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

[JaneGMumsnet]

Good morning,

New IVF guidelines issued by the National Institute of Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) say that women aged up to 42 should be allowed one cycle of IVF treatment so long as it is their first attempt. Previously Nice recommended treatment up to the age of 39.

The guidelines also suggest that all couples who are struggling to conceive should get fertility treatment more quickly ? after two years of trying to conceive naturally, rather than three.

We'd love to hear what you think.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Somewhat off topic, but can I just say that your username makes me smile and sing in my head everyone I see it, rtb :)

Actually, now I think about it, the song might be about a pink and a blue toothbrush. But never mind.

Gosh Xenia. Well done you for making such wise choices. And for finding a man willing to marry so young. If only I'd known it was just hard work that could find me the perfect man.

I think the new guidelines are great. It's been said before, but everyone deserves a chance at least.

Was diagnosed with fertility problems at 18. For many women, if not most, it's fuck all to do with the 'choice' to 'leave it too late'.

As I know there are no rules, right or wrong ways to live your life. I married at 26, was a Mother at 27, I was a bereaved mother at 44, childless, I was a Mother at 46 to three, I thank God for my donor and the skill of my IVF team. Yet people who don`t know me judge me on having children so late in my life.

We are talking about older women trying IVF here. The NHS has always had an age cut off. I have not invented the age issue. Nor have I invented the fact that men on the whole can have children older than women can.

If are seeking to ensure as few babies are born for the good of the planet that does not quite site well will an extension of IVF availability on the NHS.

My point about if you dont' have it on the NHS you may well not have it was to the poster saying that she thought it cheaper for the NHS to give IVF free as those who do not use that service otherwise go private and have quads or whatever and cost the NHS. I do not agree the priate clinics are worse and mess things up and secondly plenty of those denied NHS treatment could not in a month of Sundays afford IVF so I was simply discussing that issue that it was being said it was cheaper for the NHS in the long run if it funded it.

As to whether I have been handed things on a plate who can say? I chose to marry young because I want th ebest chance to have babies and i was reading up about fertility when I was 14. I would call that planning rather than handed things on a plate and there are sacrifices in that course. You don't spend your 20s at parties and drinking but working full time, dressing your babies in second hand Oxfam clothes and working full time when they are 3 weeks old. Yes choices but the choices I felt were most likely to mean I had a large family and could continue to be able to support them through my career. My other choice is to eat well, stay slim, not drink or smoke. It is probably not just luck I am healthy although I agree that plenty of women of 38 trying for a baby have never drunk or smoked and only eat good foods and still cannot get pregnant.

Do you REALLY think the NHS has money to fund IVF for ANYONE these days?

Who are you shouting at, Frogman?

Okay, perhaps I should have written it like this Do you really think the NHS has money to fund IVF for anyone these days?

Wow, go bugsy :)

frogman, let's put it a little differently. Do you really think the NHS has money to fund hearing aids for partially deaf people these days? Or glasses and sight tests for people with poor eyesight? Or breast reconstruction for women post-mastectomy? None of those is a life-saving essential. What makes you want to pick on ivf?

Do you really think the NHS has money to fund IVF for anyone these days?

Yes, yes I do.

What about those silly people who were so unwise as to give themselves lung cancer because of smoking? Or those idiots who broke their legs doing sport?

Hey - all I'm doing is answering the initial question that was asked. Is that not how this is supposed to work?

Linerunner - then I think you are very naive. The country has no money. We are in a deep deficit.

No. It's generally accepted that by posting, you enter the debate which has subsequently ensued, particularly in a thread which is likely to have prompted some fairly deep discussion.

You don't generally just fling out a question and then then complain if people respond to it.

Xenia clearly has some issue with the fact that she has sacrificed so much in order to have children. It sounds like she never fully enjoyed her childhood or 20's because she was so focused on having children. That was her choice.

Those who have spent their 20's/30's building careers/travelling/finding love are just as much entitled to help conceiving as anyone else.

However, I do have friends who work in the city and clearly take their fertility for granted. At some point in your late 20s and early 30s you do need to think very carefully about your priorities children wise

But I think the point to be borne in mind is that NICE are extending the guidelines for a reason. They are not condoning/condemning anyone's lifestyle choice, they are simply altering the guidelines to reflect the new reality which is that the chances of IVF succeeding for a woman who is in her early 40s is now the same as it used to be for a woman in her mid 30s. Also, because of long waiting lists and being dicked around by the same NHS, a woman does not just wander into a fertility clinic at the age of 42, or even rock up at the doctor's surgery at the same age, in order to demand her IVF. Even getting referred takes ages.

Well you didn't do it very well, frogman. The question wasn't about extending ivf to everyone. It was about the revised NICE guidelines an the reasoning behind them. When you've read them, and the rest of the thread, perhaps you can share your no doubt subtle and nuanced conclusions.