Fertility clinics were yesterday accused of misleading patients and encouraging them to pay for unnecessary treatment by overstating the health risks of having twins. In a controversial attack, senior doctors said infertile couples should not be put off from having IVF twins, adding that the treatment was cheaper and no more risky than having two single babies.
Clinics often discourage women from having two or more embryos implanted at once, because it substantially raises their risk of a multiple pregnancy, which is associated with a wide range of serious medical problems.
Speaking at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting in Barcelona yesterday, Norbert Gleicher, director of the Centre for Human Reproduction in New York, said that exaggerating the dangers of twin pregnancies was causing women to have more cycles of treatment but fewer babies.
