- Would you be concerned about having multiple pregnancy
when you're going through IVF treatment?
What's the purpose with having twins birth?
Hi, I'm Dr. Peter Leung,
obstetrician, gynecologist, fertility specialist
and endoscopic surgeon working in IVF Australia.
Welcome to fertile minds.
And I hope in today's video
we can discuss this interesting topic to you.
Now first of all, why are we actually interested
in multiple pregnancy or twin pregnancy?
Traditionally IVF treatment
is always linked to multiple births.
In doing IVF treatment,
we usually need to get multiple eggs from a lady
by using medication to stimulate the ovaries,
as we're surgically collecting those eggs outside the body
and we fertilize with the partner's sperm.
At the end of five days culture
we then select embryos
to put back inside the womb.
The crux of the problem in
whether there will be excess risk
of having multiple pregnancy
is related to how many embryos
is being put back inside the uterus.
The more you put back inside the uterus,
the more the chances of pregnancy,
the more the chances there will
be multiple pregnancy as well.
So, that's why traditionally
when IVF was being first developed,
when this is still in the infancy or development stage,
the chance of an implantation
of a particular embryo is on the lower side.
And so that's why many countries or many laboratories
in the world is actually trying to compensate for that
by putting back multiple embryos
in order to achieve a more highly successful outcome.
As technology has developed and in particular
in the situation in Australia
where we have fantastic laboratory
and fantastic technology available
we have a very significant improvement
in terms of chance of pregnancy,
even with a single embryo transfer.
And so over the past few years
we often see that we're recommending couples
going through IVF treatments
to have one embryo replaced rather than multiple embryos.
Now the additional embryo or surface embryo
we're not throwing them away.
We're usually suggesting to freeze the embryos.
So, as to still get the good chance
that those surplus embryos
will be able to benefit you in the future.
What we're trying to achieve
is one healthy child at a time.
The amount of a pregnancy although sounds fantastic
in general, it is considered a high risk pregnancy.
Human body is usually designed to carry one baby at a time.
So, if you stick more than one baby inside the tummy,
then unfortunately you are running a high risk
of developing complication.
The complication could be ranges
from early pregnancy issues,
such as the risk of miscarriages or malformation,
or later on such as the development of diabetes,
hypertension, caesarean birth
or handicapped child or premature delivery.
So, although sounds wonderful,
you have an instant family
while you're having multiple pregnancy,
indeed it is a complicated issue
and often it'll drain your family
as well as the medical resources.
So in Australia, we are pleased to say that
we have been working the forefront
by reducing the risk of multiple pregnancy.
And in fact, if you look at worldwide figure,
Australia is actually in the forefront of these
and we are running only about 7% chance
of multiple pregnancy comparing to other countries
which can sometimes mean having the risk
of up to about 20 or 30%.
So hopefully by looking through this video
you'll understand about why the doctors
would be recommending the best outcome for you
in terms of not only achieving a pregnancy quickly
but achieving a healthy pregnancy at the end
without further complication
and minimizing the issues in relation
to multiple births.
So, you might be wondering
whether IVF would put you at the very high risk
of developing twins, triplet or multiple pregnancy.
In fact, if you look at the data
the IVF itself nowadays actually gives you
a significant control of the risk of multiple births
or resulting in twins or triplets.
Because the fact that we can actually control
how many embryos we go back inside the womb,
we can literally eliminate most of these risks
by doing a single embryo transfer.
Where the risk of multiple twins, for example,
would usually coming from having identical twins,
that means the embryo split into two
rather than having multiple embryos entered
on the wombs at the same time.
On the other hand,
if you are considering doing insemination treatment
this may actually put you in a slightly high risk
of developing twins or multiple pregnancy.
Simply put the the use of insemination treatment
would involve the use of sometimes medication
to stimulate the ovaries.
And there might be an occasion
that we have more than one
egg being ovulated at the same time.
Where the egg will be released inside the woman's tummy.
And if that's actually happening more than once,
that means that you get two weeks
or three weeks happening at the same time.
then the risk of multiple pregnancy or twins and triplets
will be going up substantially.
So, that's why most of the time
our general consensus is that
if you're doing insemination treatment
with the injection medication
the risks of having multiple births,
such as twins and triplets
can be as high as about 15 to 20%.
On the other hand,
if you decided to go for single embryo transfer,
in terms of IVF treatment
the risk of multiple pregnancy or twins will be very low.
We're talking about, you know,
usually less than 1% chances.
So, hopefully with this information, your
doctors will be able to guide you through your decision
whether you should go for insemination or go IVF.
Thanks for watching.
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