What are the Challenges and side effects of IVF?
This article consists of information about the challenges in IVF faced by the mothers and the babies, what are the side effects of IVF on the mother‘s health.
IVF- In vitro fertilization is a process of fertilizing the ova or egg of the female with the male sperm in a laboratory, under a well-supervised environment for fertilization of the zygote.
Later the embryo is kept inside the uterus of the mother.
This process focuses on the artificial increment of the deficiency of the reproductive system for conceiving the baby. Increases the production of eggs in the ovaries and hormones are injected according to the needed body condition.
This process may look simple and clean, but in most cases, it is not. Many women have embraced motherhood through IVF and millions of babies are born through IVF every year.
But still, it has some side effects and challenges. The risk of the side effects and the challenges mostly depends on the body conditions and the age of the patient.
That's what we are gonna see in this article in a not-too-lengthy, detailed format.
They are mentioned below in points:
Miscarriage: Miscarriages are slightly higher in IVF procedures, there are so many studies and surveys conducted on these topics and most of them suggest the same that there is a slightly higher chance of experiencing Miscarriage when compared to the natural process of getting pregnant. The risk is considered to be 685/5485 mostly 12.5%.
70% of babies suffer from miscarriage whether they are formed by natural or IVF procedures. The risks for miscarriage are most prone in old-age women. Younger women don’t suffer miscarriages often as they have strength and lesser body issues.
Multiple births: Multiple births at once are the non-predictable results but it's not a burden when the parents are completely okay, after all, it's their Children. Multiple eggs get fertilized and resulting in the formation of embryos. Due to multiple deliveries of babies, there is a higher c-section delivery of babies. The is a probability of having higher blood pressure in women in some cases. There is more risk if the patients are older in age.
Preterm delivery: There is an 80% of the chances for having preterm delivery of the
babies who were implanted by IVF treatment.
Some commonly said reasons are hormonal causes, increased medical supervision, and some other medical reasons.
Low body weight of the babies: IVF babies are born with less body weight at the time of birth compared to other newborn babies born through other procedures.
Anxiety: Anxiety has an extra role to play with IVF mommies, they experience anxiety higher than other moms. They have anxiety at all stages. Constant anxiety and stress, overthinking whether you will succeed or not, constantly waiting for results, expenditure, often visiting the clinic, and the worrying nature of patients who want to become a mother and want to see their child such things result in anxiety.
Headaches: headaches often occur after injecting the drug injections while doing the procedure, after the procedures. The patients have headaches for some reasons and they remain prone to headaches for those reasons, they are hormonal shifts and menstrual cycle.
Mood swings: Due to the Injections, and medication, the hormones are pumped up. This causes a lot of mood swings in patients.
The Changes in the level of the hormones cause women to do unpredictable things according to their mood swings. Sometimes this could lead to depression. The medication helps to accelerate the hormones whose side effects are mood swings. Hot flashes are associated with the side-effects.
Stress: Stress is usual amongst IVF couples as it could result positively or not, it could drain the emotional energy of the couple, and it could exhaust the physical energy too. psychological changes inside the mother and financial expenses are quite high which led to the ultimate stress.
Ectopic pregnancy: In women who undergo IVF there is a chance of 2 to 5 % that they would have an ectopic pregnancy. The zygote or the fertilized egg could not survive outside the uterus so, there is no way to complete the process of continuing the pregnancy.
Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome: In IVF there is a need to inject ovary stimulation drugs that will help the ovaries to release more eggs, so there is a higher chance to get the fertilized eggs. There is a probability of getting stimulation of the ovaries.
It could result in pain and swollen ovaries and also causes nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight gain, breath shortness, and some other reactions depending on the patient.
A procedure that could lead to bleeding, and infections: A medical equipment specifically made needle is used to retrieve or collect the eggs from the body. This process could possibly lead to damage, infection, or bleeding of the blood vessels, bladder, and bowel.
Due to the bleeding, which may result in heavy loss of blood, there is a higher chance that the patient could suffer from anemia.
Risk of cancer: The medications to increase the number of eggs could result in the risk of cancer in the female reproductive system inside the ovaries, endometrial, cervical, and breast. But there are recent studies that don't support this point as there are no vital risks specifically shown to grow after IVF treatment.
So these were the most widely known, experienced problems with IVF but having IVF is still your choice, you might succeed in conceiving or you may not. It depends on the body and its condition. Still, despite all these things, there are thousands of women who had taken IVF treatments and conceived their babies, and lived with them together.
Many women have succeeded after trying constantly. So Considering IVF is not a bad idea, but visiting the best of the best clinic or doctors is very essential for the baby and for you.