Though they always wanted to have a baby, Shreya Shukla and her husband Sameer wanted to wait till they have settled down in their respective careers and have enough savings. But by the time the Shuklas, both software engineers, were emotionally and financially ready to become parents, it was too late to conceive naturally.
“We were unwittingly trying to beat the biological clock and had to resort to assisted reproduction in the end,” says the 38-year-old Shreya, who had to undergo several failed in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures before she finally became pregnant last month.
Like the Shuklas, a lot of couples these days are delaying pregnancy. And when they finally decide that the time is right, nature thinks otherwise. Little wonder then, fertility treatments such as artificial insemination are coming to the rescue of urban professionals between the ages of 35 and 40.
Health experts estimate that city hospitals specialising in IVF do 700 to 900 procedures each annually, of which more than 50 per cent are for women over 35. “Nearly 60 per cent women over 35 have trouble conceiving naturally,” says gynaecologist Vaishali Birhade who advises women in their 30s to get pregnant as soon as they can.
The number of women seeking assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF has been increasing steadily in the last few years, say experts. Though there is still social stigma attached to fertility treatments or test-tube babies, more and more couples are seeking medical intervention.
“When we could not have a child naturally, we went for artificial insemination. Of course, we kept it under wraps because we did not want to share too many details of our medical history with family or friends,” says 42-year-old Ravi Behl, who works at a multinational bank in the city.
Gynaecologists are, however, quick to point out that IVF is not just for older women unable to conceive naturally but mainly for those with blocked fallopian tubes, endometriosis or other forms of infertility.
“And the success rate in most cases is only between 30 and 50 percent,” says gynaecologist Rama Shah.
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