Proclamation by Dr.Malpani on ivf complaints

Delivering truth in IVF

As IVF gains acceptance and popularity, IVF clinics are resorting to unethical marketing practices. Desperate for patients, these mushrooming clinics often dish out tall claims, dole out misinformation and devise scare strategies. Here is an honest guide for prospective IVF patients. 

It is a paradox. In vitro is a Latin term that means “in glass.” But, sadly, the entire practice of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in India is not transparent at all ! This is more so in locations away from metros, where doctors take patients for a ride by preying on their ignorance and gullibility. It is high time IVF patients saw through the bogey of tall claims and scaremongering often raised by half-baked IVF practitioners, who are resorting to a no-holds-barred approach to pulling in patients.

Separate chaff from the grain

The first and foremost rule is simple. Do not get carried away by the claims made by these IVF clinics. Never take these claims at their face values. Keep your eyes open, do your due diligence and equip yourself with the ability to separate the chaff from the grain.

Sadly, there are black sheep among IVF practitioners. Some IVF clinics, desperate for patients, discard ethics and indulge in distortions. So, as a smart patient, you should be well informed and be capable of separating facts from fiction.

 The black sheep:

You might ask who these black-sheep in IVF clinics are and how to identify them. Generally, such IVF clinics are out-and-out commercial clinics that are desperate to get patients, at any cost.

You can find such IVF clinics generally in small towns and cities where awareness about IVF is not high. In these small town locations , where IVF literacy is low , infertile couples still look upon IVF practitioners as demi-gods. It is in these locations that unscrupulous IVF practitioners resort to unethical practices and indulge in rampant IVF commercialisation in a bid to make money hand over fist.

As an IVF patient you ought to know that good, honest and capable IVF practitioners are modest and they let their work speak for themselves. Though their efforts may not have resulted in a single pregnancy, they are high on rhetoric, tall on claims and lofty in their self-promotions.

Eliminate empty boasters

Consider some such vacuous IVF proclamations. It is evident that you do not need a consumer activist to tell you that such claims are not backed by credibility and track record. Certainly you should know how to compare promises with performance. And guard yourself against such empty boasts.  

The commonest claim is this: our pregnancy rates are 45 per cent.  If you delve a little deeper and do your due diligence, you will be able to see through such a claim.  The logic is simple. Most of these IVF clinics do not bother to maintain data on the number of IVF patients they have treated and their personal pregnancy rates. They just quote the success rates of premier IVF clinics and claim those rates as being theirs as well. That is a blatant lie, based on total misinformation and misrepresentation.

When patients do not have the inclination to do their due diligence, there is no way they can find out the truth.  And that laxity and lassitude are prevalent , the unscrupulous IVF clinics can laugh all the way to the bank. It is time IVF patients had the patience to do their due diligence, to do some basic homework and study the claims made by various clinics.  

Steer clear of deception

Another misleading strategy of these IVF shops is to claim that their doctors come from Mumbai and IVFprocedures in their clinics are performed by these pros.This does allow the clinics to tap expertise that is not available locally. However, the results of IVF treatment are compromised for many patients with this model.

This is particularly true in the case of older women, women with endometriosis, women with PCOD and women who have failed earlier IVF cycles. This is because IVF treatment does not just consist of doing an egg collection and embryo transfer. Superovulating the patient and monitoring superovulation are key parts of IVF treatment. These need to be tailored for each patient. While using the one-size-fits-all approach is fine for young women, such an approach reduces the success rate in the case of challenging patients who need individualised protocols.

Many IVF clinics are known to warn their patients not to go to Mumbai, even though patients know that the IVF expertise in Mumbai is superb ! Their rationale: patients need a fortnight of bed rest after the embryo transfer. That is not true – and these doctors try to trap their patients with a web of lies and half-truths. Normally, it is an established practice among medicos to refer patients to doctors with experience, exposure and expertise, wherever they are.

See through scare strategies

Not satisfied with just deception, unscrupulous IVF clinics do raise false alarms quite often. The idea is to deceive patients , and make them slaves of their clinics. Here is one such alarm: if you go to Mumbai, the doctor will not be able to manage any complications, and you will end up risking your health. They then concoct fictitious horror stories, thus scaring patients away from travelling to better clinics located in Mumbai ! They also claim that  when the patients travel back to their home town from Mumbai after their IVF treatment, their embryos will “fall out” of the uterus because of the physical exertion. It’s very easy to fool patients when they are sitting in front of you !

This is sheer hogwash. Once the embryos are transferred into the uterus, they are safe and cannot fall out. It is plain commonsense. IVF embryos, once they have reached the uterus, do not remember that they have spent three days in an IVF incubator. They are just like any other in vivo embryo that is formed after copulation. Remember, all our patients travel back to their home towns three days after the transfer.

Another example of scaremongering is asking IVF patients what they will do if there are complications. It is time we told you the truth: complications are rare, few and far between, in a good IVF clinic. In fact, risks of complications are far greater in a newly set up IVF shop run by an inexperienced infertility doctor.

There is no end to such scaremongering. IVF practitioners in small towns are known to warn their patients that IVF clinics in Mumbai are prohibitively expensive. Take this warning with generous pinches of salt. Reason: basic costs are more or less the same all over the country. In fact, we are much more cost-effective, thanks largely to our impressive success rate.  So, the moral of the story here: do not work out the cost on a per-cycle basis, but on a per-baby basis. That will make you a smart IVF patient.

Shun confidence-sappers

When an IVF cycle fails, many IVF doctors resort to blaming the patient ! Your cycle failed because your egg or sperm or uterus was bad. That is one major confidence-sapping statement you often hear in the corridors of bad IVF clinics. These doctors make many rosy promises, both before and during the IVF cycle, but when the cycle fails, as it often does, these practitioners blame the patients’ eggs or their sperms or their uterus. And, adding insult to injury, they go on to suggest the use of additional options , such as use donor eggs or sperms or even surrogacy.

Pushed to their wit’s end, desperate patients often agree to such fallacious recommendations. Sadly, they know no better. In fact, these patients do not need a change of eggs or sperms or uterus – they most probably need a change of clinic !

The message is loud and clear. Many IVF clinics are only successful in making you waste your money and lose your self- confidence. Many patients get fed up and eventually lose faith in IVF. This is tragic.

The last word

The bottomline is simple: do your due diligence, do your homework and select the right IVF clinic. That is not only the first step, but the most important step in your IVF treatment.  It is a critically important decision, so make sure you are well informed.  Your IVF clinic is the prime catalyst of your happiness for the rest of your life.  You might spend more money, but you are much more likely to get a baby . This means that you need to know not only the price of IVF treatment , but its value as well.

POSTED BY DR.MALPANI

Articles:

• Dr Malpani - Testing for pregnancy after an embryo transfer in an IVF cycle (drmalpani.blog.com)
• Dr Malpani - Patients with poor ovarian reserve - flogging a dead horse ?
• Dr.Malpani Complaints Blogs (Dr.Malpani ratinale behind the Complaints on the Expensive medications).