Getting to the Heart of the Matter
- Tonia Gooding
- Apr 6, 2015
- 2 min read
I was happy to see that CNC3 hosted a programme that highlighted the plight of couples who experience the pain of infertility. This is such a sad and heartbreaking situation for couples seeking to have children of their own as they have to endure the frustrations of their own personal inadequacy, as well as the constant pressure from friends and family.
The solution of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) as spoken about by Dr Minto-Bain, besides having ethical implications, seems to have a surprisingly low success rate. I was amazed that this was what the science of IVF had to offer- rates as low as 25%, 13% for women over the age of 44. Then, the huge sums of money that have to be found to pay for these treatments, as high as $30,000 - $50,000 TTD in some cases. This really seems more to be holding out false hope for many women.
Part of the reason this is such shocking news is the fact that the Catholic Church, who has also invested resources in finding scientific solutions to this matter, have actually had vastly different rates of success. Beginning with the science of the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM), many sub-fertile couples have become pregnant, including those who have been trying to conceive for more than two years. The BOM has had success rates ranging between 63% and 80% in achieving pregnancy, and the cost is very affordable, sometimes as low as $100 for basic training in the method . (For further information please visit the website www.billingstt.webs.com or e-mail billingstt@gmail.com) Then there is the medically based NaPro Technology, which although not yet available in Trinidad and Tobago is still recommended by our local Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, to those who can afford to travel to the US to work with doctors who use this natural yet scientific method, which has similar success rates to the BOM.
This is actually such good news for couples facing infertility problems and we really have to commend the Catholic Church for persisting in this area of research, to find methods that not only work, but that ensure that couples do not have to face additional ethical dilemmas. One such underlying concern of the Church, is that there is an attack on nature where the intimacy of the human union does not bring forth life, which is the right of every child. The other aspect, pertains to the consented destruction of these precious embryos as part of the IVF process or the freezing of these surplus embryos for research, sometimes to be used by anonymous donors to create children who will never know one or both biological parents as we are seeing in cases all over the world using surrogates.
Isn’t it ironic that at this time in history when most people are looking at the natural alternatives to everything related to health and well being, that solutions to infertility are not addressed in the same manner? Maybe it is about time.
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