Health News of Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Source: GNA

3 post-menopausal women delivered sets of twins

Three post-menopausal women have each been delivered of a set of twins at the Trustcare Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre in Kumasi.

They had undergone In-Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer (IVF-ET) at the facility and the deliveries occurred between a space of one month - November 16 and December 16, last year.

Mr. Isaac Kofi Adu, a Clinical Embryologist, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the babies and their mothers were doing well.

One of the women, aged 54, and a resident of Kumasi, had been married for 20 years without a child and gave birth to a set of twins, both boys, after her first IVF-ET attempt.

There is also this other lady from Sunyani in the Brong-Ahafo Region, whose age is put at 55 years, married for 25 years and has been childless.

It was all joy to her family and friends when she was delivered of twins on last November 26.

Another woman from Obuasi shared a similar story. At 54, she had been married for 30 and had been barren until she went in for the IVF-ET procedure.

She is now the proud mother of twin girls.

Mr. Adu said the Centre, since its establishment in year 2011, had assisted many childless women to have their own biological children, something that had brought happiness to their marriages.

The challenge, he noted, had been the rising cost of drugs, which was making it difficult and preventing many a childless couple from seeking help there.

Mr. Adu said its success rate had made it the preferred choice by many.

Meanwhile, the facility had recorded its second delivery of quadruplets (three girls and a boy) and that happened on November 26.

They were given birth to by a 44 year-old woman in Kumasi, married for 12 years without a child.

The IVF-ET is a specialized process in medicine that is used to help couples who for various reasons cannot get pregnant naturally.

In Ghana, the procedure was first introduced by a private specialist hospital in Tema in 1990.