The Fertility MOT

Another press release offering a fertility ‘MOT’ from ‘fertility and pregnancy expert Zita West and her team’. The only problem is that the only real test of being able to get pregnant is trying to: plenty of couples with perfect hormonal tests struggle to get pregnant, and other couples with erratic periods and low sperm counts manage it with less bother.
It’s interesting, as well, that the documents say that the blood tests this private clinic recommend can usually be done free of charge by your GP. I don’t think this is fair on primary care services – if these private enterprises are going to recommend tests they should take the responsibility of doing them – not using up NHS resources on non-NHS approved tests.
As for the comment in the document that vitamin D levels are not available to be measured on the NHS: I don’t know where this comes from, but certainly our labs will do the test on request from a doctor working on clinical need.
No, I’m not a fan.

One Response to “The Fertility MOT”

  1. Carol Percy June 30, 2010 at 10:06 pm #

    I agree – quite concerning. Given that *polycystic ovary syndrome* can be a common cause of subfertility I would worry that women with PCOS may have their time and money wasted by these sort of investigations – and having their underlying health issues unaddressed.