| By :
Elijah James
Women who suffer from infertility and the inability to conceive often turn to in vitro fertilization as a means of getting pregnant. IVF is not a foolproof method that is guaranteed to work, but it has been proven to be an effective way for women who are infertile to conceive. There are a number of IVF complications that may arise, and it is important that you understand what these complications are in order to make an educated decision regarding whether or not to try IVF. IVF Complications: One of the main complications that tend to arise with IVF is a multiple pregnancy. Seeing as a number of eggs are mixed with sperm to form as many living embryos as possible, there is a good chance that more than one embryo will form. This leads to multiple pregnancies, which, in itself, has a number of complications. The majority of the multiple pregnancies that result from IVF are twins; though between 5 and 10 percent can involve triplets or more. Multiple pregnancies can lead to the babies being born prematurely, which can cause a number of serious complications in the fetuses. Cesareans are usually required for these multiple pregnancies, and many women tend to hemorrhage badly during their pregnancy, as well as suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure. Multifetal reduction is a process in which most of the fetuses are terminated once they are injected into the uterus. This is usually performed only in an extreme situation, such as when there are so many fetuses that there is a large risk of the fetuses being extremely premature. Fetal reduction reduces the risk, but there is also the chance that all of the fetuses may be lost. Another complication that accompanies IVF is the risk of birth defects in the infants. This is because the eggs of women suffering from infertility tend to have chromosomal abnormalities, which is the reason that they are unable to conceive in the first place. Infertile couples run a substantially higher risk of birth defects when using IVF than couples who have the ability to get pregnant naturally. Many doctors believe that IVF and medications to treat infertility are the cause of various birth defects, but there is no evidence to support that theory. There is evidence to suggest that a number of cardiac, urogenital, musculoskeletal, and neurological defects that some infants are born with are directly related to IVF, as most of the babies conceived naturally do not show any signs of these issues. Babies who are conceived using in vitro fertilization run the risk of being born very underweight, which stems from the presence of too many fetuses in the womb. However, most of the babies conceived using IVF have no birth defects, and they are born completely normal and very healthy. Doctors are continuing the study the IVF process to see if the complications are a direct result of the IVF process, or if they are a result of the problems that led to the woman's infertility problem.
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