‘IVF is a blessing’, Farah Khan urges couples who can’t conceive to try it.

Director-choreographer Farah Khan, who had triplets at 43 with film-maker Shirish Kunder through IVF, has encouraged couples who can’t conceive to go for the specialized treatment.

Director-choreographer Farah Khan has encouraged couples who can’t conceive to go for specialized treatment, and says she herself underwent the IVF procedure which proved to be a blessing for her.

Farah, who is married to film-maker Shirish Kunder, said they had failed attempts of trying to have a baby naturally for two years, before they went for IVF treatment. Now they are parents to triplets – one son and two daughters.

“IVF is a blessing and I am really thankful as it has changed my life. A lot of factors today make it difficult for some couples to conceive, but we have solutions in the form of treatments. And I strongly believe in IVF, it helped me conceive my angels.

“Being persistent, positive and patient towards the procedure paid off. And if IVF can change my life, it could change yours too,” Farah, who became a mother at the age of 43, said in a statement.

The 52-year-old in association with Merck, pioneers in treatment of infertility, recently released a video for the cause. It features a personal account of Farah’s journey to parenthood.

She shares a vivid recollection of her fears, challenges, doubts and ultimately her story of hope, belief and positivity towards IVF that led her to become a mother.

Merck released this video as part of their ‘Parents of Fertility’ awareness initiative that helps and supports couples in India through this journey of parenthood.

Speaking about the campaign, Anand Nambiar, managing director, Merck India, said: “We are happy to share that our awareness efforts now have a new face and voice with actor, director and choreographer Farah Khan, coming on board as a Cause Ambassador for our ‘Parents of Fertility’ digital awareness initiative.”

“Merck has taken many small steps over the years to spread awareness on infertility as we understand that seeking treatment is emotionally and physically challenging. With this video we expect to reach out to millions of couples seeking help with the message that infertility can be dealt with and one should not lose hope and seek help of specialists to fulfil their dream.”

Best IVF Center in Ahmedabad – Wings Hospitals

What is personalized approach in IVF?

Let me try and put this entire concept in a layman terminology. The ability to grow a healthy plant requires a good seed be planted in a fertile soil. Then it requires proper nurturing till it thrives. Similarly, successful IVF requires the same relationship. A good seed is a competent, chromosomally normal embryo and fertile soil is a receptive uterine lining.

Step by step approach in this concept can be as under:

• It is important to define the variables that affect embryo quality and uterine receptivity for each patient

• To avoid “one size fits all” protocols for controlled ovarian stimulation. Instead it is necessary to individualize the protocol to fit the profile of each individual so as to establish an optimally nurturing environment for developing follicles, eggs and uterine lining.

• To precisely time the egg retrieval (ER) and then safely extract, eggs from the woman’s ovary.

• Provide the environment for the embryo to grow till the 5th day. Along with this PGT is must in cases of advanced maternal age and repeated failure cases. Another genetic testing called ERA is used to know the exact transfer window period of each patient. This test has shown great promise even in case of a single failure cases.

Finally, to increase the chances of implantation, it is in the interest of the patient to go for scratching of the endometrium. It has shown good results with increase in the endometrial thickness. So by the use of advanced genetic biomarkers for individualised stimulation, hormone(FSH & LH) receptor, Euploid chromosomally normal embryo (PGT) and in even single implantation failure with the help of ERA, we can move towards single embryo transfer.

       Best IVF Center in Ahmedabad – Wings Hospitals

When and where to start the IVF treatment?

Patients are confused about the time to start the IVF treatment. Should the age be considered as the parameter or the duration of the treatment? In Indian female, age beyond 35, IVF will be a better option.

More than 5 years of infertility period again strongly indicates IVF treatment. At any point, if AMH is less than 2.0, IVF is strongly indicated. In the era of IVF treatments, 3 IUI attempts are enough.

Due to lack of regulations, patients are confused where to start the IVF treatment.

There are no set parameters to indicate which is the best centre for IVF treatments. But according to me, the following criteria is important in a IVF centre:

• More than 5 years of specialty infertility experience of the doctor.

• Most latest technology with 0.3 micron clean air modular lab.

• In-house and more than 5 years experience of embryology team.

• Atleast one triple gas bench incubator.

• Day 5 embryo transfer & freeze more strategy for all.

Advanced maternal age and zero/low count cases are the most difficult to treat in IVF and therefore PGT, ERA and Micro TESA are the mandatory requirements. Clincians with an approach towards Qualitative embryo transfers should be consulted to begin with.

Best IVF Center in Ahmedabad – wings Hospitals

PCO: Unique fertility treatments gives hope to all couples.

India is considered as a hub for PCOD, every zone of India has 12-16% of incidence. Every 6th Infertile couple has PCOD.

Therefore a question of worry and thus we need to discuss is it really tough to treat PCO with infertility?

• In PCOS, IUI gives 15 -25 % of cumulative pregnancy rate after 6 cycles. But it should be noted that in PCOS, ovary is very sensitive to stimulation and IUI stimulation is never in control by any hormone. So apart from results, multiple pregnancy could not be controlled by IUI treatment, where ovarian hyperstimulation is one of the threat behind the treatment.

• After some inventions of injections, hyper-stimulations can be prevented by upto 98% and freeze all embryos strategy will give 100% safety in IVF.

• So it can be concluded that in this era of infertility treatment, PCO cases can be successfully treated with robust clinical strategy and experienced embryology team.

Best IVF Center in Ahmedabad – Wings Hospitals

Recurrent IVF failures- ‘A burning issue of society’

Indian medical fraternity lacks guidelines for IVF regarding the type & standard of lab and instrumentation required. Also, no specific education and qualifications are fixed for an embryologist and the biggest menace is free lancing of embryology which directly impacts the results negatively and thereby increases IVF failures in the society.

Main issue in the recurrent failure cases is female egg quantity and quality as multiple attempts depletes the ovarian reserve thereby leading to more failures and thereby needing third party donation. So a structured method adopted from day one of IVF treatment can guarantee a lesser need for third party donation.

To improve the IVF results and reduce recurrent failures couples should keep a track of the below:

(1) Visit only experienced IVF specialist which cannot be a routine Gynecologist.

(2) Need to choose state of the art and advanced IVF lab with high tech instruments with proper QA/QC in the lab

(3) In house experienced embryologist team

(4) Only Day 5 embryo transfer

(6) Freeze more embryo and spare more qualitative embryo transfer after one month period.

(7) Use of advance technique like PGS and ERA in selected patient

At WINGS, we offer patients ‘least trial concept’, our own smart IVF concept where we are interested to give pregnancy in less than two trials which will decreases the financial, physical and psychological trauma to the patients.

You can know more by logging onto www.wingshospitals.com