Women in Canada who are looking into in vitro fertilization may find that they have a cheaper, safer option than IVF in upcoming years. There’s no telling yet whether the procedure, known as in vitro maturation oocyte vitrification or IVM OV, will take off or whether or not it will eventually be available in the states but it’s an important step in the right direction for improving fertility treatments.
The main difference between IVM OV and IVF is that it doesn’t include the hormonal treatments that can cause so many problems for women during the in vitro fertilization process. The hormones of traditional IVF have a number of negative side effects including nausea, mood swings, bloating and weight gain. There are also risks of greater side effects including ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome and increased cancer risk. Instead of using the hormone injections, IVM OV combines in vitro maturation (in which eggs are matured in a lab) with oocyte vitrification (the freezing of the mature eggs) for the fertilization.
In addition to reducing the risks associated with hormone injections, it is believed that IVM OV will be a less expensive procedure if it begins to be used widely. There are drawbacks to this kind of fertilization which include that it only works for about a third of women (those with enough ovarian follicles) and that results are currently better with IVF than with IVM OV. But it presents an additional option to women interested in fertilization choices.
Learn more from Canada.com.