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“23 March 2020
An open letter to fertility patients:
Sally Cheshire CBE, Chair HFEA
Coronavirus (COVID-19)
As Chair of the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology), the regulator responsible for overseeing all UK fertility clinics, I wanted to write an open letter to all of you who are currently undergoing or were planning fertility treatment at this difficult time.
Back in 1976, my mother came home to Britain from India eight months pregnant, not having seen a single midwife, doctor or nurse for the entirety of her pregnancy. Everything she knew about babies, she now only half jokes, came from what she’d read on the side of a box of tampons. She gave birth just a week later to my older sister, a happy, healthy – if surprisingly hairy – baby.
This is the second in a series of films documenting the recent event 'Frozen Fertility: The Challenges of Storing Eggs, Sperm and Embryos', produced by the Progress Educational Trust (PET) in partnership with the Scottish Government.
The film features a presentation by Dr Melanie Davies, chair of Fertility Preservation UK.
The legislation surrounding gamete freezing is complicated and difficult to comprehend, even for people with law degrees. The Progress Educational Trust's latest event 'Frozen Fertility: The Challenges of Storing Eggs, Sperm and Embryos', held at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, set out to explore the current state of play.
This is the second in a series of films documenting the recent event 'Does Fertility Treatment Still Need to Be a Medical Secret?', produced by the Progress Educational Trust in partnership with the Scottish Government.
The film features a presentation by Gwenda Burns, chief executive of Fertility Network UK.
Anyone who donated sperm, eggs or embryos in the UK before April 2005 was promised life-long anonymity.
But has the rise of home DNA testing changed the possibility of identifying Natasha's donor and genetic siblings?