Experts warn Asians in UK against fertility treatment in India

British health experts have cautioned against the increasing trend of childless Asian couples in the country travelling to India for fertility treatment, claiming that this could risk women's health.
They claim that some fertility clinics in India may be implanting multiple embryos to increase the chances of a live birth.
"We have had patients who have had egg donation treatment overseas and come back to this country with triplet pregnancies and even higher order pregnancies, which then puts the patient in a terribly difficult position because these are very high-risk pregnancies," said Dr Madhurima Rajkhowa, a consultant gynaecologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital.

Childless British Asian couples are increasingly travelling to India for fertility treatment because of a shortage of South Asian egg donors in the UK.
According to a BBC report on donor shortages in the UK, the reasons behind the lack of Asian egg donors are complex.
Health experts suggest it may be due to cultural and religious reasons.

"The internet has increased people's awareness about egg donation overseas where perhaps there is a greater availability of egg donors than there is locally," feels Dr Rajkhowa.
Wendy Ross, the nurse responsible for egg donations at Birmingham Women's Hospital, said that her waiting list of over 100 people has a third of Asians.

"Our recipients who are Asians have a couple of choices: they can wait forever for an egg donor, they can choose to have a Caucasian donor - which some of them do, and that's fine - or they may choose to go abroad. Many of them do go to India," she said.
In the UK, commercial egg donation is banned and there are strict guidelines governing IVF procedures but in the Indian sub-continent the industry is not as strictly regulated.
There are also some linked ethical concerns about the welfare of donors in India, where women are paid for their eggs.

"For these women, because there's a big financial incentive, they may take unnecessary risks with their health," says Laura Witjens, chief executive of the National Gamete Donation Trust, a UK government-funded charity which aims to raise awareness about the issue and alleviate the shortage of sperm, egg and embryo donors.