ATMS Speaker Q&A

I am Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at UNSW, Director of Reproductive Medicine at the Royal Hospital for Women and Specialist at City Fertility Sydney.

I’ve been in academic reproductive medicine around the world for over 30 years. It’s still the best job in the world, combining pathos, humour, triumph and tragedy into every working day. I enjoy staying at the cutting edge of the science while interpreting new evidence and guiding my patients through the increasingly tangled maze of advice available to them.

We run the Oocyte Biology Research group at UNSW, led by my friend and colleague Prof Rob Gilchrist. We continue to try to improve the quality of older oocytes and have made some interesting progress recently, both in biomarkers of oocyte health and in possible approaches in helping women who are older or have a poor ovarian response to IVF stimulation.

Beyond recognition. So much good science has moved the goalposts a long way. We can now obtain equivalent livebirth rates with frozen embryos as with fresh, can efficiently biopsy to exclude serious genetic and chromosomal disorders before embryo transfer and have made the process of IVF more acceptable and safe for patients. I don’t think that many other areas of medicine have changed so much in such a short a period of time.

I’d hope to see better results for “older” patients. Women and their partners are delaying childbirth for longer and longer, for good social reasons. Biology is unfair and evolution is slow, so action is needed to improve their chances of a healthy pregnancy. We will also see greater uptake of genetic screening for serious abnormalities and improvement in accessibility to services for those less well off in Australia and around the world.

Understand how we can best all work together to achieve a much desired pregnancy for our patients. Learn more about what ART science can and cannot offer.

Collaborate with others who work across the disciplines to help women achieve a pregnancy against the odds. We should try to be more inclusive and holistic – we’re all trying to help our patient/client.

• Can I choose the gender of my embryo? (Not in Australia).
• Can I have two / three embryos transferred? (Almost never in Australia)
• Do the medications have many side effects? (Not seriously for most people).
• Can you help needle phobic patients through IVF? (Yes).
• Does exercise / stress / long hours at work affect my chance of pregnancy? (Usually not).
• When can I start?

Serena Williams. Great at her sport and was six weeks pregnant when she won the Australian Open two years ago. Love watching her play the game and she has inspired many women and partners.