Why Women Seeking IVF Treatment Must Disclose Their Exact Age | Fertility Consultant, Dr. Abayomi Ajayi
Women seeking medical assistance for reproduction through in-vitro-fertilization, otherwise known as IVF have been advised to ensure that they reveal their exact age.
Managing Director of Nordica Fertility Lagos, Asaba and Abuja, Dr. Abayomi Ajayi gave the advice recently while speaking at a webinar to mark the 11th anniversary of Asaba Nordica Centre.
Noting that the wrong disclosure of age can be an impediment to the successful treatment of IVF, he said women can now have fibroid removal without undergoing surgery.
His words:
“Age is a major determinant of IVF and your look has nothing to do with reproduction. Your egg is as old as you are; whether you look 20 years, it does not matter. These days everybody looks younger.
We take care of ourselves, we exercise, we trim down but the only thing we have not been able to conquer is reproduction. You have the reproductive capability of your age”.
He regretted that many women who patronise the Nordica Fertility Centre in Asaba for treatment don’t disclose their real age.
“In some parts of Nigeria, because the men want to marry very young girls, women also have devised the method to extract some years from their age. This is a very big challenge for us as fertility doctors. It is important we know the age of a person we are treating because it affects the outcome of the treatment.
If you do not tell us your true age, we would use the wrong treatment approach and it might not work for you. Your true age is important for successful treatment and this was the challenge we faced in Asaba at the onset.
For instance, if you are 40 years and you tell us that you are 35, and we treat you as a 35-year-old, it would have a significant impact on the outcome of the treatment. But if you are 45 years and tell us upfront that you are 45, we would treat you as such and that would be an advantage to the outcome of your treatment.”
The specialist further revealed that women can now have fibroid removal without undergoing surgery.
He said the safe removal of fibroids can now be done through non-invasive surgical procedures, adding that his centre is planning to begin the non-surgical treatment of fibroids in early 2021. He added:
“What we are trying to do is to give patients who have fibroid but do not want to undergo surgery an alternative that would take their symptoms away. We have been carrying out minimally invasive surgery to treat fibroids over the years but now we want to start carrying out non- invasive surgery.
“Prior to this time, we were removing the fibroids through laparoscopy but now, we just want to give our women all the available options. If it’s minimally invasive surgery or non-invasive surgery, we want to ensure the services are available because fibroids are very common in this environment.”
In addition, Dr. Ann Onyekwere, a gynaecologist at Nordica Asaba Centre, urged beneficiaries of IVF to talk more about it.
“People are still secretive about having children through IVF and we need to disabuse this notion in order to help others who also need to benefit rather than going to the wrong places. There is nothing wrong with having babies through IVF,”
she stated.