Shobha John | The Times of India | 21 September 2008
A new test that can detect if the eggs produced by a woman are defective may prove to be a boon for wannabe mothers who opt for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Till now, women would routinely subject themselves to a series of failed IVF attempts without realising they carried defective eggs, which would produce abnormal children.
It’s a technique that would have saved 49-year-old Umesh Chandrashekhar and his 42-year-old wife five failed IVF attempts. Three of their IVF tries were in the UK and two in Coimbatore. “We started the procedure in 1990 in Bristol, UK, where I was posted. After coming back to India, we even tried unsuccessfully with donor eggs. I’ve ended up spending Rs 15 lakh on this but to no end,” says Chandrashekhar, a Delhi-based marketing executive.