IVF is Too Expensive: Low Income Earners Shut Out of IVF

Infertility rates are raising higher and higher. Partly due to the fact women and men decide to have children at the end of their reproductive age, partly because of their lifestyles, partly because of the rise of STDs and partly well because of fertility diseases. Most fertility specialists think this infertility statistics are alarming because of a change in lifestyles and social pressures that coupes are faced with.

People leave it for later, maybe because they are career-driven, want to create all conditions for having a baby, or perhaps because they haven t found the right partner. What they are forgetting the older they get, the chances of healthy conception and pregnancy are getting smaller and they are approaching to the end of reproductive life. IVF or in vitro fertilization is a procedure of reproductive technology and it made a great breakthrough to help couples conceive.

During the process egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside the womb, in vitro. The process is highly controlled and it involves hormonally controlling the ovulation process, removing female eggs from the woman's ovaries and letting sperm fertilize them in a fluid medium. Then zygote (fertilized egg) is transferred to the patient's uterus in order to establish a successful pregnancy. The dream of having a baby, and for some couples only IVF can make that dream come true, will become only a dream. The prices are high already and they will get even higher. For example, only in Australia Medicare figures show the number of IVF cycles doubled. In 2005 there were approximately 1450 IVF cycles, and last year there were more than 3000.

From the start of this year, a cap on the Australian Federal Government's Medicare Safety Net payments for IVF treatments could cause a dream for some couples, and because of world economy crisis maybe for most couples impossible. Last year a typical IVF cycle cost $1500, while this year the price has almost doubles: from $1500 to $2900. The rise in price is the main reason some couples and especially low income earners are shut out of IVF and will perhaps never experience the joy of having their own child.