KOCHI: The recent news of a 74-year-old woman from Andhra Pradesh giving birth to twin girls through IVF has put the focus back on the number of couples who opt for fertility treatments.
Kochi, being one of the major cities in Kerala with a sizeable educated population, registers a flourishing business in assisted reproductive procedures.
There are 47 IVF and fertility clinics in the entire state. Kochi city and the neighbouring Angamaly municipality have 12 to 14 centres.
The number of assisted reproductive clinics has risen gradually over the years from just a handful a decade ago.
Hospitals now see a substantial increase in couples seeking assisted pregnancies.
“There is greater awareness these days among people concerning IVF and other fertility treatments, especially in metros like Kochi. Fifteen years ago, people were unfamiliar with the treatment. Hence, couples would take second and third opinion before opting for assisted reproduction but now the acceptance rate has gone up,” says Dr Fessy T Louis, secretary for the Kerala chapter of the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction and a consultant at Amrita Fertility Centre.
According to Dr Fessy, Kerala records anywhere 20,000 to 25,000in vitro fertilisation cycles every year.
Ernakulam district accounts for 15 per cent of that figure. One cycle involves retrieving mature eggs from the woman and fertilising them in the lab.
The embryo is then transferred to the uterus where the gestation begins if the procedure is successful. This cycle takes about three weeks to complete.
Cumulative study of data through the last few years has shown that the average age of women soliciting fertility treatment has gone down in Kochi with comparable results from other tier I and tier II cities in India.
“Earlier, we would mostly record difficult cases but because of a surge in awareness and acceptance, younger couples are choosing assisted reproductive methods. Educated women are now informed that age reduces the probability of a successful conception,” says Dr Parasuram Gopinath, senior consultant and scientific director at Cimar Fertility Centre.
While a woman below 35 years of age has 40 to 50 per cent chances of becoming pregnant through IVF, the odds drop to 15 per cent as she hits 40.
“Consider this, even in the best-case scenari, if 45 women conceive out of a pool of 100 patients, only 35 of them have the probability of live births,” adds Dr Parasuram.
Of the total 1,698 patients underwent in vitro procedure at Cimar in 2017, 785 conceived successfully. 2018 saw a success rate of 46 per cent with 675 women getting pregnant out of 1,320 treated.
Notwithstanding IVF procedures, donor pregnancies and surrogacy cases are also on the rise.
“Kochi’s and by extension Kerala’s progressive cultural milieu has meant that assisted reproduction has proved to be a thriving thing in the city,” opines Dr Parasuram.
A noteworthy development in this regard is a boost in people from West Asia coming to Kochi for IVF treatments.
“In some countries of the Arab world, fertility assistance is not only expensive but also inaccessible as the number of clinics is very low. We see a lot of couples from Oman coming to Kochi for the treatment,” says Dr Fessy.