Does IVF pose health risks for women?

Millions of children in the world were born thanks to assisted reproductive technologies, including IVF. Despite this, many people don’t have enough information on these technologies and therefore are afraid of their use.

IVF obviously does not pose any danger for men, but what about women? According to expert in reproductive medicine Vicken Sepilian (California, USA), IVF does not pose serious health risks for women.

"More than 5 million children have been born with the help of IVF. If this procedure was dangerous, this would already have been known,” Dr. Sepilian said.

Many people are afraid of superovulation stimulation, that’s when a woman takes special hormonal medications so that she can release several eggs during ovulation instead of one. The hormones (for example, chorionic gonadotropin) that are taken for this are naturally produced in the body of the woman, too. By introducing these hormones from the outside, specialists adjust their levels and make them rise, for example, at the beginning of the menstrual cycle (to stimulate the development of several eggs), and not in the middle, as it usually happens.

Of course, like any medical procedure, IVF also contains certain risks and benefits, and patients must necessarily know about them before proceeding to it. For example, in some patients (especially if they have a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome) may develop ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a dangerous complication that is accompanied by an increase in the size of the ovaries, accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity and in the lungs, increased the risk of blood clots in the blood vessels. However, in the overwhelming majority of cases, this condition does not pose a threat to the life of the patient and is successfully treatable, especially if it is detected at an early stage.

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