Four Corners: May 30

On Monday’s Four Corners, reporter Sarah Dingle looks at “The Baby Business” and asks whether women are being sold false hope by the IVF industry?

She will hear views that some women undergoing IVF don’t actually need it.

“All our savings go to IVF…Then you get that negative pregnancy result. There’s another $6,000 gone.” Grace

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.

“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

At 42, she’s been through six unsuccessful rounds of IVF. The physical, emotional and financial toll is huge.

“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

Julia too, had dreams of becoming a mother, undergoing 8 rounds of fertility treatment.

“I had this longing to have a child…I was hopeful that I would be one of the lucky ones.” Julia

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.

“It’s regrettable that I got the more optimistic answer. I would’ve just preferred a more accurate answer.” Julia

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.

“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

Many fertility specialists say it’s up to individual women to decide how much treatment they can take.

“Embryos are like mud. You keep putting embryos on the wall of the uterus, eventually one will stick.” Fertility Doctor

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.

And disturbingly, they also have concerns about the potential harm fertility treatments could be causing women – including potential links to cancer.

Monday 30th May at 8.30pm on ABC.