To think some older women having tax payers funded ivf are hypocrites?

What you “quoted” was only them talking about their individual circumstances though, didn’t see anything targeted at younger mums.

Compared to around £67-88 BILLION for benefits/welfare each year?

Sorry, but the IVF figure is a drop in the ocean in comparison.

Why on earth would I go to the GP about hair loss due to WLI? I'd just stop taking them. And the private doctor I see about them is also a surgeon, so I assume any issues, I'd see him. But given that millions of people take them daily and the only effects for the huge majority are improvements to their health, I'd say I'm actually saving the NHS money. Certainly, I no longer need BP meds, I'm no longer prediabetic, so there'll be no insulin cost.

Not quite the same for IVF.

This post is bonkers! How do you know these women having IVF have insulted and moaned about teens having babies and wasting tax money??

Also the difference is that presumably a 40+ woman has probably paid into the tax system for 20 years or more. A teen is unlikely to have paid any tax when they get pregnant. Also the 40+ woman has likely got a career and savings and so doesn't need accomodation paying for etc.
It's not a very good comparison.

Also IVF isn't only for older women, often it's other fertility issues that can happen at any age. Issues with the mans sperm etc.

Oh well that’s nothing 🙄

I spent the night in a hospital corridor a couple of years ago and it was that bad that I would have to think twice about being admitted again, regardless of the cause.

So about 0.1% of the NHS annual budget.

And actually I’m agreeing with half of your point about IVF.

However it’s possible to disapprove of teen mothers sitting around for five years before they have contributed a penny AND older People having IVF.

So are you a high earner?

I am being clear. The illness should be treated. So you treat someone. Becoming infertile is not in itself an illness, it’s just a consequence.

Plenty of people would either not know or care.

Wanting a baby down the line is a separate issue

Which is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount spent on people who being children into the world naturally in completely wrong circumstances . Your posts are emotional and completely lacking in logic , and attacking a very small number of people . Most of those mums who needed ivf probably never criticised teen mums .

Arguably it’s also wrong to use novel medications that aren’t medically necessary. If you experience hair loss or gall bladder or pancreas complications from wanting to be a bit thinner, shall we assume you will be paying privately for that treatment too?

Where do you draw the line.
Drink too much and fall in the rod, nope no treatment
life time of smoking and get lung cancer no treatment

The pain and desperation is why women (and men) need to be realistic about fertile windows. IVF is not a magic bullet and waiting until your mid 30's is playing russian roullette with your fertility.

Congratulations, you've saved 0.1% of the NHS budget.

There needs to be more focus on who is getting contracts to provide things and on stopping big pharmaceutical companies charging extortionate amounts for life saving medications, rather than taking away medical procedures that can help people physically and mentally.

I agree, and not just IVF. I think there are some tough decisions needed until we can do the essemtials properly.

My personal opinion is that things like IVF, which are not medical in the fact they treat a disease, should not be given on the NHS until the NHS has been sorted out.

I think in all honesty op, that is probably quite a niche group. I'm sorry if you have come up against some of them though.

And when is too late? Bearing in mind we see stories from around the world of women nearly 50 having babies, conceived naturally?

When is it "just too late" and not something affected by something medical? And who gets to decide that?

Its exactly the same as needing help to lose weight. You don't need that help, good for you, you're paying for them for vanity reasons. Great. Having a family is not something people do for vanity.

I thought it was very limited for older Mums (i.e one cycle of IVF) and friends who have been through it all seem to have given up with NHS and gone private anyway.

As already said in the comments, there will be alot of people who start trying when they meet their partner (say thats early/mid 30’s) and try for years before IVF.

I think it would be fairly unusual for a couole to meet in their 20’s and not start trying until late 30’s/40’s for a baby. I imagine the majority of people trying at that age have met their partner later on or already had years of stress trying for a baby.

No, I am fine with paying for them myself. I'm not clinically obese. It would be wrong to get the NHS to pay for treatment that is medically unnecessary. Just like it's wrong for IVF for women who just left it too late to have a baby.

This is such a truly horrible thing to say - ‘if it isn’t happening naturally there is probably a good reason’

I had NHS IVF ICSI in my twenties due to medical issues both sides. It was cheaper for the NHS to give us a cycle than the surgery to fix my medical condition. We then self funded a second round, (by a clinic who wouldn’t have taken us if not for our successful NHS round as on paper we were highly unlikely to be successful, and the private clinics care about their stats), then we won the fertility lottery and our third was conceived naturally.

Three beautiful, incredibly intelligent and tall (ie not genetically ‘defective’) children. No difference between the IVF and natural conception. We have had 25 years of unprotected sex and his is the only natural conception.

The reason we couldn’t have kids naturally was due to a medical defect (me) and childhood cancer (him) which brought our combined likelihood of natural concept to almost nil. There is no ‘higher’ reason.

To the OP: I know plenty of people who have had IVF. I don’t know anyone other than me who had NHS cycles. Most of the women I know were in their late twenties and early thirties. I know only one person who was 40 and she self funded from an inheritance, having been previously unable to afford it (she spent her ten year marriage trying naturally, undergoing tests, trying and failing to qualify for NHS cycles, trying to save for private cycles, then her marriage breaking down which she attributes to the stress of the years of infertility). She had four goes in a year as she was racing the biological clock. She was fourth time lucky :)

The pp had an illness, one of the long term consequences of which is infertility. Do you think only some consequences of illness should warrant treatment? That’s fair enough if you do, but just be clear.

yes but some people need IVF because they need chemo. They shouldn’t have IVF as part of their cancer treatment package if they recover because why?

The NHS funds all sorts of treatments which are not life saving, and are “nice to have”, because good health and wellbeing is not simply the absence of disease and injury. It’s weird to pick out IVF to bin off when it’s such a minute part of NHS spending and the loss of the chance to have a child due to health reasons has such a profound impact on those that experience it.

Nobody is getting "multiple" IVF cycles on the NHS, don't know where you've made that up from. One most likely, two if you're lucky.