Incredible! 100 Year Old Test Proves Cheaper & Just As Successful As IVF

By: Phoebe Ackland, ellaslist

In exciting news, a 100-year old fertility test has been shown to be just as successful (and a heck of a lot cheaper) than IVF, giving countless infertile couples new hope.

Australian obstetrician and researcher Profesor Ben Mol from the University of Adelaide, according to News Corp, has found that 40% of women who can't fall pregnant eventually do so when their fallopian tubes are 'flushed out' with poppy seed oil. The technical name for this procedure is hysterosalpingography and is a dye test of the fallopian tubes conducted under an X-Ray machine. It was first performed in 1917, exactly 100 years ago. It would seem that nature has the answer! 

The Good News? It Won't Cost You

This traditional test is available free of charge under Medicare, and costs between just $500 and $700 if performed privately, according to News Corp. Mol found that it came with the same success rate as IVF treatment, which costs couples around the $10,00 mark per go. Dr Mol himself is a flushed-fallopian tube baby. Back in 1964, his mother, who had been unable to conceive for 9 years, had the test....and he was born 12 months later. The flushing out of the tubes, if the dye picks up that they are blocked, is said to clear the way for fertilisation.

Exciting Findings

Dr Mol's findings were carried out in the Netherlands on 1100 women, and the results are set to be published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. In the test, 550 women had their tubes flushed out with water, and the other 550 had their tubes flushed with poppy seed oil. Of those with the oil flush, 40% fell pregnant within just 6 months, and 29% those who were flushed with water faced the same fate. Mol told News Corp: “Only around 20 per cent would have become pregnant without any treatment....Our results have been even more exciting than we could have predicted, helping to confirm that an age old medical technique still has an important place in modern medicine.”

Forty-per cent is about the success rate of IVF, and Dr. Mol told News Corp: “Considering that 40 per cent of women in the oil-based group achieved a successful pregnancy, that’s 40 per cent of couples who could avoid having to go through the huge costs and emotions associated with IVF treatment.” This is seriously exciting stuff, that we can only hope saves desperate couples time, pain and money.