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IVF, no more a taboo subject

by

#meta[ag-author]
Bobie-Lee Dixon
20181006223114
20181007
Dr Juliet Skinner speaks at the Barbados Fertility Centre’s fertility seminar at the Centre of Excellence, Mocoya.

Dr Juliet Skinner speaks at the Barbados Fertility Centre’s fertility seminar at the Centre of Excellence, Mocoya.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

It was both an ed­i­fy­ing and emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence for some cou­ples who at­tend­ed last week­end’s fer­til­i­ty sem­i­nar, host­ed by the lo­cal arm of the Bar­ba­dos Fer­til­i­ty Cen­tre, (BFC).

Some cou­ples in­ter­viewed by the Sun­day Guardian who had been try­ing in ex­cess of ten years to be­come preg­nant, re­ceived a fresh hope as they learned of pro­ce­dures and tech­niques that could im­prove their chances of be­com­ing preg­nant and start­ing their own fam­i­lies.

Shelly-Ann Ma­haraj-Ma­habir shared a beau­ti­ful sto­ry of her three IVF mir­a­cle ba­bies. The 38-year-old en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, who had been di­ag­nosed with en­dometrio­sis and poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome, caus­ing her to have a low ovar­i­an re­serve bat­tled for years with con­ceiv­ing.

Af­ter the many failed at­tempts and heart-rend­ing dis­ap­point­ments, she de­cid­ed to quit try­ing un­til her hus­band, Guar­av, stum­bled across a BFC ad and they agreed to do a con­sul­ta­tion. To­day they have six-year-old Di­vya and her three-year-old twin broth­ers, Karan and Ki­ran, thanks to the team at BFC and its med­ical di­rec­tor, Juli­et Skin­ner.

The sem­i­nar, which was held at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya, aimed at two things—mak­ing peo­ple aware of BFC, Trinidad and pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­r­i­al to at­ten­dees on in-vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion.

With the help of Skin­ner and Dr Rober­ta Coro­na, whom both pre­sent­ed at the sem­i­nar, cou­ples got a step-by-step guide to the in-vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion process and its suc­cess rates. They were al­so taught about some con­tribut­ing fac­tors to in­fer­til­i­ty, ap­proach­es to in­di­vid­u­alised care, com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine and tech­niques as well as ther­a­py, all work­ing to­wards achiev­ing a suc­cess­ful preg­nan­cy.

BFC, ac­cred­it­ed by the Joint Com­mis­sion In­ter­na­tion­al (JCI)—the US health fa­cil­i­ty ac­cred­i­ta­tion pro­gramme that sets in­ter­na­tion­al health­care in­dus­try stan­dards, has been op­er­at­ing for the past 18 years be­gin­ning with its head­quar­ters in Bar­ba­dos. It then opened in An­tigua and came to T&T shores, in 2009, where it has been func­tion­ing for the past nine years.

In an in­ter­view with Skin­ner, she re­it­er­at­ed T&T and the Caribbean had high rates of in­fer­til­i­ty with sta­tis­tics show­ing one in every four cou­ples suf­fer in­fer­til­i­ty prob­lems.

In 2012 re­search found in­fer­til­i­ty in both men and women was on the rise glob­al­ly, with sta­tis­tics show­ing one in every six cou­ples will have dif­fi­cul­ty con­ceiv­ing.

Skin­ner al­so re­it­er­at­ed, in the Caribbean, there was al­so a much high­er male in­fer­til­i­ty rate.

Ac­cord­ing to Skin­ner, sta­tis­tics show that in cou­ples where a cause can be iden­ti­fied, fe­male fac­tors ac­count for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of all in­fer­til­i­ty cas­es, male fac­tors ac­count for a fur­ther 40 per cent, and in the re­main­ing 20 per cent of cas­es, there is a com­bi­na­tion of fe­male and male fac­tors. Oth­er rea­sons in women may be be­cause of in­fec­tions, en­dometrio­sis, poly­cys­tic ovaries, scar­ring of the uterus, uter­ine and cer­vi­cal com­pli­ca­tions, blocked tubes, or ad­vanced ma­ter­nal age. In men, a low sperm count, ge­net­ic is­sues, in­fec­tion or in­jury may cause it.

Since set­ting up the clin­ic in T&T, Skin­ner said they have seen more and more cou­ples or in­di­vid­u­als com­ing in for con­sul­ta­tion and treat­ment.

The ob­ste­tri­cian/gy­nae­col­o­gist, trained at Trin­i­ty Col­lege in Dublin, Ire­land, point­ed out in­fer­til­i­ty was more com­mon than un­com­mon in the Caribbean, but the main chal­lenge was a taboo as­pect, which she hopes is near its death with sem­i­nars like what was host­ed a week ago and with in­for­ma­tion that is now more eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble on­line.

“When you think back to our grand­moth­er’s era, if they weren’t get­ting preg­nant, there was so lit­tle in­for­ma­tion that they could ac­cess op­pose to what’s avail­able now, which is gen­uine and good fac­tu­al in­for­ma­tion that can help some­one. The great­est rea­son why we do this is about in­for­ma­tion. It’s about ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple,” she not­ed.

“You don’t have to sit there and keep and let time pass you by; there are things that can be done and so­lu­tions to the prob­lem. This is al­so com­mon, you’re not the on­ly per­son in the world deal­ing with in­fer­til­i­ty prob­lems and there are lots of things we can do about it.”

BFC of­fices

BFC has two satel­lite of­fices, one in Trinidad, at the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal, 4 Austin Street, St Au­gus­tine, and the oth­er at Man­soor Med­ical Clin­ic, St John’s, An­tigua.


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