LONDON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A British government watchdog agency is considering allowing women to be implanted with only one embryo during each cycle of in vitro fertilization.
The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority is considering imposing the "one embryo" rule on British fertility clinics because of the risk of multiple births which are costly, risk the mother's health and result in a risk of disabilities in babies, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
However, a Dutch study of 300 patients at the Academic Hospital in Maastricht, published in the medical journal Human Reproduction, found implanting only one embryo at a time would almost halve pregnancy rates.
Using Britain's in vitro fertilization rate of 20 percent, as few as one in 10 women who have the fertilization treatment would take home a baby after their first attempt.
Twenty-six percent of in vitro fertilization births are twin deliveries and 2.3 percent are triplets, compared to the rate of twins in natural conceptions at 1.25 percent.
