Protect Your Fertility
February 16, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Health
One of the things I worried about before launching Babylune was the threat of criticism. In particular, I worried about being called selfish by insisting that mothers take the time to take care of themselves. The fact that I also acknowledge that we take care of everyone else, I believed, was sure to go unnoticed.
One of the reasons women have to take care of themselves, especially in the months after giving birth, is to protect their future fertility and the health of other children they may bear. Infection, anemia, and other threats to a woman’s health in the post partum period can have lasting consequences of which future infertility is but one.
While medical science can certainly address infertility some of the time, it is a process rife with ethical and physiological concerns for both parents and children.
“For us — along with at least 10 percent of American couples — fertility is not a miracle, it’s a market,” says writer Lynn Harris as an introduction to her Salon interview with Debora Spar, author of “Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.”
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/02/09/spar/
Harris quotes Spar’s book: “Advances in reproductive medicine have indeed created a market for babies, a market in which parents choose traits, clinics woo clients, and specialized providers earn millions of dollars a year. Eggs are being sold; sperm is being sold; wombs and genes and orphans are being sold; and many individuals are profiting handsomely in the process.”
You will have to watch an advertisement to access Harris’ piece, but it is definitely worth the time.
‘I worried about being called selfish by insisting that mothers take the time to take care of themselves’…
…Wow! Your worry is a revelation to me! I think it is absolutely great that you point out the need for new mothers to take care of themselves!
I think of it as protecting your sanity – to me the fertility part is secondary!!
Okay, I tried to read the article, I really did. But I can’t stomach it. Any implication, even tongue-in-cheek, that I “bought” my first daughter through fertility treatments is offensive and detracts from the amazing amount of heartache and emotional and physical hardship I had to go through during fertility surgery and treatment. I ddn’t choose my baby’s traits, I wasn’t wooed by any clinics, I didn’t buy any eggs or sperm. Yes there needs to be discussion of these issues, particularly mandatory insurance coverage, but it needs to be done with sensitivity and with an understanding of what fertility treatment entails.
The suggestion that the number of embryos a person should be allowed to create and implant should be limited because the cost of multiples gets passed on to society is ridiculous. Are you going to limit the number of children a mother on welfare can have, because that places a burden on society too? Do we really want the government to get involved in that way? Doctors need to be better about educating patients about the risks of multiples, and there should be industry guidelines. But government regulations? No!
Excellent point Susan, but do you think there are charlatans in the fertility field who sell false hopes to parents? What kind of regulation do you think the field needs based on your experiences?
There are always going to be charlatans, in all fields.
It helps that the success rates of all clinics are published. It helps that fertility treatment is self-limiting (people are only willing to put themselves through so much, are only willing to risk so much for a baby). I think there should be guidelines drawn up by the ASRM (American Society of Reproductive Medicine?) and similar organizations that give guidelines to physicians and patients. For example, in my opinion one guideline should be that if a woman has five follicles (meaning perhaps she will ovulate five eggs that cycle) she should either cancel the intrauterine insemination due to the risk of multiples, or the cycle should be converted to IVF so the number of embryos created could be controlled. But I don’t think the government should mandate that decision.