Do IVF Treatments Provide a Safe Way to Have Children

Children are blessings from God and make families stronger, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. Most couples have children in a natural way, but many couples struggle with infertility. I recognize the heartache caused by infertility because I dealt with it personally until my doctor – through numerous tests – discovered that my ovaries were not working properly. He gave me a few pills to jump start my ovaries, and I now have six biological children born in the natural way.

Some would say that the pills were a blessing. However, they carried their own set of problems. One of those problems is that my first-born daughter miscarried her only pregnancy. I am grateful to have my daughter, but I am sorry that my ovary problem caused her infertility.

In-vitro fertilization is not the cure-all that most people think that it is for couples struggling with infertility. According to an article by the staff at Blaze TV, it rarely works and can cause issues for the mother and the child. 

Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, is one of the leading voices sounding the alarm.

“IVF is fraught with risk. It’s risky to the woman’s health; it’s risky to the health of the unborn child,” Lahl tells Blaze TV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.” “You can just follow the CDC data, and for the last 10-plus years, overwhelmingly, all IVF cycles fail.”

Data is now coming out that IVF increases the chance of pregnancy-related complications, like preterm labor and birth defects.

“My grandson was born with a heart defect. And when his care was transferred to a big university hospital in California, two independent pediatric cardiologists there said, ‘Is he an IVF baby?’ He’s not, but in the medical literature, IVF babies have much higher rates of congenital heart defects at birth,” Lahl explains.

“Shouldn’t that be something that at least could make us pause and think? We know that pregnancy is risky; I know that, you know, any child that’s born healthy, praise God, because there’s a lot of things that can go wrong to make children born with all kinds of defects, but knowingly doing it, I think, is problematic,” she continues.

Stuckey has also done her research on the issues associated with IVF, and one of them is a higher prevalence of the child being diagnosed with autism.

“Specifically because there was a fertility problem on the father’s part. So that is because say a dad has basically immobile sperm. They’re just not fast enough, strong enough, to do what they have to do in the natural fertility reproduction process,” Stuckey says, noting that in IVF they “take the sperm and put it on the egg.”

“There is a reason that that sperm isn’t working. There’s an underlying issue there that will affect the baby that is born, because those sperm weren’t supposed to re-create, and when you force them to re-create, then the baby is going to inherit a lot of problems,” she adds.

“People like to say, ‘We’re playing God,’ and I always say, ‘Well, no, because God doesn’t play that way. We’re playing naughty people,’” Lahl agrees.

“There’s a natural order to how things are supposed to work and how our bodies are supposed to work, and even though the human body is incredibly resilient, our fertility is very fragile,” she adds.

I know a couple who are like family. They have seven beautiful children, all born because of the blessing of IVF. They all came with healthy bodies and minds with the youngest now being in their early 20s. I have not heard anything about the two sons who are married having problems having children, but they all seem to have come through the experience well.

It sounds to me from what is written above that many of said problems come from fathers with weak sperm, sperm that could not enter an egg naturally. In such cases, doctors should inform the potential parents of the chances of future problems. The medical profession should continue with the knowledge of what works and what does not work to help infertile couples to enjoy the blessings of parenthood. Children strengthen families, and strong families strengthen their communities, states, and nations.