Anyone tried Natural Ivf?

[lugo40]

Hi, we need Ivf but I'm very nervous about the effects of the unregulated dosages of the drugs used. I have researched natural Ivf, uses no drugs, so lower success rate as only one egg at a time but it's got lower risk of premature birth and lower links to ovarian and breast cancer. Has anyone had this?

Sorry, have no experience of this but been wondering the same thing myself. Hopefully we can get some answers here.

Yes, but it's tricky because you need to time it just right so it works best if you have very regular cycles. Also, chances are lower because you only get one egg so it's not great if there is a sperm problem. It's so much easier not having to use the drugs though and means you can run cycles back to back.

My clinic claim success rates of 10% per cycle so not great and they're quite choosy about who they let do it so I suspect rates would be much lower if they allowed everyone to try it. Because of no drugs though you can try many more cycles so cumulatively there might be the same success rate of you know what I mean.

Are you at create clinic jscksonyellow?

I'm interested to know if it poses same risks to baby or different worse/better than with convention Ivf . It's a total mind field!

No, not create. I'm abroad. It depends what risks you're talking about. Babies born from Ivf feel have slightly higher chance of birth defect but no one knows if that's result of the infertility or the treatment. Some people think it's Icsi that increases risk so with natural ivf that still happens (if you do Icsi) as far as I'm aware there is no proven link between ivf and cancer. Do you know different?
My body doesn't react well to the drugs so that's why I'm trying natural. It is much easier when you don't have to do the drugs, but you do have to accept that chance of it working is lower with each cycle because of fewer eggs.

Isn't the premature birth risk because of multiples and also more likely to have a complicated pregnancy because of other health factors that lead to needing ivf and also mothers needing ivf tend to be older.

There is no proven link to cancer but I've read lots of papers which say there just isn't enough funding to research it properly and it's the only area of medicine that's not regulated so some clinics as a way of keeping success rates high will give high doses of the drugs without any proper research into the long term effects. I figure if the pill can increase chances of cancer then surely the Ivf hormone is likely to. There's also evidence that freezing embryos destroys the gene which helps to prevent cancer. There's no easy decision and important to think there's side effects to anything, like paracetamol. I just want to make sure I have enough information before going forward. I worry that as Ivf is becoming more common its becoming thought of as low risk. As our fertility problem is with my husband I hope natural Ivf would work for us but we would need icsi.

Have you had successful treatment?

I guess ultimately you have to weight the unknown but probably small risk against the reality of not having a child without ivf. I'm not comfortable with all the drugs which is why I prefer natural. If it's a sperm problem then natural might not be the best as it would only give one sperm a chance each cycle with just one egg. We have tried 4 cycles of natural and no success yet. I think we'll try one more and then onto conventional ivf. I'm lucky though in that natural is almost zero cost for us because of our insurance so we could keep trying multiple times.

Yes, me.

I was undergoing IVF on drugs for decades. Conceived once but MC'd.

After that I swore I wasnt going to put my body through any more drugs.

I had one last shot at it. It really was "last chance saloon".

I was blacking out from "prolonged hormonal induced migraine" due to the side effects of the drugs, I lost my jobs & I was having to inject daily as it was thought at one point I had a blood clot on the brain as I was so poorly.

I went overseas - Spain. Had the scans in the UK then as the lining developed nicely booked the flights & accommodation.

It cost twice the price (£9k & extras for that one last attempt) of a typical UK 'medicated' cycle but I had scans every day for two weeks & was very well looked after.

I would never have a medicated cycle again.

Wishing you the very best in whatever you do

We are early on in the process but I'm definitely planning on exploring this further. I am more comfortable with it than all the drugs

hi OP, I've been with Create for a while
I think you need to discuss with them the difference between what makes a cycle effective vs low risk for your wider health

The low stimulation cycles they use as standard aren't going to raise your risks of cancer etc, and the head of the clinic (professor Nargund - Google her) has written extensively about how Frozen embryo transfers negate the risks of low birth weigh etc. the theory is that if you have high hormone levels, they lead to low birth weight. So create freeze the embryos and wait a month before transferring them.

I think the non-stimulation rounds they do are primarily for women with very low ovarian reserve, and there is no real advantage to this if you aren't in this category. But they do regular open evenings so maybe it is worth weighing up the pros and cons with a consultant?

Thank you. I think when were in a position to proceed we will go along to an open evening with all our results and have a chat.