Today I was browsing Baby Center, and found an article that made me want to punch myself in the face. This is the article: Common Fertility Drug Found to be Ineffective.
The article talks about how Clomid doesn't increase a couple's chance of becoming pregnant. That taking Clomid is actually just as effective as doing nothing at all.
What's so wrong with this article? Why I am so annoyed with this?
Of course I'm going to tell you, in pain staking detail, why this article makes me want to punch myself, and maybe someone else, in the face.
If you click on the link to the original research, which was reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), you will see some important details that were left of out this brief, yet annoying, article.
The major point that isn't pointed out in the Baby Center article is that the study was conducted using participants fitting the following definition (as defined by BMJ) of Unexplained Infertility:
Couples with infertility for over two years, confirmed ovulation, patent fallopian tubes, and motile sperm.
So basically, everyone who participated in this study OVULATED. They ovulated just fine on their own, thankyouverymuch! So it isn't really that surprising that the people in this study didn't really benefit from Clomid, because they already ovulate and clearly ovulation is not the problem.
The face punching comes into play at the end of the article:
In a commentary, also published in the British Medical Journal, Terek El-Toukhy and Yacoub Khalaf of Britian's National Health Service wrote: As a direct result of the lack of evidence, many couples with unexplained infertility endure - and even request - expensive, potentially hazardous, and often unnecessary treatments.
Let's please publish an article, on a pregnancy website, that promotes the idea that infertility treatments are unnecessary, and that you need only relax and screw your brains out to get pregnant. That is a fantastic idea! And also, don't point out the fact that the people studied already ovulate, and don't even bother to address the notion that Clomid has made parents of many, many women with PCOS or other ovulatory disorders, who could not ovulate on their own.
Please, let's just give the fertile general public more reason to tell the infertile ladies to relax, get drunk, go on vacation, and maybe put egg whites in their vaginas to get pregnant.
Not that I think Clomid is the miracle drug. Clomid did nothing for me but make me fat and grouchy. I'm not against the posting of an article challenging the effectiveness of Clomid. What I'm against is the half-reporting of facts. Clomid sucks ass! Well, that's not entirely true, is it? Maybe Clomid sucks ass when you already ovulate, and when your infertility is unexplained.
Have you had success with Clomid? Failures with Clomid? What do you think of the article? Do you think it gives fertility treatments a fair shake?
Posted by Jen
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