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The fertility authority, the HFEA has £3.4million of unspent funds – while thousands of women are being refused IVF on the NHS because it is too expensive. Figures reveal the surplus money built up by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority could pay for 850 women to have treatment.

The funds have been gradually accumulated from the £75 fee paid by the NHS and private clinics to the HFEA every time a woman has treatment. Campaigners have demanded the organisation gives the money back to the dozens of NHS trusts which are refusing women IVF because they are so short of money.

Last year a report by MPs found three quarters of primary care trusts are denying women treatment and not funding the three courses recommended by the health watchdog NICE.

This includes five PCTs which refuse to pay for IVF altogether while many others reject women deemed too fat, thin, old or young. As a result, couples desperate for children are having to go to private clinics and take out loans or re-mortgage their homes to cover the hefty fees.

Last year 45,000 women underwent IVF treatment, with 60 per cent having to pay for it privately. One cycle of IVF can cost between £4,000 and £8,000 as clinics charge vast fees for ‘extras’, including up to £200 for a consultation and as much as £1,000 for freezing and storing embryos.

The surplus, the equivalent to half of the organisation’s annual budget, could pay for about 850 women to have IVF at a cost of £4,000 a treatment. Clare Lewis-Jones of the charity Infertility UK, said: ‘We believe the funds built up by the HFEA should be re-invested back into the area which they regulate and that infertility patients should in some way benefit from this excess.’

The HFEA has insisted that the money was accumulated through ‘prudent’ budgeting, and said it would be too ‘complex’ to try to give the money back to cash-strapped NHS trusts. The figures were obtained by the Health Service Journal.

A poll in December revealed that a quarter of women having IVF said that they have to take out high-interest loans, reach their credit card limit and even re-mortgage their homes for a chance to realise their dream of motherhood.

A third of the 2,500 British women questioned by Red Magazine for its annual fertility report had spent more than £20,000. Success rates are just 32 per cent for women under 35, falling rapidly with age to just 1.5 per cent for those over 45. This means that many are being forced to fork out for three or more cycles of treatment.

Dr Allan Pacey, of the British Fertility Society, said: ‘This comes at a time when NHS funding for infertility treatment such as IVF has been cut in many parts of the country as a cost cutting measure, and both hospital and household budgets are feeling the squeeze.

‘The £3.4million is a significant sum of money and by a conservative estimate would fund over 850 cycles of IVF treatment. ‘The BFS believes it is inappropriate for the regulator to amass such a sum, which by its own admission is “unusually large”. ‘We will be writing to the HFEA chief executive to ask for an explanation.’

A spokesman from the HFEA said: ‘Previously, we have agreed with the department not to pursue the possibility of returning the money to clinics due to the complex principles and practicalities that would entail.

‘We developed proposals to enhance our capabilities in three ways, to spend the surplus money “wisely”, over three years. ‘The Department of Health have told us that they cannot agree to this for the next financial year, and so we await the department’s alternative suggestions.’

Article: February 2012 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about IVF and the HFEA

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In a new study from Australia almost half of women who said they'd been struggling to get pregnant for at least a year ended up having a baby despite not getting fertility treatment.
That success rate was only slightly lower than in women who also reported trouble conceiving and opted for treatment with fertility hormones or in vitro fertilization (IVF).

"Many women aged up to 36 years with a history of infertility can achieve spontaneous conception and live birth without using fertility treatment indicating (they) are sub-fertile rather than infertile," says study researcher Danielle Herbert of the University of Queensland School of Population Health in Brisbane.
That means that if nothing is clearly wrong -- men make enough sperm, and women are ovulating regularly -- couples who have had trouble conceiving should still be optimistic they can get pregnant on their own, researchers said.

"I'm not surprised that women who were not treated still get pregnant -- we know that," said Dr. Courtney Lynch, head of reproductive epidemiology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, who wasn't involved in the new research.
"We know we can get women pregnant quicker if we have them go into IVF, but if we give women time, (many of them) can still get pregnant," she said.

The research is part of a long-term study of more than 7,000 women living in Australia. Starting in 1996, participants filled out health surveys every few years, which included questions on pregnancy and childbirth.
The current data is from about 1,400 women age 28 to 36 who reported on the most recent questionnaires that they'd tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant for at least a year at a time.
Close to 600 of those women said they'd received infertility treatment using IVF or fertility hormones, including Clomid.

Through the latest survey in 2009, 53 percent of those women said they had a baby following fertility treatment, compared to 44 percent of women who'd had trouble conceiving but didn't seek treatment, the researchers reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
For women who did have a baby, there was no difference in pregnancy complications -- including stillbirths or premature births -- between those who did and didn't get fertility treatment.

AFTER A YEAR, GET CHECKED OUT

Herbert and her colleagues pointed out some limitations of the report, including that they didn't know if women changed male partners at any point during the study period, which could have affected their chances of becoming pregnant.
And one fertility researcher not involved in the new study said it's impossible to know whether women who didn't get treatment lost or gained weight, or changed their diet and lifestyle to improve their chances of becoming pregnant.
Alice Domar, of Boston IVF, said that the number of women who got pregnant without treatment after a year of infertility is higher than previous studies have suggested.
"What a lot of physicians feel is if you're not pregnant within a year, it usually means there's something going on," Domar said.

Domar said that she'd still recommend a woman who's been trying to get pregnant for that long get checked out to see if there's anything preventing her from conceiving. If not, she can keep trying. But if, for example, her tubes are blocked, any extra waiting is "time out the window," she said. Lynch said that about 15 percent of women won't get pregnant after a year of trying, but only three to five percent of them are truly infertile. The rest will likely conceive on their own after another year or two.

"There are a lot of patients that don't want to wait another year, especially if you're an older patient," Lynch said -- and they might want fertility treatment, even if pregnancy without it may be possible.
"But if you're 28, I think waiting another year makes sense potentially before going on a treatment."

According to Domar, most women who can't get pregnant will only need treatment with fertility hormones, which cost about a dollar a day, to get ovulation back to normal. IVF, on the other hand, runs for about $15,000 a cycle, and may or may not be covered by insurance.

'WOMEN SHOULD STILL BE HOPEFUL'

The findings can be seen as encouraging for some women, Domar said. "It means if you've been trying for a year and you're young and you have unexplained infertility, according to this data you have a decent chance of spontaneously conceiving," Domar said.
Dr. Sacha Krieg, an ob-gyn who studies recurrent pregnancy loss at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, agreed.
"Women should still be hopeful that they're going to get pregnant, even if they've been trying for an entire year," she said.
Still, Krieg said, "I wouldn't want this to (dissuade) women from seeing a fertility specialist and being evaluated."

Article: Fertility and Sterility, online January 23, 2012.

Read more about how home insemination and a fertility monitor can help you get pregnant.

If not – then perhaps you should! BioNews, published by the charity Progress Educational Trust (PET), is a free online publication providing balanced comment and news on assisted conception, genetics and embryo/stem cell research. Subscription is free and you can easily subscribe online. You'll receive a weekly email so you're up to date with all the latest research and news, and you can post comments online and debate topics with other subscribers.

If you do read BioNews, then you'll know that recent articles covered a fall in NHS-funded fertility treatment despite an increase in demand (' IVF Funding cuts spark access concerns' BioNews 640), results from a new study from the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge which shows that there is 'No negative impact for surrogate's own children' (BioNews 640) and coverage of a US legal case 'Lesbian woman in US who donated eggs to ex-partner granted parental rights over child.' (BioNews 639). Throughout 2011, BioNews also contributed to a number of debates on key topics such as the future of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and how to compensate egg and sperm donors.

If you're already a reader, hopefully you'll also know that PET has just launched the BioNews 2012 reader survey. The BioNews editors and PET staff are keen to understand readers' views of BioNews and, most importantly, how BioNews can be improved. So, PET needs as many people as possible to complete the survey: it's online, easy to complete, and should only take a few minutes of your time. There are four short sections: 'You and BioNews', 'BioNews content', 'BioNews design' and 'About you'.

Please do take a few minutes to complete the survey: the BioNews editors and everyone at PET cannot keep BioNews relevant without your input. This is also PET's opportunity to find out more about BioNews' readership, which helps to attract advertisers and inform grant applications, which in turn enhances the probability of funding - all of which means you can continue to enjoy BioNews as a free resource.

Read more about parenting options, IVF, sperm and egg donation at www.prideangel.com

She spent two years undergoing IVF treatment, and after four failed attempts thought she had lost all hope of becoming a mother So it’s little wonder Kate Silverton looks overjoyed as she shows off the baby she never thought she would have – conceived naturally within weeks of stopping the treatment.

The 41-year-old BBC presenter, who is married to Michael Heron, a former Royal Marine, gave birth to daughter Clemency in November, describing her pregnancy as a ‘miracle’. ‘I still can’t quite believe that she’s here,’ she said. ‘Seeing her smile melts me to the core. It’s the culmination of everything I ever dared imagine or hope for.

‘When I have her in my arms, feeding her in the early hours, with Mike sleeping by my side, I look down at her little face and still feel overwhelmed by what’s happened.’ ‘Whether it’s the beaming smile I get when I lean over her crib in the morning or when her bottom lip trembles if she’s uncertain about something, I just live for those moments now. She’s just adorable.’

Doctors warned Miss Silverton she would struggle to conceive naturally after she had to undergo surgery to remove one of her ovaries. She then underwent four rounds of IVF, but they all failed and the couple stopped the treatment – only for Clemency to be conceived naturally soon afterwards.

Miss Silverton said: ‘I’m not sure how this happened, but I will give thanks every day for the rest of my life that I have experienced giving birth and now have a daughter. ‘It’s heartbreaking to know there are so many couples out there who face the same difficulties as we did and I wish that I could spread some of our good fortune to them.’

The TV star has yet to hire any help with the baby insisting that she and Heron, 44, wanted to do as much as possible themselves. She said: ‘We chose not to have any help as we like the idea of working as a team with her, to learn as much as we could instinctively, although I admit it has been a rather steep learning curve.’ Miss Silverton wed Mr Heron in December 2010 at St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street – two years after they began dating.

Article: 23rd January 2012 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about help conceiving naturally at www.prideangel.com

Men suffering from fertility problems have been given renewed hope after a team of scientists were able to grow sperm in a laboratory. In a world's first, scientists have successfully grown mouse sperm in a lab dish and are now hoping they would be able to produce human sperm too.

The team of researchers were led by Professor Stefan Schlatt from Germany’s Muenster University and using just a few cells that are responsible for its production, successfully reproduced mice sperm. They are now hoping they will be able to repeat the technique to produce human sperm, which could then be used in fertility treatments to enable infertile men to father their own children.

Commenting on the research, one Isreali team member, Prof. Mahmoud Huleihel, said: “I believe it will eventually be possible to routinely grow human male sperm to order by extracting tissue containing germ cells from a man’s testicle and stimulating sperm production in the laboratory.” To grow the sperm the scientists wanted to ensure they created conditions that were as similar to those found in the testicles as possible.

As a result, the germ cells were surrounded by agar jelly and grown in an environment with a temperature that was just below the normal body temperature of humans. Professors Schlatt and Huleihel along with their teams are now trying to emulate the results in human sperm “as quickly as possible.”

"We have already applied the same tests as we did with mice in the laboratory, using human cells, but as yet have not had success,” Huleihel noted. “We are confident that if it can be done in a mammal such as a mouse it can be done in humans.”

He added: “We are experimenting with a number of different compounds to get the germ cells to grow into sperm. And we believe it will be possible. And, hopefully, soon.” The work carried out by the research group has received high praise from a number of fertility experts.

One of the UK’s leading fertility scientists, Professor Richard Sharpe, who is based at Edinburgh University, is hoping to get involved with the project in the near future. He said: “This is a significant step forward towards making human sperm.”

Meanwhile, one of the NHS’ top consultants in infertility, Stephen Gordon, added: “This is an amazing development that could revolutionise fertility treatment and allow every man to be a natural father. “Infertile men naturally want to be the father of their child but at present have to accept that can't happen,” he said. “With the mouse discovery, that could now be a possibility.”

The results of the research project have been published in a major scientific journal by Nature. Article: 3rd January 2012 www.healthcareglobal.com

Read more about fertility and sperm donation at www.prideangel.com

More U.S. women are having twins these days. The reason? Older moms and fertility treatments. One in every 30 babies born in the U.S. is a twin — an astounding increase over the last three decades, according to a government report issued Wednesday. In 1980, only 1 in every 53 babies was a twin.

“When people say it seems like you see more twins nowadays, they’re right,” said Joyce Martin, an epidemiologist who co-authored the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Some increase was expected as more women are waiting until they are over 30 to have babies. For some unknown reason, mothers in their 30s are more likely to have twins than younger or older women. As much as a third of the increase can be attributed to that, Martin said.

The rest of the rise is due to fertility drugs and treatments, experts said. “You have a double whammy going on. There are more older moms and more widespread use of fertility-enhancing therapies,” Martin said.

Starting in the early 1980s, couples who had trouble conceiving began to benefit from medical advances like fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization and other procedures. These treatments became fairly widespread in the 1990s but are expensive, and availability and insurance coverage varies.

The twin birth rate rose by more than 2 percent a year, on average, from 1980 through 2004. It leveled off to less than 1 percent annually although the rise from 2008 to 2009 was nearly 2 percent.

In 2009, twin rates increased in all 50 states, though the jumps were highest in lower New England, New Jersey and Hawaii. In Connecticut, twins now account for nearly 5 percent of births. That’s high. Nationally, 3.3 percent of all births were twins in 2009, up from 2 percent in 1980.

Over the last three decades, rates rose for white, black and Hispanic women, but the increases were not uniform. Rates doubled for whites, rose by half for blacks and by about a third for Hispanics. Historically, black moms have twins most often, but white moms have almost caught up.

“That’s changed with infertility treatments,” said Barbara Luke, a Michigan State University expert on twin births. The greatest increase in twin rates was for women 40 and older. They are more likely to use fertility treatments and to have two embryos implanted during in vitro fertilization, whereas younger women are more likely to get just one.

About 7 percent of all births for women 40 and older were twins, compared to 5 percent of women in their late 30s and 2 percent of women age 24 or younger.

While a lot of attention is focused on the impact of fertility treatments, that’s not the only factor. Before fertility treatments existed, about 2.5 percent of the babies born to women in their late 30s were twins, compared to under 2 percent for younger and older women. Some research has suggested women in that age group are more likely to produce multiple eggs in a cycle, increasing their chances of twins.

Clearly, there are more older moms. In recent years, more than a third of all births are to women 30 and older, up from just one-fifth in 1980.

Are more twins good news? Some experts say the trend is worrisome, noting that multiple births are more dangerous for the mother and their babies. The infants tend to be born earlier, smaller and weaker, and require much more care.

But for some older women worried about conceiving, “having twins is a blessing,” Luke said.

Article: 4th January 2012 www.washingtonpost.com

Trying to get pregnant quick? read here for alternatives to IVF.

A cut-price test that could dramatically increase the chances of having a healthy baby through IVF could be available within 18 months. Oxford University researchers say their test could ‘revolutionise’ the treatment as it is half the price of existing tests and may be just as effective.

It may be cheap enough for use by the Health Service. And, unlike existing tests, it does not involve the potentially risky step of taking a sample of cells from the egg or fledgling embryo, making it safer and more ethically acceptable.

Instead, it works by analysing a ‘cloud’ of cells that nurture and feed the egg. These are normally thrown away in IVF treatment but fertility doctors Dagan Wells and Elpida Fragouli believe they hold important clues to the health of the egg.

Keeping and analysing these cells could help clinics select the best eggs for fertility treatment. It should also spare would-be parents the emotional and financial heartache of going through repeated unsuccessful IVF treatments. Analysing these ‘cloud’, or cumulous, cells is also likely to be much cheaper at £1,000 or less compared with the £2,000 cost of other techniques, bringing the technology within range of many more couples.

Despite IVF’s reputation as an insurance policy, the treatment works in less than a quarter of cases, and many of the failures are because of problems with the eggs’ chromosomes. There are already several ways of checking the chromosomes, but they require a small sample from the egg or embryo and so are not completely without risk to the unborn child.

The cumulous cells, however, can be studied without harming the egg. These cells grow and mature with the egg and so any problems that damage the egg, such as a poor blood supply, should also show up in the cells. The doctors have carried out a small-scale study that has shown that certain genes being over or under-active in the cumulous cells is a sign of abnormal eggs.

Calculations suggest that using the technique to pick out the healthiest eggs would boost a woman’s odds of having a baby. Existing tests can double or triple the odds of IVF success, and it is hoped the new test will be just as good.

Dr Wells said: ‘The number of patients we looked at is very small. This is very much a work in progress, but there is good reason for optimism at this point.’

A larger-scale study is planned, and if that goes well the technique could be trialled on women for the first time in the summer of 2012. If it proves to be safe and effective, it could be in widespread use early in 2013.

Article: 28th December 2011 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about IVF and alternatives such as natural fertility and home insemination

Fertility clinics are charging women who want to have children three times the actual cost of their treatment – with the NHS as guilty as private practitioners in exploiting desperate couples.

The accusation comes from the fertility pioneer Lord Robert Winston, who today launches a scathing attack on the high cost of fertility treatment in the UK and the unfettered use of expensive, unproven tests by private clinics.

The Labour peer and former head of the NHS IVF clinic at Hammersmith Hospital said there was a "huge amount of exploitation going on" and that some of the charges were a "scandal". "A combination of avarice on the part of the clinics and desperation on the part of the women is driving this market," he said in an interview with The Independent.

Figures show over 45,000 women had IVF in 2010, with 60 per cent paying for themselves and 40 per cent treated on the NHS. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommends that eligible women aged from 23 to 39 be offered three cycles of treatment on the NHS but primary care trusts vary widely in how closely they follow the guidance.

For the majority of patients, who must pay privately, the average basic cost of treatment is £2,500 a cycle in clinics run by the NHS and £3,500 in private clinics. The price of drugs and tests is added to the bill which can double the cost. Lord Winston said: "My view is that both NHS and private clinics are charging much more than the cost of delivering the treatment." He calculated the costs, taking account of salaries and overheads, for a large unit treating 2,000 patients a year where economies of scale meant it could carry out treatment more efficiently.

"I costed the salaries very generously and concluded you could deliver treatment for £700 per cycle. Adding in the overheads [equipment, materials, rent] takes that to £1,200 to £1,300 a cycle. "NHS clinics are charging their private patients around £2,500 a cycle and private clinics around £3,500 a cycle. It is pure exploitation. The NHS is basing its fees not on what it costs but on what it thinks the market will bear."

He said some clinics were charging annual fees of £350 to store frozen embryos and eggs when liquid nitrogen cost 70 pence a flask and the storage costs amounted to no more than £10 a year. "It is a scandal," he said.

Lord Winston also attacked the growing use of experimental techniques for which there was little evidence by private clinics trying to enhance their success rates. "There are no randomised controlled trials and without trials we cannot know that they work. Can you imagine going into hospital with cancer and a doctor saying, 'I am going to give you this treatment because I think it might work?'

"If you are doing experimental treatment there should be a cast-iron rule that you don't charge vast sums to the patient. What they are doing is profiting from something that has not been trialled." Responding to the criticism, Simon Fishel, managing director of Care Fertility, the largest private provider of IVF in the UK, challenged Lord Winston to defend his own private practice at the Royal Masonic Hospital during the 1990s. "Why did he charge what he charged then? His clinic was not achieving the best success rates but charged among the highest prices."

Mr Fishel said the ethics of using new tests on patients for which there was only anecdotal evidence was one he "wrestled with". He was the first to use a screening technique called array-comparative genomic hybridisation, which led to the birth of a baby to a mother whose 13 previous attempts at IVF had failed. "Anecdotal evidence is never enough. But you can't always start off with [better] evidence. When was sperm injection ever proven to be safe before it was introduced in the UK? The largest cause of miscarriage is chromosomal abnormality. If we can screen out embryos which are chromosomally abnormal, the patient may have a better chance [of giving birth].

"If we were paying credence to Robert Winston's view we wouldn't be treating patients and we wouldn't have won the Nobel Prize [awarded to Sir Robert Edwards in 2010 for the world's first IVF baby born in 1978]. In the end treatment must be evidence-based but it doesn't mean you have to start off from there." Lord Winston said all the money raised from his private work had gone to charity and was ploughed back into treating NHS patients. "I raised millions of pounds. I don't think I could sleep at night paying into my personal account the large sums that women are paying for treatment."

IVF treatment conceivable changes

Getting fertility treatment on the NHS could be about to become more difficult. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is updating its guidance on infertility treatment and is due to publish new recommendations in February.

Current guidance says that women aged 23 to 39 who have been trying for a baby for a year without success should be offered three cycles of IVF. But provision for the one in seven couples in the UK which has difficulty conceiving is patchy. Campaigners fear criteria for treatment may be tightened under the new guidelines. In addition, they say the NHS reforms which include plans for GPs to take over commissioning of services could exacerbate the existing postcode lottery.

Susan Seenan, deputy chief executive of the Infertility Network, said IVF must be commissioned nationally to ensure equality of access: "IVF treatment is the only example of an accepted medical intervention that is routinely rationed. Local commissioning of fertility services will only serve to widen this postcode lottery, further entrenching inequalities in the health service."

Case study: 'The treatment is hugely expensive'

Gill Tinsdeall and her husband Mark spent £20,000 on five failed attempts at IVF before turning to adoption. "It was absolutely shattering. IVF treatment is hugely expensive. We were able to afford it by going without things but it is a huge amount of money." Gill, a human resources manager and Mark, who works for a water company, began treatment in West Yorkshire in 2007. She was then 34, and though one cycle of treatment was offered on the NHS, there was a year-long waiting list and they felt they could not wait. They paid around £3,000 as private patients to be treated at their local NHS hospital, but were unsuccessful. Another attempt at a private clinic led to a pregnancy but Gill miscarried.

Two failed attempts with donor eggs followed, and a final attempt, paid for this time by the NHS, was also unsuccessful. Gill said: "The fight to get access to NHS treatment added hugely to the stress. The only thing that kept me going was the friends I met through Infertility UK. They helped me through the nightmare." Contact infertilitynetworkuk.com

Article: 26th December 2011 www.independent.co.uk

Read more about alternatives to IVF such as natural fertility and home insemination

A 30p multi-vitamin pill could more than double a woman’s chance of having a baby by IVF, according to a study. It found that 60 per cent of those taking the supplements while undergoing IVF became pregnant compared to just a quarter who did not take them.

Researchers say the pills contain nutrients that may boost fertility such as vitamins A, C and E, zinc and selenium, that are often absent from our diets.

The study carried out at University College London involved 56 women aged 18 to 40, who had all tried unsuccessfully to fall pregnant using IVF for at least a year. Half were given a multi-nutrient pill to take every day and the other half given folic acid pills to take daily.

The micronutrient pill also contained folic acid which prevents birth defects and has also been shown to help boost fertility. The team found that 60 per cent of women taking the multi-nutrients fell pregnant, and did not miscarry in the first three months when it is most common. This compared to 25 per cent of women in the group taking folic acid who were still pregnant after three months.

The study published in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine also found that women taking the micronutrients needed far fewer attempts to become pregnant. Of those who fell pregnant, 75 per cent conceived in the first course of IVF.

By comparison just 18 per cent of those on folic acid who became pregnant did so after the first IVF course. The particular pill, Vitabiotics Pregnacare-Conception,contains folic acid, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin C, zinc, selenium and some antioxidants.

Lead researcher Dr Rina Agrawal said: 'The implications of this study are far reaching as they suggest that prenatal micronutrient supplementation in women undergoing ovulation induction improve pregnancy rates. 'There is a large body of evidence establishing the relationship between placental development, foetal growth, pregnancy outcomes and adequate nutrition, particularly vitamin intake.'

But other scientists pointed out that the study was very small so the results should not be taken too seriously. Dr Allan Pacey who specialises in fertility at the University of Sheffield said: 'The influence of nutrition on our fertility is of general interest to the public and professionals, but there are relatively few studies which have examined this systematically and few which have shown direct benefits of taking supplements to enhance things.'

'Therefore, on the face of it, this study is interesting but we should acknowledge that this is a relatively small number of patients and the study would need to be repeated in a larger trial before we could be certain of the results.' A woman’s fertility is known to be affected by a number of factors including her age, weight, alcohol consumption, whether she smokes.

High levels of stress and even drinking too much coffee have also been shown to reduce the chances of falling pregnant.

Article 2nd December 2011 www.dailymail.co.uk

Read more about nutrition and boosting fertility at www.prideangel.com