CARE Fertility Tunbridge Wells

We had a wonderful experience at CF Tunbridge Wells. The team is excellent and couldn't recommend it more. They are always available for answering questions, are really caring and have a great success rate! We will use them again for sure :)

I can’t rate Care Fertility highly enough. We attended the clinic for our second round of IVF after having an appalling experience with another fertility clinic so we were a bit jaded and apprehensive about what to expect. From the moment we walked in the door to our last appointment we felt cared for and in great hands. All of the staff are so friendly and make you feel like a human and not just a number!

The care & treatment my husband & I received was outstanding & care fertility have made our dreams come true. Each & every member of staff where friendly, attentive & helpful. We plan to come back to care fertility again in the future x

Please invest in a preventative clinical breast examination and/ or mammogram before and after IVF if older. This could save your life! I was impressed by my experience of IVF at Care Fertility. However, I was diagnosed with extensive (stage 4/ terminal) breast cancer only 2 years later. It has spread to my spine and the median life expectancy is 2/3 years. There is limited evidence to suggest that IVF causes breast cancer per see. The underlying cause of my breast cancer is likely to reflect a combination of factors (genetic/ DNA changes related to ageing; I am childless; I drank red wine at the weekends etc..). However, I believe that the drugs could cause an early-stage hormone receptor-positive breast cancer to spread (please see details below re the rate of oestrogen increases associated with IVF). My oncologist said that this could well have happened in my case. I should note that I ALSO took the oestrogen-boosting drug DHEA on the advice of 2 consultants at Care Fertility. DHEA has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. To be fair to the consultants, they may well have highlighted this risk to me (I can’t remember). However, I was desperate to have a baby and that took precedence. There is no history of breast cancer in my family and I mistakenly did not believe that I was at risk. Recommendation! My life and those of my loved ones have been devastated by my diagnosis. I have always conducted breast self-examinations but I did not notice the changes until it was too late. With this in mind, I would strongly recommend that women request a clinical breast exam from their GP pre and post IVF. This would be most important for women post 40 when the risk of breast cancer increases. Oestrogen and breast cancer The treatment for my cancer has thus far focussed upon reducing the oestrogen in my body. This has led to a dramatic reduction in my primary breast cancer. This sadly doesn’t change my prognosis- once cancer spreads (metastasises) it becomes incurable and it kills you. However to me, this adds to my suspicion that increasing oestrogen in the context of early stage breast cancer may well cause it to grow/ spread. I probably had pre-cancerous or early-stage disease at the time of my treatment at Care Fertility. The hormone-booting drugs may have been akin to pouring petrol onto a fire. Paul Merton’s first wife and a leading secondary breast cancer campaigner stated publicly that their IVF drugs may have acted as an ‘accelerant’. There is clearly no way to confirm this. IVF and oestrogen levels 'During IVF treatment, a typical oestrogen level will be less than 75 at the time of baseline evaluation and may get as high as 2,000 – 4,000 (in a normal menstrual cycle the oestrogen level starts out less than 50 and peaks at about 250 – 350)'.

Clean, welcoming and understanding! Plus it was successful! Edit: 33 weeks pregnant with a very healthy baby boy. 1st attempt too, Thank you