New NHS guidelines on IVF treatment to extend age limit up to 42 - what do you think?

I think it is astonishing that there is a sense of infinite resources with respect to this issue, yet there is such a firm (mistaken, in my view) general belief that other cuts are necessary.

Housing benefit, DLA, etc - all of these things are for people who struggle to get by without them - children are an enhancement to life. I don't get it, I am very surprised to see this.

I think geographical disparities between treatment available are very unfair, but I struggle to see why this is something that is more deserving of public funds than other things.

I also struggle to see why "medical" childlessness is seen to trump everything else, in some quasi-moral way. I also struggle with the fact that, for women, the having-babies thing occupies such a high ground. There are many sorts of legitimate emotional pain and practical and physical difficulties which people in general can suffer; no one gives a shit if I can't get a decent job or have crippling depression, but when I was struggling physically in pregnancy, strangers moved heaven and earth to help me (bless them). I am so grateful for my children and so grateful for the general public recognition of what a massive thing it is to bear children and look after small children, but you know, if you have had depression, it is not the hardest thing in the world, and I don't get why not-having-them should be seen - for women - as the worst thing in the world.

I don't agree Enjoy. Many many women like I do support our children entirely alone and cost the state not a penny. Many many women work hard to fund IVF treatment.

Anyway this is all about Cameron having made a huge mess of the female vote and losing it never mind the tiny number of women in cabinet posts. Unless he does a lot more for women (and £1k a year childcare tax relief when childcare costs £25k a year full time is no help) he will not get re-elected.

This is going to get lost.

I'm very torn on this issue i'm afraid and i don't think my response will be popular. I don't want to offend anyone and this is just my own experiences and views.

I know exactly what it's like to go though the absolute pain and dispare of infertility (albeit at the age of 23). I'm luckily now pregnant with our second and last child. I'm so grateful that i found the person that i wanted to have children with at a fairly young age and we made various sacrifices so that we could have them in our 20s as i knew that i didn't want children past 30.

I also know what it's like to have older parents. My mother was in her 40s when she had me (not by IVF), my dad was 7 years older than her. My mum died when i was 13 and i barely remember her and my dad is now 68 and i'm facing the very real possibility that within the next 10 years, i'm probably going to have to take on a major role in looking after him. I'm in my mid 20s, so this is actually quite a scary thought for me. I so so desperately wish that my parents had been younger when they had me, i really do. I also have a friend who's the same age as me who is in a similar situation. He really struggled through university as his father was already retired by that time and couldn't offer any significant financial support.

I'm honestly not sure our parents fully thought this through when they decided to have us and if they did.... well... it was a really half baked idea!

I'm very much an 'each to their own' kind of person and support every woman's decision to be a parent (so in that respect, i think the new NHS guidelines give people a greater chance of achieving this and they are right to do so), but i just think that people shouldn't necessarily take up the offer of IVF at the age of 42 as i'm just not convinced that they fully take into account the true consequences of being an older parent.

For those disagreeing with the extended age range (I'm in two minds about this myself) - what about the other new suggestion, that referral for IVF should come after two rather than three years of unsuccessful TTC?

I thnk shorter referral times will have a far greater impact anyway, to be honest. I would have loved to be referred this time last year instead of now.

Tell you one thing. If I'd had children in my "peak" years with the man I was with in my twenties, my children and I would be costing the State a damn site more in benefits than a couple of rounds of IVF in my 30s with my devoted DH.

My ex husbands wife was turned down for IVF. My ex got cancer and froze his sperm before chemo but they won't allow her to have IVF because she is a step mum to three of my children.

I would love to see that change. I do think we are lucky to have IVF on the NHS but I don't think she is less worthy of getting a chance because she has step children.

I don't agree with extending it, sorry. Like others have said in times when the NHS can't fund life saving cancer treatments I think its a poor choice to fund this over such stuff.

If people have got past their mid/late 30s without trying for a child then they've left it too late through their choice. If they haven't left it too late then they'll have had IVF before the age of 39. If anything I think the age should be lowered. Its not like there's not enough publicity about how hard it can be to get pregnant the longer you leave it.

Adoption isn't always a solution either. You have to wait a year after fertility treatment to apply, and if, as in many cases where IVF is a last resort, you're anywhere near the age of 40, then you won't be able to adopt a baby but will only be "allowed" an older child who has probably already been damaged by the care system and will therefore require a huge amount of attention, understanding and specialist care. (I speak from experience here.) Once I found out that we were too old to adopt a baby, and having close personal experience of how challenging damaged children can be, I knew that adoption was not a path open to us.

We are supposedly in a time of huge economic need with vastly stretched resources. There may be a case for saying no fertility treatment of anyone on the NHS, but not this latest move. However I would support any change which means the rules are absolutely identical including over prescription charges wherever you live even in Scotland and Wales.

I will get slated for my opinion but i don't think they should increase it, theres a reason your fertility decreases with age its well known that you have increased risks for you and baby as you get older. The nhs isnt for people who left it too late imho but then i also resent it being used for drug addicts, alcoholics and those who have conditions through smoking

I do not feel entitled to have children, but I do think I am entitled as the next person to the chance to have children.

That's a good way of putting it, Little.

I don't understand the viewpoint held by some people here that infertility - whatever the reason - is not an "illness" and should therefore not be NHS funded.

Pregnancy and childbirth (for example) are themselves not "illnesses" yet it is expected and accepted by the vast majority of people that scans, tests and giving birth are provided for by the NHS in the majority of cases.

As it should be, of course. But equally then, so should fertility treatment, certainly up to an age where it is still perfectly possible to have children 'naturally' - my own Auntie was conceived naturally when my Gran was 42. I therefore think the new guidelines are a good thing.

I do not feel entitled to have children, but I do think I am entitled as the next person to the chance to have children.

And for what it's worth, had I had kids with the person I was with for most of my 20s (and so supposedly at my most fertile) I would have ended up bringing them into a hugely unsuitable relationship, struggling financially, and those poor hypothetical kids would have had a god-awful father.

Would that have been better? 'Cost' the country less?

I think entitlement could be right tho. I mean everybody has the right to lead a full, satisfying and happy life. That is a right we are entitled to otherwise just what is the point to it all??

So if having children be it naturally, through ivf, surrogacy or adoption etc is part of havin said fulfilled life then surely that makes it an entitlement and rightly so?

What redtoothbrush said.

The whole area of rights and entitlement is so very difficult anyway isn't it ?

The American constitution famously came up with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

I'd find it difficult to say what I felt I had a right to, especially health wise. But I think having a health service free at the point of need is something I'd want to safeguard in this country.

I think it's quite right that that should include some treatment for those suffering with infertility, which could so easily have been me.

Good luck to those for whom this might offer some further hope.

Being a mother and being a woman are still somehow connected in the mindset of many and in our society as a whole.

To be unable to be a mother, is often accompanied by a deep feeling of somehow being less of a woman. Its not true, but you've still grown up with the sense of expectation placed on your shoulders. And particularly once your friends start having children, the questions start being asked about when - not if - you will have children. People can not understand the desire not to have children. People who express this opinion are often looked at and treated with suspicion or patronisingly told they will change their mind and that their body clock with go off etc, etc.

Its not entitlement. Its what is expected of you on top of your own desires. So to have the ability to conceive naturally taken away from you and then have the double blow of having IVF as an option also taken away from you by the same society that places this expectation and demand on you is just cruel. Especially since it is something that you can not help and is not a choice, when so many health related illnesses out there are lifestyle choices.

I think these double standards within our society are both blinkered and unhelpful. Its, why I deeply dispute the word 'entitled' in this context.

Indeed, Northey - the variety of care across the country is baffling.

FairyJen - I think you're right, adoption is often (usually?) seen as a last resort. I know DH and I wouldn't choose to adopt as a first choice, but we probably will if IVF fails. That's probably because of the biological drive - I can't get away from the all-consuming need to conceive a child with DH, and raise that child with him. I honestly don't know how closely adoption compares, though I believe that adoption (parictularly as a first choice) is staggeringly altruistic.

I completely agree, curry. My clinic takes NHS referrals from three neighbouring PCTs. I get one NHS cycle. The woman in the stirrups five minutes later gets three. I know different areas have different funding priorities, but this is all SE England and I really don't believe the demographics of these two areas are so different as to warrant that.

Since Df had her DS at almost 43 and DH and his DSIS were born either side of their mums 40th that seems very reasonable to me.

DMIL was the best advert for having your DC late in life you could possibly meet, she died suddenly at 77, still riding every week and still able to stick on her walking boots and stride up hills I'd rather walk round.

I dont understand why people say having chidren isnt a right,of course it is,and if you cant do it naturally for whatever reason then you should be able to get help with that,on the nhs.

stella may I ask why you chose adoption rarer than another option? Was it an issue with the ivf process or just personal choice? I only ask as I think many people see adoption as a last resort iykwim and a lot of children fester in foster care because of this. I do wander if this figure will actually go up now older women can get ivf via the nhs.

I think that it is far more important that the treatment available is nationally, realistically consistent; and that it is not waited for for too long; than what the guidelines actually are (within reason).

and actually, without wanting to be flippant, nobody has any idea what is painful to me or what makes me feel like a failure, any more than vice versa.

Byway back to the original point - good news, in theory. In practice...remains to be seen, but unlikely to be particularly widely implemented given current financial situation of the NHS.

Right, stella, so when you were going through the adoption process, did you have a "sense of entitlement" to have a child?

SteIIa - You said:
'This is another one of those "entitlement" issues isn't it? Women feel they are "entitled" to be mothers. Well we're not. Some of us do and some of us don't.'

Hoping to avoid another deletion - I find that to be an upsetting perspective on infertility, and on the processes that many women have to go through to become a mother. Because it's not about 'entitlement' at all - 'entitlement' to treatment or to being a mother.

It's about, as was very eloquently said above, a deep, biological urge, that can be life consuming, life destroying and life devastating - in process and outcome.

I am incredibly lucky to have DS, after years and years and years of painful, invasive and very unpleasant treatments. I'm incredibly lucky in lots of other areas too, in having a lovely DH for example. There's very little I feel 'entitled' to (bar the occasional toilet break at work!) - being a mother was never something I felt 'entitled' to be. It was something I desperately craved being.