KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Infertility is a problem facing many couples these days. A host of supposed remedies, from clinical treatment to alternative medicines, have been tried by both women and men. Some work; others only leave the patients feeling even more hopeless.
One of the most popular forms of treatment today is in vitro fertilization (IVF). It’s an expensive procedure, and one that Dr. Sami David says isn’t always—or even often—necessary.
In his book, “Making Babies,” David, a reproductive endocrinologist, says that it can be difficult, and time-consuming, to find an underlying cause of infertility. He believes that’s the main reason many women, and some of his fellow doctors, jump to IVF as the answer.
What’s ironic is that David was the first doctor in the state of New York to perform a successful IVF.
Since then, however, he’s turned away from that method as the primary recourse for combating infertility.
David says that besides being a waste of time in most cases, IVF can have side effects in as many as 50 percent of patients.
“A huge number of patients I’ve seen have infections, low grade infections that they’re not aware of,” says David. “What ought to be done, I believe, is that a couple should be very carefully evaluated.” Dr. David also says more attention needs to be paid to the man, “since he’s responsible forty percent for infertility.”
