Baby for a gift

It’s a strange feeling. You meet someone who’s just starting to come to life as a four-cell embryo in a petri dish, and years later, when that someone’s grown into a bouncing five-year-old boy, you’re invited by his parents to be his godfather…

That’s why Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD, who runs the  Malpani Infertility Clinic in Mumbai with his wife, Anjali, loves what he does. Fertility specialists treat people who are unable to reproduce (men might have low sperm counts and other complications, women might have uterine problems, etc). “Being an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) specialist is one of the most rewarding careers possible, because you are changing the life of a family by helping them give birth to a deeply cherished child,” says Dr Malpani.

Dr Indira Hinduja, whose pioneering research in IVF

(a basic procedure, where the sperm fertilises the egg ‘in vitro’ or outside the body and the embryo which is created is then transferred to the uterus) led to the birth of India’s first test-tube baby, Harsha Chawda, cannot forget that moment. “She (Harsha’s mother Mani) delivered on August 6, 1986… I can’t describe that moment. It’s like a film I see again and  again. I remember when I was doing the Caesarean at 4.30 pm at Mumbai’s KEM (King Edward Memorial Hospital). The OT had high ceilings with ventilators. From below, we could see the cameras and the press photographers trying to catch the action. And then the baby cried... it was the most joyous moment of my life,” says Dr Hinduja

Dr Malpani was in medical college when the first test-tube baby was born. He found it “an exciting area and decided to specialise in it”. After completing his MD, he went abroad to get “real-life” training in IVF at a lab at the University of California, San Francisco and finished his clinical training at King’s College Hospital, London.

After MBBS, one needs an MD degree in obstetrics/ gynaecology. Then  one needs to specialise in infertility. “Unfortunately, there are no training courses in India as yet, which is a shame. The tragedy is that young MD gynaecologists in India have no exposure to IVF at all — and most of them are forced to learn ‘on the job’,” says Dr Malpani. In the United States, however, there are reproductive medicine fellowships, which take three years to complete.

That said, one can benefit immensely from Dr Hinduja’s experience. Someone who began studies in a municipal school in Belgaum, Karnataka, the mother of IVF treatment in India powered her research purely through will power.

While studying for her MD at the KEM Hospital, she says she was intrigued by the literature on IVF that “flooded the library”. The Institute for Research in Reproduction was bang opposite the hospital, and “so I went over there to study and see what was happening,” she says. A lot of sweat and toil and never-say-die attitude saw Dr Hinduja, who now runs the Inkus IVF Centre in Mumbai, create history.

Fertility treatment can range from simple medication to operative laparoscopy.  Advanced assisted reproductive techniques include IVF,  or ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), etc (see ‘What’s it about’). Surrogacy is also becoming popular with couples, when their embryo is carried by another woman till birth.

The need for fertility specialists is very urgent because of the importance  Indian society places on family building, and due to the social stigma that infertility still carries in our conservative society.

Says Dr Malpani, “Infertility affects about 15 per cent of all married couples, which means it is the commonest medical problem in the reproductive age group (20-45). Given the fact that India has over 1 billion people, a conservative estimate means that there are about 20 million infertile couples in India. Family planning and welfare should not just mean limiting family size — it should also mean helping infertile couples to have a baby. These are deeply desired and loved children – and will make ideal citizens for the future!”

Author: HT Horizon

Date: 21st April, 2010

For further details about related courses and colleges please click below:

Related courses and colleges