Hospital cuts older women off from IVF

SYDNEY, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- An Australian hospital has announced that women 43 or older will no longer be accepted as patients for in vitro fertilization.

Dr. Howard Smith, director of the Westmead Fertility Center at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, told the Sydney Morning Herald that setting an age limit is kinder than allowing older women to continue with a treatment unlikely to succeed. The hospital found through an audit that the success rate in older women is less than 1 percent.

"We said, 'Look, we need to be open and honest ... that the probability of a live birth was extremely small.' There were more who got pregnant but those ended in miscarriage," Smith told the newspaper.

There are 20 women now undergoing IVF who are above the age limit. Smith said they would be allowed one more try.

Smith said the older women are more likely to be smokers, which could explain part of the low success rate.