Sunday, February 28, 2021

No embryo photos = bad IVF clinic

 


When I provide patients who have failed an IVF cycle with a second opinion , I asked them to share their medical records with me .

I am very disappointed when they don't have photos of their embryos, and when I ask them why not , they get defensive, and provide a number of justifications.

  • The doctor never give us any
  •  I didn't even know that you could ask for embryo photos
  •  That’s not the practice in that particular clinic . They are the best, and they don’t give photos to any of their patients

None of these are good answers .

IVF patients need to do their homework prior to starting an IVF cycle , because you can't afford to leave everything up to the doctor . If you are lucky enough to find a good doctor who follows good global practices and provides photos routinely and proactively to all his patients, you will be fine. But what happens if you end up in a bad IVF Clinic ? The tragedy is the number of bad clinics far outweighs the number of good ones !

The reason these IVF doctors refuse to provide photos is because they know they are not capable of producing good quality embryos , and they want to hide this fact from their patients. The loser in this situation is the patient , and this can be an expensive error to make !

When I suggest to patients that they should have been more proactive , they get upset ! Isn’t that the doctor’s job ? Why should a patient have to worry about all these technical details ? We are qualified to understand all this ! Isn’t that what we are paying the doctor for ?

 Yes, in a perfect world that would be true , but the reality is you can't assume that every doctor is competent! There is too much at stake for you to take short cuts !

 Other patients say – the doctor didn’t give us any photos , but said it was a Grade A embryo.

Just saying that it's a Grade A embryo means nothing – after all, talk is cheap ! This is why it's so important that embryo photographs be provided , and in a good clinic , doctors take pride in producing good embryos, and providing photographs as well, because they want to share this documentation with their patients – it provides them with confidence that they've received high quality medical care .

The fact that the patient did not get photos is a Red Flag , and suggests that the care provided wasn't good . Some patients say – But the doctor showed us the embryo on the screen – and we saw it was good. This is a Red Flag too ! If he could show you the embryo on the screen , then why couldn't he take a photograph of the embryo and give that to you ? After all, patients can’t understand how to assess the quality of an embryo by seeing it for a few seconds on a computer monitor !

And while it's true that I don't know how good or bad every IVF clinic is , a useful rule of thumb is to assume that if the IVF clinic doesn't provide photographs , it is not a good Clinic 

 

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Why do doctors continue transferring more than one embryo ? The danger of IVF twin pregnancies

It's well known that the risk of prematurity is higher in a multiple pregnancy - and this is true for twin pregnancies as well . The problem with premature births is that many of these babies end up having lifelong health problems because of their prematurity. They spend weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ( NICU) – which can be very expensive , and very stressful for the parents as well . And many of them end up with medical problems which plague them all their life, such as ROP – retinopathy of prematurity.

This is why all good clinics all over the world will do only single embryo transfers ( SET) .

While it's true that transferring more embryos at one time does bump up the chances of getting pregnant in that cycle , the risk is definitely not worth it .

It makes much more sense to transfer only a single blast at a time, and freeze the extra blastocysts, so that they can be transferred in the next cycle, in case the fresh cycle fails.

This way, you are actually increasing your chances of getting pregnant by putting one embryo at a time, rather than bunging them all in at one shot .

This problem becomes exacerbated when cowboy doctors transfer 3 embryos, because if all 3 implant, then you send up with a triplet pregnancy . The doctor is then forced to do a selective fetal reduction , which often results in a mid- trimester miscarriage , because of the dead fetal tissue left in the uterus. This means that even though the doctor is happy the patient got pregnant, and counts the pregnancy as a success, for the poor patient , her happiness is very short-lived.

The take-home baby rate for that particular patient is zero , because they don't have any baby to take home ! And even if you don’t miscarry, you still have a high risk of having a premature birth – which means you will have babies to take home , but they may be mentally handicapped because of their prematurity – and that does not help you either !

It's well known that the risk of prematurity is higher in a multiple pregnancy - and this is true for twin pregnancies as well . The problem with premature births is that many of these babies end up having lifelong health problems because of their prematurity. They spend weeks in the Neonatal Intensi nit ve Care Unit ( NICU) – which can be very expensive , and very stressful for the parents as well . And many of them end up with medical problems which plague them all their life, such as ROP – retinopathy of prematurity.

I think the real reason these IVF clinics transfer more than one embryo is because they know their embryo implantation rates aren't good and to compensate for this , they transfer more than one embryo. 

This means that it's the doctor who gets all the rewards , and the patient who takes all the risks ! You need to push back if a doctor's tell you to transfer more than one embryo . This is definitely not in your best interests, and is not in line with global best practices either .

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Do not allow your IVF doctor to do a Day 3 or Day 2 transfer for you



Many IVF clinics advise their patients to transfer Day 3 ( and even Day 2) embryos back into the uterus . This is especially when they don't have too many embryos , or the embryo quality isn't good , but other terrible reasons are the fact that the “specialist IVF doctor from Mumbai” as to go back in 2 days, and can’t wait to do a Day 5 transfer for you !

The justification ( excuse would be a better word) is that it's better to put the embryo back into the uterus , which provides a “more natural environment” , so it can continue to grow , rather than to keep it in the lab incubator.

Actually, this is a confession of the fact that they know that their IVF lab culture conditions aren’t good , and they don't have enough confidence in their embryologist’s  skills to be able to culture all embryos routinely to blastocysts.

This is why they persuade patients into taking a shortcut and bung the embryos back into the uterus . This way, if the cycle fails, they can blame “ embryo implantation “, rather than take responsibility for the fact that their lab is not good enough to create blastocysts routinely.

 If the lab can’t create good quality blastocysts, the reality is they most probably can’t create good Day 3 embryos either, and their implantation rate is likely to be poor.

However, by transferring them early on Day 3, they can shift the blame for the failure onto the patient , and cover up their incompetence.

 Remember that the right place for a day 3 embryo is not the uterus ! In real life , a day 3 embryo belongs in the fallopian tube which is where it spends about 3- 4 days , before being transported into the uterus . This means, for fertile couples, the embryo has become a day 5 blastocyst before entering the uterus . The right place for a day 3 embryo is either a good IVF lottery , which can create optimized  culture conditions for it to become a blastocyst, or  the fallopian tube – it is definitely not the uterus !

 Please don't allow doctors to take shortcuts by transferring Day 3 embryos , because this reduces your chances of success. And when the cycle fails, they will blame you for the failure, rather than accept responsibility that they didn't do a very good job , because they didn't have the required expertise or experience to grow your embryos to Day 5

 

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The problem with travelling embryologists and why this compromises IVF care

The outcome of IVF treatment depends on close coordination between the clinical and the IVF embryologist . This is why it's so important that every good IVF clinic has a full-time embryologist , whose responsibility is to make sure that the eggs the doctor gives them are handled with care , so that they become top quality embryos.

Sadly, there is still a shortage of embryologists in this country , most of whom don't have either the experience or the expertise to provide top quality care for your embryos.

The poor IVF patient gets short-changes, but sadly most patients don't even know this , because there is very little openness and transparency in what is happening in the IVF lab, especially with regards to the qualifications and expertise of the embryologist .

This is why many IVF clinics - specially the new ones - still depend on travelling embryologists to be able to offer IVF treatment.

Now while some of these embryologists have a lot of expertise , the problem is they are always rushing and in a hurry. They are so busy travelling from one city to another , they can only spend 1 or 2 days in one IVF clinic. Now this is great for them , because they can make much more money , but this is not great for the patient . For one thing, the risk of errors happening increases when you treat too many patients at one time by squeezing them all together in 1-2 days. When 5 egg collections are being done in one day, there is a real risk that eggs, sperm and embryos will get mixed up – and the poor patient will never know the truth until it’s too late.

Also, when there are so many patients to treat and so many eggs to fertilise, the embryologist is not able to spend enough time on each patient to be able to do full justice to them. Thus, these clinics are often not able to freeze embryos, because the senior embryologist has gone off to another city, and the junior embryologist left behind is not able to freeze embryos well, as a result of which many of these frozen embryos will die when thawed.

This is why patients continue to get suboptimal quality medical care in most IVFclinics .

It’s high time the government regulated this , and insisted that every IVF clinic should have an experienced IVF specialist as well as a full-time experienced IVF embryologist .

It’s only when they work together that IVF success rates will be good, because the IVF lab is the heart of IVF treatment

 

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

The problem with satellite IVF clinics and travelling IVF doctors



 Many IVF clinics have setup branches known as satellite clinics in different cities , in order to take advantage of the fact that they have an established brand name . Of course, the fact that they get this brand name because they spend so much money on advertising , and by giving kickbacks for referrals is something which most patients are blissfully unaware about.

 They need to increase the volume of work they do and maximize the number of IVF cycles they perform, because they need a return on investment on their advertising budget , and they need to increase the amount of money they give as kickback because competition in the IVF field is getting increasingly intense , as local IVF clinics start competing with out of town IVF specialist.

 The attraction of these satellite clinics is this “ brand name “ , famous IVF doctor from a large city like Mumbai is going to travel all the way to your town in order to treat you.

Because the doctor has bought a brand name , a lot of patients get tempted into taking treatment, because it’s so much cheaper than having to travel to Mumbai to take treatment from him.

 The tragedy is they don’t realise they are getting short-change . IVF treatment requires close monitoring and careful attention, so it can be tweaked to optimize your ovarian response. When doctors try to this remotely, it’s can’t be done efficiently and effectively , and these satellite clinics are forced to take shortcuts , because they want to maximize their quantity – not their quality.

These brand name doctors depend on assistants and juniors , who more often than not don't have any idea about what's happening , because they just follow the cook-book protocols laid down by the senior doctor.

 This is why the poor patients who pay an arm and a leg for the privilege of being treated by the famous doctor never actually see him – because he is too busy treating patients in his other satellite clinics . His job is done by a locum or another junior, and patients naturally feel cheated when this happens, but because they have paid all their treatment fees, they are helpless, and can’t do anything about this.

Unless patients become more assertive , and start demanding more personalized and customised care because they are paying so much money for this, this sad state of affairs is going to continue, because IVF doctors know they can get away with it .

Their incentive is to maximize their profits by doing the largest number of cycles , rather than try to help each individual patient get pregnant .

This misalignment of incentives is one of the reasons why IVF care in India leaves so much to be desired.

If you want personalised attention from an expert, experienced IVF specialist, then come to Malpani IVF Clinic . We don't employ any assistants, and Dr Anjali and I take care of you personally ourselves 

 

Monday, February 22, 2021

Why don’t all IVF clinics do only blastocyst transfers routinely for all their IVF patients ?



 It has been well documented that the implantation rate with blastocysts is better than with Day 3 embryos.

This is common sense , because a day 3 embryo needs to become a blastocyst before it can implant , and this is why it’s better to grow it in the IVF lab and wait till it becomes a blastocyst before transferring it in the uterus .

The problem with doing a day 3 embryo is it's impossible to predict which Day 3 embryo is going to become a blastocyst, as a result of which a lot of doctors will transfer many day 3 embryos at one time, to maximize the chances of achieving a pregnancy. The problem is that this strategy increases the risk of having a multiple pregnancy . As a result, the neonatal complication rate is much higher , because of the chances of premature labour increase considerably.

 It’s much better to allow the embryos to compete amongst themselves , by culturing them in vitro to day 5 in the lab , so that the embryologist can select the best quality blastocyst, and then transfer only this single blastocyst, and freeze the rest .

Not only does this increase the success rates in the fresh cycle , it also increases the pregnancy rates for the future , because we can then transfer the frozen blastocysts, one at a time.

 Blastocyst transfer is now completely routine in all good IVF clinics, because the technology is so well-established and proven.

This is why it upsets me that doctors continued to do Day 3 transfers.

They take advantage of the patient’s ignorance, and exploit this.

This is either because the doctor knows their lab is not good enough to be able to grow embryos to Day 5, and they want to take shortcuts, so they can then blame the IVF failure to “failed implantation”, rather than a poor-quality lab !

Please insist on a Day 5 transfer, even if you have only 2-3 eggs. Doctors are worried whether they will be able to culture these eggs to Day 5, and will bulldoze the patient into transferring it earlier , but if the doctor is not confident that the lab that is capable of growing a good embryo into a good blastocyst, then perhaps he shouldn't be doing IVF in the first place .

 This is why you should not allow doctors to take you for a ride . Please ask questions proactively, and demand answers, so you don’t get cheated by unscrupulous doctors.

 

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Doctor, my HCG level is 120 mIU/ml. Does this confirm my pregnancy is healthy ?

 


One of  the commonest questions which patients ask me is about their HCG level .

Doctor, my HCG level is 120 mIU/ml. Does this confirm my pregnancy is healthy ?

 Now you cannot determine whether the pregnancy is healthy or not based on a single HCG level. We need to measure at least two HCG levels , 2-3 days apart, to see whether it's doubling well or not . If it’s doubling, this is a good sign , which means the embryonic cells are growing well.

However, even this does not tell us if the pregnancy is viable or not, because the HCG is produced by that part of the embryo which is called the trophectoderm , which becomes the future placenta. The baby , on the other hand, develops from the cells of the inner cell mass, which means even if the HCG levels are doubling well , this doesn't necessarily mean that the baby is developing normally.

 This is why it’s so important to understand the limitations of all this testing, and not to get too excited with the results.

Remember that when we test for the health of an IVF pregnancy, we need to measure both the HCG levels, as well as do an ultrasound scan. These are complementary, and need to be interpreted together.

In an early pregnancy, when the HCG level is less than 1000 mIU/ml, there is no point in doing an ultrasound scan , because the pregnancy is too small to be seen on an ultrasound scan.

Once the HCG crosses 1000 mIU/ml, then the scan provides much more information about the viability of the pregnancy.

 Yes, I know this can be a little complex and intimidating , but if you know when and why we do these tests, you will have a much easier time interpreting these results . It’s never enough to leave everything up to your doctor

 

Friday, February 12, 2021

How IVF clinics create work for themselves by issuing incorrect and misleading semen analysis report

 


Since about 10 to 15% of married couples are infertile, one would think that IVF clinics would be quite busy treating infertile couples. However, the truth is that because there is so much competition , and because IVF treatment is so expensive , these IVF clinics are very busy competing for the same set of patients .

One slimy strategy a notorious chain of corporate IVF clinics has done is to make patients infertile, by issuing a false semen analysis report, which no one can challenge. Here’s how they scam patients.

They report every sperm sample they analyse as having teratozoospermia (abnormal spermmorphology) ! There is no documentation  and no evidence , because they don’t provide a stained slide of the abnormal sperm – it’s just a computerized printout. Their racket is to claim that nearly every man who comes to them has less than 4% normal sperms. This high percentage of abnormal sperm morphology is diagnosed as teratozoospermia . The patient is told this is the reason for their infertility , and they need IVF/ICSI treatment to have a baby.

The truth is that checking for sperm morphology properly is a very complex test , and most lab technicians are not capable of doing it properly .

This is why they report everyone as having teratozoospermia, so they can do IVF/ICSI for every couple who comes to them.

This is why it’s so important for patients to be well informed , so they can protect themselves from these rapacious predatory IVF clinics .

If any lab claims you have teratozoospermia, ,insist that they give you the stained slide, so you can get a second opinion from another lab !

 

Thursday, February 11, 2021

IVF patients need to learn to be proactive in their IVF treatment

 


When you do IVF, you don’t need to become an IVF expert , but it does mean that you should know enough about IVF to be able to differentiate between a good IVF doctor and a bad IVF doctor , so you don't allow bad IVF doctors to take you for a ride .

Before you sign up for an IVF cycle, please interview the doctor and ask questions !

You need to do your homework as well, so you can assess whether his answers fit in with global best practices  , or if he is advising treatment which is completely contrary to what evidence based medicine guidelines suggest . This means that he may be taking you for a ride .

It also shows whether or not he is willing to share information with you. Is he patient ? Does he take time to explain ? Is he kind and empathetic ? Or does he get irritated ? Is he in a rush ?

Finally, this gives you a chance to assess the chemistry between you and the doctor .

Not every patient is going to like every doctor , and you need to find someone whom you are comfortable with .

Not all doctors are created equal , and this is specially true for IVF, where any gynecologist can call themselves an IVF specialist, even if they have no special expertise or experience in doing IVF.

You cannot afford to leave everything up to the doctor – no matter how posh his clinic, or how highly he has been recommended !

You need to take an intelligent interest in your treatment,  so that no matter what the final outcome is, you have peace of mind that you received world-class medical care

 

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Can you trust your IVF doctor ?

 



The bedrock of a healthy doctor-patient relationship is trust , which is why it’s so important that you be able to trust your doctor .

The tragedy is that not all IVF doctors are trustworthy .

It’s important that your doctor works to earn your trust – and equally important that you verify that you're giving your trust to a doctor who deserve it !

If you trust a bad doctor , you will get into serious trouble , and reduce your chances of getting pregnant dramatically.

This is why good IVF doctors are open , answerable , accountable and transparent , because they know they need to work to own your trust – they cannot take this for granted.

They spend time talking with you, and proactively answering all your questions .

They share the treatment plan in writing, so you know exactly what to expect, what’s going to happen during your IVF cycle.

They carefully explain how your follicles are growing during your scans, and interpret your blood test results for you during the superovulation .

They also make it a point to share your embryo photos with you.

This is tangible evidence that the doctor has done a good job with your IVF treatment .

This documentation is what inspires trust in the patient .

If a doctor doesn't do this routinely and proactively, then you should worry why he is not following global good practices .

Maybe he doesn’t deserve to be trusted !

Don’t fritter away your valuable trust on the wrong doctor and burn your fingers – and your money !

 

Tuesday, February 09, 2021

How to find the best IVF doctor - a guide for IVF patients

 


One of the commonest questions patients ask me is - Doctor , we can't come to Mumbai for our IVF treatment , so can you suggest which doctor we can go to in our home town ?

I wish I could do that , but the problem is I don't know all the doctors all over the world . I can't be sure how good or bad an individual doctor is , and it’s very hard to vouch for someone else's professional competence and character.

I tell patients to use the following method to find the right doctor. This is basically a two-pronged approach , based on both medical skills and the chemistry between the doctor and you.

The first question is simple – ask, do you do blastocyst transfers for all your patients, and do you provide embryo photos routinely to all your patients. You can get this information either by sending an email to the clinic , or by picking up the phone and talking to the receptionist.

This is a basic question every IVF clinic should be able to answer . If they try to avoid answering this, that in itself is a Red flag , which means they really don't know what they're doing .

If the answer to both these question is yes, your next step is to take an appointment and go see the doctor . This is when you find out if the doctor inspires trust . Is he respectful , and is he willing to take the time to answer all your questions . Or is he more interested in seeing as many patients as possible , in order to maximize his revenue ?

The chemistry between the doctor and you needs to be right . The doctor needs to be willing to work to earn your trust , and you need to make sure that he is worthy of giving it to him . This is a two-way street .

You need to invest time and energy to find the right doctor , because this is the single decision which can make the biggest difference as to whether or not you will succeed in your quest for having a baby through IVF .

 

Friday, February 05, 2021

Malpani Baby Making Kit - DIY Self Insemination

The two questions you need to ask to find the right IVF doctor for your IVF treatment without spending any money !


 

One of the commonest questions patients ask me is - Doctor , we can't come to Mumbai for our IVF treatment , so can you suggest which doctor we can go to in our home town ?

I wish I could do that , but the problem is I don't know all the doctors all over the world . I can't be sure how good or bad an individual doctor is , and it’s very hard to vouch for someone else's professional competence and character.

I tell patients to use the following method to find the right doctor. This is basically a two-pronged approach , based on both the doctor's medical skills ; and the chemistry between the doctor and you.

The two questions are simple . 

1. Do you do blastocyst transfers for all your patients ?

2. Do you provide embryo photos routinely to all your patients ?

You can get this information either by sending an email to the clinic , or by picking up the phone and talking to the receptionist. There's no need to spend time and money actually going to the clinic to find this out.

This is a basic question every IVF clinic should be able to answer . If they try to avoid answering this, that in itself is a Red Flag , which means they really don't know what they're doing .

If the answer to both these question is yes, your next step is to take an appointment and go see the doctor . This is when you find out if the doctor inspires trust . Is he respectful , and is he willing to take the time to answer all your questions . Or is he more interested in seeing as many patients as possible , in order to maximize his revenue ?

The chemistry between the doctor and you needs to be right . The doctor needs to be willing to work to earn your trust , and you need to make sure that he is worthy of giving it to him . This is a two-way street .

You need to invest time and energy to find the right doctor , because this is the single decision which can make the biggest difference as to whether or not you will succeed in your quest for having a baby through IVF .

 

IVF Video - Failed IVF Cycle? | How many IVF Cycles should I do? |

Wednesday, February 03, 2021

Don't allow your IVF doctor to cheat you !

 


Please do not allow your doctor to take you for a ride

In a perfect world , every IVF doctor would be competent, skills and caring.

He would be honest with his patients, and share information transparently, because he took pride in being accountable and answerable .

This is what the Government hopes to achieve by passing the Law regulating ART and registering IVF clinic, but the reality is that no matter what the government does , there will always be a few bad apples amongst IVF doctors, and these bad actors will give all IVF clinics a bad name .

They will take patients for a ride , and harm the doctor-patient relationship because patients will stop trusting doctors.

While it’s great that the government wants to regulate IVF clinics , I think it's far more important that patients learn to differentiate between good clinics and bad clinics .

The best way to do that is to make sure that your are doctor doesn't try to take you for a ride , and this is why you need to be well informed , so that you understand exactly what's involved in IVF treatment , and you can check the doctor is doing what the textbooks recommend !

Please don't allow the doctor to bulldoze you with jargon .

You need a doctor who will give you a treatment plan before starting the cycle , so you know exactly what to expect . The doctor needs to stick to the treatment plan , so there aren’t any surprises. And if there are deviations , he should explain this .

Every good doctor will give you photographs of your embryos proactively and routinely - even without your asking for them , so that you can know that you have received the best possible medical care , and the procedure has been done properly .

The only way to make sure that you don’t end up in a clinic is to proactively asking all these difficult questions . If the doctor takes offence , that in itself is a Red Flag , because any good doctor actually wants patients to understand what they're doing , and why they are doing .

Good doctors take pride in providing high quality medical care, and patients need to be well-informed in order to appreciate this !

However, if the doctor stonewalls, and is no willing to share information with you, this in itself should tell you that you need to change your doctor !

 

Pain-free IVF at Malpani IVF clinic. IVF Patient Education Video

 

IVF patient education video - Does your IVF doctor gives cuts to get IVF referrals from GPs and gynecologists ?


 

Why IVF does not cause you to put on weight - IVF video


 

Tuesday, February 02, 2021

Does your IVF doctor give cuts and kickbacks to get referrals ?



 In an ideal world , your family physician or gynecologist would refer you to the best IVF clinic – one which provides the best possible medical care , to maximize your chances of getting pregnant . Unfortunately , this is not an ideal world and the fact remains that the medical profession has been riddled with corruption .

This is especially true for expensive high ticket items such as IVF , and many IVF clinics routinely provide a kickback (a referral fee or commission ) to gynecologists and family physicians who refer IVF patients to them .

This corruption has become embedded systemically , specially with the introduction of Corporate IVF Clinic Chains, across the country , whose major focus is on numbers , and maximizing their revenue . The easiest way to get more patients is by incentivizing doctors to refer patients to them , by giving them a commission . This is justified as being the cost of doing business , and rationalized  as the cost of customer acquisition .

This maybe great for the referring doctor and the IVF clinic , because helps them earn more money , it’s not good for you as a patient .

Since all this is done under the table , it is very hard for you to know if the doctor who is referring you to a particular IVF clinic is doing it because it's the best clinic , or is getting a referral fee to do so.

While there is no simple answer , if any IVF clinic asks for payment in cash , this should be a Red Flag . Asking for money in cash is illegal , but sadly this is still something many IVF clinics do routinely, because they want to hide the income they report to the income tax officers .

We can promise you that none of the money you spend on treatment at our clinic will ever be siphoned off to and given to a doctor , because we don't give any kickbacks – plain and simple,

We believe in putting patients first, because we believe our responsibility is to you - to get you pregnant as soon as possible, rather than to help the doctor who referred you to make more money .

-           

Monday, February 01, 2021

Why IVF does not cause you to put on weight !

 


One of the most prevalent myths about IVF is that it causes women to put on weight .

This is a myth which needs to be busted .

Putting on weight is a mathematical equation , and occurs when caloric intake is more than caloric expenditure . After all, the additional weight can’t come from thin air !

Now,  IVF treatment doesn't increase your calorie intake , or reduce your caloric expenditure and therefore it’s clear that it can’t make you put on weight .

However, what often happens is that women tend to put themselves on bed rest during their IVF treatment . This is because they think that this will help to increase the chances of the embryo implanting – or this is what their doctors and family members have advised them to do.

Now, if you curtail your physical activity, you will put on weight – but it’s not fair to blame the IVF for the weight gain .

Also, during IVF treatment , there is a certain degree of fluid retention , because of the hormonal injections we give you. However, when we stop the injections, these hormones get excreted in the urine , so the fluid also gets excreted, and your body weight goes back to normal.

Please stop getting misled by all these old wives tales .

If you understand the scientific basis behind IVF treatment , you will not worry about this anymore !

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