Jennifer Lahl Speaks to US Senate

Our founder and current board member, Jennifer Lahl, was invited to brief Senate staff on Capitol Hill on July 11, 2024 on the topic of IVF. The briefing was sponsored by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (MI – R) and held in the Russell Senate Building. Senator Hyde-Smith recently introduced the RESTORE Act. “The Reproductive Empowerment and Support through Optimal Restoration (RESTORE) Act would work within existing federal programs to expand access to restorative reproductive medicine for the nearly 11 percent of women and nine percent of men affected by infertility. As such, the measure is cost neutral.”

About 50 staff members of the Senate were in attendance and in the spirit of education, we are sharing her remarks with each of you:

Today I will address the risks and harms to women and children that are brought about by current practice in Reproductive Medicine. I regularly speak all over the world, and I’m going to assume that many of you might not have thought about these issues through the lens of maternal/child health, but only through the development of new technologies that help people have babies – which I’m all for.

How did I come to this work? During the Bush presidency, at the height of the embryonic stem cell and cloning debates, I took a deep dive into ART, wondering how, at that time, we were having a national debate around the then 1.5 million surplus frozen embryos…

I knew that if this research took off, millions of women would be needed to sell their eggs for scientific research, in addition to the practice of selling their eggs to help people make babies. In fact, when California passed its bond initiative to pay for embryonic stem cell and cloning research, we were successful in getting then Gov. Jerry Brown to veto legislation that would allow women to be paid egg donors to advance this research. His letter to the Assembly stated, “not everything in life is for sale, nor should it be.”

In my writing and research about egg donation/donors, I had several women in the US contact me about their serious medical complications which occurred from their decision to sell their eggs – I made my documentary film then, Eggsploitation, about how recklessly Big Fertility used these women. Calla and Kylee both suffered massive strokes because they developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a life-threatening condition which can arise from taking the fertility drugs. They will never be able to have their own children. I’ve published with my colleagues a case report of otherwise healthy young woman egg donors who developed breast cancer as very young women – and with no medical history of breast cancer. No one buys eggs from women who have a history of breast cancer. These are healthy women, who have no medical need to take these powerful drugs, in exchange for money – this is not the role of the physician whose duty should be aimed at the health of their patients – treating diseases, not causing harm. Doctors should not profit from harming healthy women.

I then turned my focus to the growing industry of commercial surrogacy and the way Big Fertility recruits’ women to be paid to “help make dreams come true”. There is ample research in the medical literature showing that a gestational surrogacy pregnancy confers much higher risks to these women – high risk pregnancies mean both baby and mother is at risk – A study reported this past Monday, on nearly a million births in Canada which compared unassisted conceptions, IVF conceptions and gestational surrogacy pregnancies. This study found that gestational surrogates faced severe maternal morbidity rates of 7.1%, notably higher than unassisted conceptions (2.4%) and IVF pregnancies (4.6%).

What are the risks? Pre-eclampsia, maternal hypertension, gestational diabetes, preterm birth leading to, low birth weight babies – requiring extended stays in costly high-risk pregnancy hospitals and long NICU stays for babies. Premature babies often go on to have other long-term health complications. My own peer-reviewed research shows these risks, along with higher rates of cesarean sections as well as increased risk of postpartum depression, when compared to their pregnancy with their own children. Surrogates are paid an additional $5000 per baby if they are willing to carry twins or triplets. Why are doctors profiting from taking risks with healthy women’s lives – who are most often young mothers. We have had two surrogate deaths in my state of California. The surrogates’ children lost their mother and their husbands lost their wives. One surrogate died in Idaho – along with the twins she carried for a couple in Spain – where all surrogacy is illegal. One husband spoke with me about losing his wife due to complications of her surrogate pregnancy…the couple she carried the baby for have had to undergo extensive counseling and therapy, knowing that one man and his children lost his wife and their mother, so that they could have a baby. Big Fertility is booming – most Europeans countries flock here since surrogacy is illegal – the reproductive tourism reports show that of internationals coming to the US to rent wombs, over 40% are single men from China over the age of 42 – see any red flags? Come to the U.S. and get a pathway to citizenship.

And what about the infertile couple? What about the woman who get pregnant using “donor eggs?” What about women undergoing IVF to have their own baby?

First, IVF is costly, has a high failure rate and there are risks to both mother and child.

All IVF pregnancies have significantly increased risk of blood transfusion at delivery. The American Heart Association found that IVF pregnancies have higher risks of adverse outcomes and vascular complications. Another study showed IVF pregnancies were associated with pre-eclampsia, kidney injury, stroke, and embolism.

If donor eggs are used, hysterectomy risk is significantly higher – IVF using donor eggs had the highest rate of ICU admissions for the pregnant woman. If a woman undergoes IVF using “donor” eggs, there is a risk of severe maternal and fetal morbidities.
Are the kids ok? I recently became a grandmother. When my daughter was pregnant, it was discovered that the baby had a complex congenital heart defect so her medical care was transferred to UCSF – a premier facility for these types of cases. One two occasions, meeting with the expert team there, she was asked, “is this an IVF baby?” – He’s not, but it is curious that the experts know.

Data on risks to children born of IVF is now slowly starting to come out. One study states “The risks of heart defects, musculoskeletal and central nervous system malformations, very severe preterm and preterm birth, and low birth weight. The risks seem to be based on maternal and paternal factors, but also on the IVF technique itself. Data show that children conceived via IVF have an increased risk for insulin-resistance and high blood pressure, stillbirths and perinatal mortality, fetal anomalies (including congenital malformation, higher blood pressure, and epigenetic issues like Beckwith-Wiedemann and Angelman syndrome. Another study found “that children born via ART conception have a higher risk of any type of childhood cancer, as well as leukemia and hepatic tumors. A 2021 study found that “children conceived by assisted reproductive technology (ART) had statistically significantly worse outcomes in left ventricular heart function and structure.” For those looking, there is plenty of evidence that there are significant risks to the developing fetus.

If we start at the very beginning, we see that embryos created through IVF may have a higher risk of genetic and chromosomal abnormalities. This can be due to the manipulation of eggs and sperm outside the natural environment.

The Journal of Human Reproduction reported that development of the embryo outside the body means that it is constantly exposed to stresses that it would not experience in the womb. Sources of stress on the human embryo include changes in pH and temperature shifts, exposure to atmospheric (20%) oxygen (vs. 95% in the body) and the build-up of toxins in the media the embryo is in. When more than one stress is present in the laboratory, there is evidence that negative synergies can result, culminating in significant trauma to the developing embryo. It is evident that embryos are sensitive to both chemical and physical signals within their microenvironment, and that these factors play a significant role in influencing development and events post transfer. From the viewpoint of assisted human reproduction, a major concern with chemical and physical factors lies in their adverse effects on the viability of embryos, and from long-term effects on the fetus, even as a result of a relatively brief exposure.
We have forged ahead embracing technologies that pose serious risks to maternal/child health. We have stopped looking at what is driving the rise of infertility and insisted on medical solutions that don’t compromise the health of women whose eggs and wombs we need, the health of infertile women and most importantly the children who are so desperately wanted.