LETTER : Prevention of infertility

From Professor Margaret Stacey

Sir: Regarding your wise and humane editorial "The bottom line on IVF babies" (18 April) most attention has focused on overriding infertility. The possibility of preventing it is much less discussed. Proper primary care treatment of pelvic inflammatory diseases (PIDs), chlamydia and the like, would reduce the incidence of infertility (although infertility from other causes, including medical treatment, would remain).

A policy designed to raise the awareness of women and of primary care physicians about preventive treatment would lessen the heart-ache infertility causes; and the cost would be far less than hi-tech treatments which intrude greatly upon the women who undergo them and are so often unsuccessful.

Yours faithfully,

MEG STACEY

Leamington Spa,

Warwickshire

19 April