What is the right age for an IVF treatment?

Is it 30 or 35? The right age to think of an IVF treatment.

I hear people often say that infertility is on the rise. Is it because women are getting married late? Or is it coz we are consuming chemical infused fruits and vegetables? Perhaps its coz of the high pollution levels. Well, I think it’s primarily due to our impatience.

If you go to an infertility specialist, you will never be told that you perhaps are too young for any infertility treatment or you need to consult a gynecologist first. The assumption is that you already are infertile. When I received my first IVF treatment at Fortis La Femme IVF Clinic, I was shocked to see a 25-year old who was married for 3 years and undergoing the treatment. Not sure about the reason for her decision at such a young age but I used to wonder – why wouldn’t the doctors suggest her to try naturally? Why couldn’t she consider IUI? Why couldn’t she wait for a few years as she had age on her side?

As I kept wondering, the day of the Embryo Transfer (ET) arrived. There she was howling and seething in pain, on a wheelchair, with her mom on one side and mom-in-law on the other, consoling her. She had a condition of hyper stimulated ovaries and the doctors decided not to go ahead with the transfer. Did she have hyper stimulated ovaries coz of her young age? What had mistriggered, I wondered?

Shouldn’t there be a cutoff age to consider IVF? In fact, there should be an upper age limit too. Heard about the 72-year old in Punjab having a son? As per the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR) president-elect Dr. Narendra Malhotra, the upper age-limit for a woman to undergo IVF treatment is 45 years and no more. Why not have a lower age limit too? Unfortunately, one of the past presidents of ISAR, Dr. Hrishikesh D Pai, was the one to treat the 25-year old mentioned above.

Since IVF is not a disease, a lot of infertility specialists treat it like a cosmetic surgery. In the absence of laws to govern it, the doctors do what they please and also what some unreasonable couples seek.