jungheim said.
Fertility preservation after cancer treatment
for young female cancer patients, losing fertility due to chemotherapy can be as devastating as the cancer diagnosis itself. Doctors say the ability to freeze embryos may be the only bright spot in one of the most difficult times of their lives.
“If a woman has cancer and has to go through treatment, it can destroy her eggs,” Williams said. “If she went through IVF and froze the embryos, she saved the embryos to help her start a family after she recovered.”
Without frozen embryos, doctors say they cannot test for and diagnose serious and sometimes fatal genetic conditions. cystic fibrosis or sickle cell disease, passed from parents to children with genetic mutations. Currently, if the parents are known carriers, doctors can do a small biopsy on the embryos to determine which are healthy.
“But to do that, we need to be able to freeze the embryo after we’ve biopsied it,” Dimitriadis said. “If we don’t freeze the embryo after we do the biopsy, we don’t have time to get the results back from that test.”
Dimitriadis said similar tests could be used in women with recurrent miscarriages to find the cause of these problems and make sure they implant only the healthiest embryos.
“You can imagine the struggle they went through,” he said. “It can relieve them of the anxiety and hopelessness they feel.”