Friday, January 23, 2009

For Tubal Blockage, Tubal Surgery Is Better than IVF

By Sandra Wilson

Did you know there is an alternative to IVF and that it is tubal surgery? Whether this type of an operation will work for you depends upon the reason for your infertility. However, you should definitely be aware that IVF is not the only recourse for infertility. Tubal surgery can be your answer instead.

So where does tubal surgery come in? Many times a woman finds out her infertility problems are due to some type of tubal blockage. This can be devastating to her and her spouse. But this is the type of infertility problem where tubal surgery can shine.

Why would you consider tubal surgery over IVF? Using a couple articles, one from the New York Times and the other from CNN, as well as other resources, you should know that one cycle of IVF can cost you $10,000 to $12,000 or even more. This cycle can take anywhere from three to eight weeks while your body is being made to produce more than one egg at a time. These eggs are then retrieved, fertilized and hopefully implanted in your uterus.

While most women don't wait till their late 40s to want children, it does happen. In that case, you will also have to find an egg donor as well as do what is needed to prepare your body to carry the eggs, if they implant, to term.

The bad news is that, with all you go through to do even just one cycle of IVF, it may not work. You will not maintain the pregnancy or the eggs will not implant for whatever reason. So you will have to go through all of this again.

Failure of one cycle means another cycle if you are using IVF. You are going to pay for another cycle. You are going to go through at least some of the drugs again. Who knows how many times you will go through this and who knows how much it will cost in the end?

Now with tubal surgery, a surgeon goes in and removes the bad part of your tubes where the blockage is located. It's just like what they do to reverse a tubal ligation. Once the blockage is removed, the remaining good sections of your fallopian tubes are sewn back together. No blockage means the egg can now get through and you can try to get pregnant again and again.

One surgeon, Dr. Berger, did a study on his own patients and has an up to 87% success rate with tubal surgery. How does that compare to IVF? Most women using it have to do more than one cycle of IVF to get one pregnancy. There is only a 30% chance of getting pregnant on any one cycle. When you are ready for another child, you have to go through it all over again. With tubal surgery, you get to try as many times as you want for as many children as you want. With tubal surgery, trying to conceive is half the fun. Not so much with IVF.

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