{"id":328,"date":"2020-07-20T14:26:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T13:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=328"},"modified":"2020-07-20T20:27:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T19:27:09","slug":"ivf-babble-online-fertility-expo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"IVF babble online fertility expo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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With the closure or limited opening of fertility clinics due to the pandemic, fertility patients have had much fewer opportunities to connect with professionals through open days or fertility fairs, which prompted the magazine IVF babble to organise a live online Fertility Expo. I attended the event on 19 July and was able to explore a virtual showroom with over 50 booths belonging to fertility clinics, charities and other specialists. Many of the booths were staffed via a live chat function and offered the option to book online consultations. In the \u2018auditorium\u2019 I attended live talks about evidence and add-on treatments, the connections between stress and fertility, and the role of a fertility coach, as well as a panel session on self-care while trying to conceive, and I watched two short films explaining how Embryoscope works. The range of topics explored was impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was particularly struck by the international spread of speakers and clinics represented at the expo. While it comes as no surprise that fertility treatment crosses borders, travel within and between countries has become synonymous with risk and danger during the pandemic. Restricted travel has had huge impacts on planned or initiated fertility treatment abroad and media reports have described desperate situations where people have been unable to retrieve babies from surrogates (see here<\/a>). Inevitably these new risks and limits to mobility will place additional stress on a process that can already feel risky at every stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of avoiding unnecessary risk has become a familiar frame of mind over the last couple of months, although for patients in the midst of fertility treatment, calculations of necessity and risk are highly complex, emotional and shifting. Back to the expo, many of the talks I attended seemed to assume that the world of fertility treatment will be returning to \u2018normal\u2019 at some point in the not-too-far future, yet I questioned to what extent this will be the case. I wondered what long-lasting impacts the pandemic will have on the landscape of fertility treatment, patients’ decision-making processes and their maintenance of hope, as these respond to a contemporary moment of uncertainty. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the closure or limited opening of fertility clinics due to the pandemic, fertility patients have had much fewer opportunities to connect with professionals through open days or fertility fairs, which prompted the magazine IVF babble to organise a live online Fertility Expo. I attended the event on 19 July and was able to explore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences","category-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9YI6o-5i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":536,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=536","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":0},"title":"The Fertility and Modern Family shows 2021","date":"16th November 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The project team were present at this year's Modern Family Show and the Fertility Show Online Summit. The timing of these shows presented a perfect opportunity for us to share our new animations, which you can watch on our website here. Our booth at the Fertility Show Online Summit contained\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/image-3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":617,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=617","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":1},"title":"PET’s annual conference: The current state and regulation of the fertility sector","date":"13th December 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"At the beginning of December, we kept up our tradition of attending the Progress Educational Trust\u2019s (PET) annual conference. The title and topic of this year\u2019s online event was \u2018Reproducing Regulation: Who Regulates Fertility and How?\u2019 With 16 talks across the full day, I have chosen just a handful here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":369,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=369","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":2},"title":"PET’s annual conference: COVID-19 and the fertility sector","date":"16th December 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I had the pleasure of attending this year\u2019s online Progress Educational Trust (PET) annual conference where the topics for consideration were fertility, genomics and COVID-19. Consultant Jane Stewart opened the first session by speaking about the experiences of fertility clinics and she used the surfing analogy of \u2018riding the wave\u2019\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":273,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=273","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":3},"title":"Fertility Show 2019: ‘Holding it together’","date":"12th November 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The vast exhibition hall of the London Fertility Show felt strangely familiar this year as I have come to recognise company stands, logos and people from previous years. A slight difference this year was the presence of a branch-out Fertility Fest, which is always of particular interest to me given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=225","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":4},"title":"Patients and IVF add on treatments","date":"15th January 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Since the start of the \u2018Remaking the Human Body\u2019 project there have been some significant developments in debates around the state of fertility treatment in the UK. Just over two years ago, BBC Panorama presented a documentary entitled Inside Britain\u2019s Fertility Business\u00a0(28 November 2016) that questioned the quality of scientific\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Topical"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":525,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=525","url_meta":{"origin":328,"position":5},"title":"The IVF Experience opening workshop","date":"4th November 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"We were thrilled to launch our online event series 'The IVF Experience' this week. Our\u00a0first workshop coincided with Fertility Network UK's National Fertility Awareness Week, which is an whole week dedicated to having conversations about infertility and the realities of fertility treatment.\u00a0 Our first workshop was hosted by Sarah Norcross\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}