‘Parenting begins before conception’ was the title of the Louis Waller Lecture 2015, delivered by Professor Sarah Robertson from The Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide, on 3 September.

For the 2014 Louis Waller Lecture, three eminent obstetrics and gynaecology specialists discussed the topic the pros and cons of egg freezing for social reasons. Professor Catherine Waldby set the scene about the social context of egg freezing, while Professor Martha Hickey and Dr Devora Lieberman debated the pros and cons of social egg freezing. Important note: Presenters at the event argued positions in a debate and any opinions expressed in the course of the evening were not necessarily representative of individual views.

Professor Rob Norman

Legislation to remove police checks passed by parliament Starting from 8 July 2020 people will no longer have to have police and child protection order checks before starting fertility treatment in Victoria after state parliament passed legislation removing the requirement. The legislation, known as the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment Bill 2020, was passed by the Legislative Council on 4 June 2020 and will come into effect on 8 July 2020.

People who struggle to have a baby often turn to IVF and this has ended happily for millions of couples around the world. But sometimes multiple IVF attempts fail to result in a pregnancy and sometimes women who achieve pregnancy experience repeated pregnancy loss.

IVF has come a long way since the first baby was born more than 40 years ago. In the early days of IVF doctors waited for the one egg that a woman releases every month to mature before they tried to retrieve it and fertilise it in the laboratory. Needless to say, the chance of a pregnancy was extremely low.

Fertility clinics in Australia and New Zealand are improving the way they present success rates but there is still room for improvement, our latest annual audit has found.

In assisted reproductive technology (ART) there are two ways eggs can be fertilised: IVF (in-vitro-fertilisation) or ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). In IVF thousands of sperm are added to each egg in the hope that one will fertilise the egg. In ICSI the embryologist uses a microscope and very technically advanced equipment to select a single sperm which is injected into the egg.

Struggling to get pregnant can be extremely stressful at the best of times. And now we have the additional uncertainty of COVID-19 in our lives.

Last week, Australian and Belgian scientists announced exciting results in the field of IVM (in vitro maturation of human eggs). IVM has been around for some time. The breakthrough comes from the development of culture medium containing growth factors that make IVM 50% more successful than in previous methods.