| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (47 min.) ; 249442710 bytes |
| Summary |
Are women being sold false hope by the IVF industry?<br /><br />"All our savings go to IVF...Then you get that negative pregnancy result. There's another $6,000 gone." Grace<br /><br />Grace is one of the tens of thousands of Australian women who have put their faith in fertility treatments to help conceive a much longed for baby.<br /><br />"Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud of a woman. I look like one, but my body just isn't doing what I want it to do, which is to fall pregnant and have a child." Grace<br /><br />At 42, she's been through six unsuccessful rounds of IVF. The physical, emotional and financial toll is huge.<br /><br />"One of the hardest things is knowing when to get off the bus, like knowing when to stop, because I think there's that 'what if it's this next time', one more time?" Grace<br /><br />Julia too, had dreams of becoming a mother, undergoing 8 rounds of fertility treatment.<br /><br />"I had this longing to have a child ...I was hopeful that I would be one of the lucky ones." Julia<br /><br />And while she willingly put her body in the hands of fertility specialists, she struggled to get a clear answer on just what her chances of having a baby actually were.<br /><br />"It's regrettable that I got the more optimistic answer. I would've just preferred a more accurate answer." Julia<br /><br />This week's Four Corners looks at the booming business of fertility, where the industry pulls in more than half a billion dollars in revenue, and asks whether clinics are giving women clear, unambiguous advice about their chances of giving birth.<br /><br />"I think with the commercialisation of IVF that's occurring, there's a pressure in every single clinic to use IVF more and IVF brings in more money for a clinic." Fertility Doctor<br /><br />Many fertility specialists say it's up to individual women to decide how much treatment they can take.<br /><br />"Embryos are like mud. You keep putting embryos on the wall of the uterus, eventually one will stick." Fertility Doctor<br /><br />But as this program shows, there are concerns, even from industry insiders, that some women undergoing IVF don't actually need it. Others warn against the practice of upselling - where women are sold expensive and unproven treatments that one doctor says is akin to snake oil.<br /><br />And disturbingly, they also have concerns about the potential harm fertility treatments could be causing for women - including potential links to cancer |
| Notes |
Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2016-05-30 at 20:33:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Fertilization in vitro, Human -- Moral and ethical aspects.
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Fertilization in vitro, Human -- Psychological aspects.
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Frozen human embryos.
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Infertility, Female -- Treatment.
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Reproductive health.
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Australia.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Ferguson, Sarah, host
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Dingle, Sarah, reporter
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Anderson, Allie, contributor
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Cassidy, Barrie, contributor
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Chapman, Michael, contributor
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Costello, Peter, contributor
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Davies, Michael, contributor
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Kovacs, Gab, contributor
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Lee, Carly, contributor
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Lee, Robert, contributor
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Leigh, Claudia, contributor
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Leigh, Julia, contributor
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Lococo, Grace, contributor
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Milloy, Damien, contributor
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Norman, Rob, contributor
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Tankard Reist, Melinda, contributor
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Trounson, Alan, contributor
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