Woman, 23, dies ‘suddenly’ while undergoing IVF after suffering rare complication which led to her lungs shutting down
A YOUNG mum undergoing IVF treatment died “suddenly” because of an extremely rare complication, experts have revealed.
The 23-year-old from Delhi, India, had been healthy when she went to hospital for the egg-collecting procedure.
The IVF process involves removing an egg from a woman’s ovaries and fertilising them using sperm in a laboratory[/caption]
But medics say her heart stopped beating when fertility doctors tried to retrieve her eggs.
A post-mortem has now shown she died from a rare condition – ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).
It affects one in three women undergoing IVF – but fewer than one per cent of cases end up as severe.
Hyperovulation refers to the production and release of more than one egg during a menstrual cycle.
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Hyperovulation can occur naturally or be stimulated via hormone treatments for the purposes of egg donation in third-party reproduction.
Doctors say she was a “healthy young woman” before starting IVF.
She had begun ovarian stimulation and after 11 days, the patient attended hospital for egg collection.
She was sedated and docs began collecting eggs from her ovaries using a needle.
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But suddenly the patient’s blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen levels dropped and doctors could not find her heartbeat.
During an autopsy they found that her ovaries were around three times larger than they should have been.
Experts concluded that she had died of acute pulmonary edema that was trigged by OHSS and led to cardiac arrest
Sarah Norcross, director of the fertility charity Progress Educational Trust (PET), told MailOnline: “In egg donors, the risk of death from OHSS is vanishingly rare.
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“It is important to share the news that this has happened and to flag the investigation into the egg donor’s death so that everyone working in the fertility sector can learn from it.
“It may also make fertility specialists reflect on how they counsel egg donors about the risks involved.”