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For couples who are struggling with infertility, in vitro fertilization (IVF) can seem like the only way to achieve a pregnancy. Many couples, however, are discovering a revolutionary breakthrough in reproductive medicine called NaProTechnology that is proving to be just as successful and more cost effective in assisting these couples to start new families. Best of all, NPT restores fertility, allowing for conception to occur naturally.

For couples that are experiencing infertility, the desire to have a child can be overwhelming. Every month that passes is another missed opportunity. Depression, grief, sadness, and despair eventually set in and at some point most couples become desperate enough to gamble with tens of thousands of dollars on expensive procedures like InVitro Fertilization (IVF) without fully understanding what they are getting themselves into. For the vast majority of couples who try IVF, false hopes turn false, and things that sound too good to be true prove to be so.
Before you decide to spend your precious savings on IVF or any of its latest forms such as Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) you owe it to yourself to find out more about NaProTechnology (NPT), a medically sound and scientifically supported approach to treating the cause of your infertility. "NaPro" means "natural-procreative" and as the name implies, it refers to the application of diagnostic and medical technologies toward achieving pregnancy "the natural way" through intercourse as opposed to a laboratory procedure.
Here are 10 reasons to choose NPT rather than IVF:
1. NaProTechnology Focuses on DiseaseIf a couple cannot get pregnant, it makes sense that the first thing the doctor must do is to find out why. This is THE goal of the complete NPT program. With IVF, the cause of infertility is not important and in the underlying problem it is completely ignored.
2. Success Rates are Better with NaProTechnologyRecent data from the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, NE, show that NaProTechnology success rates are 1.
5 to 3 times better than IVF (23.5% versus 38.4%-81.8%). In a 4 year study of 95 NPT couples who had been trying to conceive for an average of 6.1 years and had 176 failed attempts at an Artificial Reproductive Technique (ART) Boyle[1] reported that there were 123 conceptions. Life table analysis demonstrated increasing success the longer that couples remained in the NPT program with 26.2% pregnant at 12 to 17 months rising to 32.6% at 18-25 months.
3. Destruction of EmbryosAn analysis of ART data[2] from 1983 to 1986 demonstrated that the transfer of 1,372 embryos (3.2 per woman) resulted in 81 live births. From this data, it is necessary to create 16.9 living embryos to produce one live birth. The higher reported rates of success for IVF procedures usually means more embryos are being transferred which increases the risk of multiple births.
4. Infanticide: "Selective Reduction"One of the most objectionable things about IVF is that it can result in a situation where a woman is forced to deal with a dangerously high multiple pregnancy rate. Pregnancy risk increases dramatically with the number of babies in the womb. Frequently, women are compelled to selectively "reduce" (i.e., kill) additional babies in the womb due to unacceptably high pregnancy risk.
5. Natural Sex versus a Laboratory ProcedureIn IVF, the sperm and eggs (gametes) are collected through masturbation (male) and harvesting (female) where they meet in a laboratory to form embryos which are then reintroduced into the woman's body. NPT, on the other hand, relies on a natural act of intercourse to achieve pregnancy.
6. NaProTechnology is more cost effectiveAccording to Collins[3], the median cost of one cycle of IVF in the United States in 2001 is $9,226. $20-30,000 expenses are not unheard of, however, because IVF clinics prefer to sell discount packages (multiple cycles) in order to increase success rates and allow for "shared" risk. In comparison, at one medical center in Duarte, CA (Santa Teresita), NPT has been cited as costing approximately $9,290 which includes a physician evaluation, hormone and ultrasound evaluation, and outpatient surgical treatment of infertility.
7. Pregnancy OutcomesThere is growing concern that IVF may have significant adverse effects on the children conceived with this procedure. In a study of birth defects after ICSI and IVF procedures, Hansen et al.
[4] reported that ICSI and IVF babies were more than twice as likely to have been diagnosed with a major birth defect by the end of one year of life (8.6% and 9.0%) as compared to naturally conceived babies (4.2%).
8. You could get pregnant again!Because natural fertility is restored with NPT, these couples are often able to get pregnant again. In the Boyle study[1] of 89 births in women who had failed ART, there were 14 women with 2 live births, and 1 woman with 3 live births. Since IVF does nothing to correct the cause of infertility, there is no benefit toward subsequent pregnancies.
9. What will you have to show for it?Ironically, in some cases IVF procedures cause additional harm to the female reproductive system in the course of treatment. For example, some IVF clinics will perform surgical removal of a blocked and swollen fallopian tube in order to increase success rates[5]. In these cases, when IVF fails, fallopian tube repair is no longer an option. This approach is contrary to the natural and restorative orientation of the NPT physician and surgeon[6]. NPT is designed to restore (not destroy) reproductive function. If nothing else, NPT couples have had the underlying cause of the problem addressed which often results in better overall health.
10. What happens after you get pregnant?This is perhaps the most important question. Frequently, couples who pursue IVF have not thought about what happens next. Success equals pregnancy. Unfortunately, ignoring the underlying problem that leads to infertility in the first place can adversely affect the pregnancy and even lead to miscarriage. With NPT, restoring health and fertility begins before conception and continues throughout the pregnancy with the aim of preventing miscarriage and promoting the optimum health of the newborn baby and mother.
References1. Boyle, P., NaProTechnology (NPT) – After previously unsuccessful Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART). 2004. 2. Cvetkovich, L.L., The reproductive technologies: A scientific overview, in The gift of life: The proceedings of a national conference on the Vatican instruction on reproductive ethics and technology, M. Wallace and T. Hilgers, Editors. 1990, Pope Paul VI Institute Press: Omaha, NE. 3. Collins, J., Cost-effectiveness of In Vitro Fertilization. Seminars in Reproductive Medicine, 2001. 19: p. 279-289. 4. Hansen, M., et al., The risk of major birth defects after Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection and In Vitro Fertilization. New England Journal of Medicine, 2002. 346: p. 725-730. 5. Nackley, A.C. and S.J. Muasher, The significance of hydrosalpinx in in vitro fertilization. Fertility and Sterility, 1998. 69: p. 373-384. 6. Hilgers, T.W., The Medical and Surgical Practice of NaProTechnology. 2004, Omaha, NE: Pope Paul VI Institute Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Picella helps couples who are trying to conceive naturally without the use of expensive artificial reproductive techniques. You can read more articles published by him and by other experts in this area at: http://www.majella.us