LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Tens of thousands of women across the country trying to have a baby through fertility treatments have had to postpone their appointments indefinitely following COVID-19 guidelines by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer reports that some fertility specialists and their patients are pushing back.
SACHA PFEIFFER, BYLINE: At her home in Fort Worth, Texas, Amy Schmidt Zook's bathroom cabinet is a miniature pharmacy of medicine and medical equipment.
AMY SCHMIDT ZOOK: An endless supply of syringes and needles, alcohol swabs, cotton pads. I have a package of medications for stimulating your ovaries.
PFEIFFER: That's all for her fertility treatments. Zook is 43, married and wants to have a third child, but doctors say her chances are slim. So she's been trying in vitro fertilization, or IVF. But a few weeks ago, Zook's fertility clinic told her it was suspending new treatments with no restart date given. Many other clinics nationwide have done the same.
ZOOK: I've never felt so old in my life (laughter). Like, at 43, like, I'm really falling off the cliff of fertility. And it's just like, oh, my gosh; this really could be the end of it.
PFEIFFER: The U.S. guidelines are similar to recommendations by fertility groups in Europe and Canada. There are exceptions, like for people with cancer who want to freeze eggs or sperm before starting chemotherapy, but those apply to relatively few patients.
BEVERLY REED: When I first saw the guidelines, I was shocked.
PFEIFFER: That's Zook's fertility specialist, Dr. Beverly Reed.
REED: And then I said, OK, well, these are the guidelines; I've just got to follow them.
PFEIFFER: Reed works at a clinic near Dallas and eventually came to oppose the guidelines. So she started a petition protesting them. About 15,000 people nationwide have signed it so far. Reed says the guidelines unfairly discriminate against fertility patients, especially same-sex couples and single people, who have fewer options to get pregnant on their own. And even though the risks of COVID-19 are still being studied, Reed thinks patients should be able to decide for themselves if they want to continue treatments.
REED: I have patients who are willing to take that risk, who say, yes, I understand it may be dangerous, but I'm OK with that because I still want to try to build my family. And if I don't get to do it now, I may never get to do it.
PFEIFFER: But Dr. David Adamson says so little is known about how the new coronavirus could affect unborn babies that patients cannot make an educated decision about the wisdom of continuing treatments. He founded a network of IVF clinics called ARC Fertility, and he's a former president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
DAVID ADAMSON: My assessment personally is that I think they've made the right decision.
PFEIFFER: Adamson says suspending treatments also reduces the current burden on the health care system by encouraging patients to stay home.
ADAMSON: But make no mistake. There are definitely women and men who are being harmed by not being able to do IVF. But we have to look at the greater good of society. And there's still too many unanswered questions to say it's OK to go ahead right now.
PFEIFFER: Dr. Eve Feinberg is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University and is on the task force that wrote the new guidelines. She said it isn't just COVID-19's unknown health risks that prompted them.
EVE FEINBERG: It was really much more about the public health concern of viral transmission.
PFEIFFER: In other words, the spread of the virus. Feinberg said by reducing the number of patients going to and from fertility appointments, that helps stop the virus from being transmitted.
FEINBERG: When you're trying to get pregnant naturally, you typically have sexual intercourse with one person, and you have the risk of exposing one person.
PFEIFFER: But when you're making repeat visits to a fertility clinic over weeks or months, you can come in contact with dozens of people - doctors, nurses, phlebotomists, ultrasound technicians - potentially spreading the coronavirus widely.
Shelly Kudrov is single, lives in the Bay Area of California and dearly wants to have a child.
SHELLY KUDROV: It's a lifelong dream of mine. I just didn't find, you know, the right partner in time.
PFEIFFER: So she started fertility treatments in December. She says she wasn't surprised when her appointments were canceled, considering there was a national emergency. And she understands the reason for the suspension.
KUDROV: There's a whole world of us out there wanting to get fertility treatments. That's a lot of people to be continuing to go out and be exposed and exposing other people. But you know, I'm not going to lie. You know, being 44 and still wanting to get pregnant with my own biological baby using my own eggs - this timing is critical. Every month feels like an egg wasted, you know?
PFEIFFER: The national task force that wrote the recommendation says it's meeting every two weeks to consider updating them, and its next update is due April 14.
Sacha Pfeiffer, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
