“Miracle babies” may not be that much. After receiving medical help to become pregnant, one in five women will go on to have a spontaneous pregnancy.
Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Magazine de la Santé on France 5, tells us about this astonishing information: children born thanks to often heavy treatments, could have little brothers and sisters much more easily.
franceinfo: New research evokes these spontaneous pregnancies in women who have received medical assistance to have a first baby?
Absolutely, 20% of women who have used medicine to become a mother for the first time, then fell pregnant spontaneously. This is the result of a British research, published this week. The women concerned, however, have the impression of living an exceptional story, and of welcoming a “miracle baby”.
Because their initial journey, to become a mother, was often very long, with several failures of in vitro fertilization for example, IVF. These couples had not generally become parents after at least a year without contraception. This is the simplest definition of a fertility problem leading to specialized services.
But fertility was therefore modified by the treatments received for the first pregnancy?
This is part of the hypotheses of Dr Annette Thwaites, a doctor and researcher at University College London. It was she who revealed this rate of 20% from 11 studies carried out around the world, having followed more than 5,000 women in all. And she explains that indeed, certain aids to procreation sometimes have a lasting effect. Stimulating ovulation with hormonal treatments can create a persistent “wake-up”. Same for “drilling”, a kind of “drilling” of the ovaries. The hormonal processes linked to pregnancy as such would also modify subsequent fertility.
And it’s hard not to think of a “psychological” part?
Of course, I quote Dr. Thwaites in his article: “The importance of psychological factors on fertility is highly recognized and widely accepted”. But it also calls for caution on this interpretation. Because before this research, she had carried out 22 face-to-face interviews with the women concerned. And their psychological profiles were very varied, apart from a common point: the shock of having been pregnant without treatment. Sometimes too fast for their new family.
Dr. Thwaites is therefore happy to have found proof of what she suspected: 20% is not uncommon. For her, it would be necessary to inform the couples “finally” who have become parents. So that they can, if they wish, even if it seems crazy, choose their contraception.
The study