High-Tech Conception: A Comprehensive Handbook For Consumers

Five million Americans want children but cannot conceive. One million couples seek infertility treatment every year, almost always without prior knowledge of the physical, emotional, and financial costs of high-tech conception (as a rule it is not covered by insurance), and without any way to judge the hard-sell come-ons of what is now a $2-billion, for-profit, unregulated industry that preys on their desperate hopes by promising outcomes that are all too rarely successful. This authoritative, lucid, balanced, and forthright book describes the very latest inالغلافion on high-tech conception, with inالغلافion on techniques of fertilization, the latest research, and the nature and risks of the potent drugs used to assist in fertilization and implantation. Its goal is to help infertile individuals become informed consumers by describing the different procedures, and showing them how to interpret and compare clinics’ claimed success rates; examine the factors that affect success; critically assess the safety of the different techniques both for the mothers and the babies born through such procedures; and understand the importance of genetic screening in in vitro fertilization.