The “cynical” companies are accused of offering benefits of in vitro fertilization treatment to young women by delaying the birth of children and focusing on their careers.
- Professor Adam Balen claims that employers cynically offer in vitro fertilization treatment
- The fertility expert said this reliance on the success of the treatment was inappropriate
- He said employers’ approach was to “actually encourage women to work”
Employers cynically offer IVF treatment as an advantage, so that young women will delay the birth of children and focus on their careers, says a fertility expert.
An increasing number of companies, including the owner of British Gas Centrica, NatWest and the law firm Freshfields, are promoting egg freezing as a workplace benefit.
They say it allows women to postpone being parents as they work their way up the corporate ladder, but Professor Adam Balen, a former chairman of the British Fertility Society, said this reliance on the success of fertility treatment was inappropriate. .
Employers cynically offer in vitro fertilization treatment as an advantage, so young women will delay childbirth and focus on their careers, says fertility expert (main photo used)
“Some organizations offer egg freezing. In other words, freeze your eggs now for us and when we live to your best years, then you can use your eggs, “he said.
“There is an argument that having young eggs in the freezer is better than not having them at all, but this may give the false impression that… IVF always works.
“As much as we have made tremendous progress in IVF, especially in the UK, unfortunately this does not work for everyone.”
Professor Balen, a leading clinician at Leeds’ private fertility clinic, said it was “a cynical approach to actually encourage women to work instead of supporting them to have a family”.
While some celebrities, including actresses Halle Berry and Laura Linney, became mothers after the age of 45, Prof. Balen said that media coverage “may give people an unrealistic impression that current technology works at any age, but unfortunately it is not. so. “
He added: “Unfortunately, we cannot reverse the natural decline in a woman’s egg fertility.”
His comments come when companies looking to attract the best talent and promote gender equality offer fertility treatments at reduced prices as benefits in the workplace.
Professor Adam Balen, former President of the British Fertility Society, said that this reliance on the success of fertility treatment was inappropriate (standard photo used).
IVF involves extracting eggs and fertilizing them with sperm in a laboratory to create an embryo before it is placed in the mother’s womb.
According to the UK’s Fertility Regulator, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, the birth rate for patients under the age of 35 using their own eggs was 32 per cent of the transferred embryo, but less than five per cent for women over the age of 43.
– We [Leeds Fertility] don’t do IVF over the age of 45 because it just doesn’t work with your own eggs, “said Prof. Balen. “It’s just wrong to subject someone to everything that has to do with IVF, plus the costs involved, for zero chance.”
He suggested that companies instead offer parental leave and childcare facilities.
“It would be more responsible for large companies and organizations to support their workforce, both men and women, in order to enable them to have better crèches and maternity and paternity leave,” he said.
“You will get more out of your workforce if they are happy and have managed to have a family at the right time.”
… BUT THIS GIVES WORKERS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NHS IVF LOTTERY
By Natalie Sutherland, Fertility Officer and Partner at Burgess Mee Family Law
Professor Adam Balen is right that when companies offer in vitro fertilization and egg freezing as benefits, it can be seen as encouraging women to postpone starting a family.
This can really tempt some women to focus on their careers during their most fertile years and then cash in on this obvious insurance policy once they “succeed”.
However, I fully support any company that offers IVF and egg freezing as an advantage for employees.
Unfortunately, too many women are left childless because NHS funding for infertility treatment is a lottery with a zip code: hit and miss at best, and extremely inadequate at worst.
Private funding for IVF can reach tens of thousands of pounds, which is unaffordable for many, so if instead women can access treatment through an employer who gives them more choice, that should be a good thing.
Armed with the full facts – how their fertility changes with age and how much treatment can help as they do so – women are fully capable of making decisions.
But we need to do much more to make society, including jobs, more family-friendly, starting with better fertility education and a change in work culture that helps, not hinders, women from having children.
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