Tests may wrongly encourage us to delay motherhood
We shouldn't rely on high street fertility tests to judge how many childbearing years we have left, according to new research.The tests, which predict how many eggs we have left, don't take other factors in to account, such as the quality of our eggs or the health of fallopian tubes."If fallopian tubes are blocked, or a partner doesn't have fabulous sperm, tests may give false hope," says Stuart Lavery, a consultant gynaecologist at Hammersmith Hospital.We're born with all the eggs we produce over a lifetime and the ovarian reserve tests estimate how many are left compared to the average for our age.However, Lavery did say that the tests are still useful to determine how successful a woman's chances of IVF were. The research showed that under 35s with signs of low ovarian reserves were up to 85% less likely to have a baby through IVF than women with normal levels for their age.Find out more about fertility tests and how well they work.
