【高级听力】（文末附视频）How Making Babies Is Being Transformed by Science

How Making Babies Is Being Transformed by Science

《文 末 附 视 频》

This may not be a word-for-word transcript.

Narrator: Science is changing how and when families are made. 

Dr Danielle Lane: Women are going to be able to have both career and family in a way that we’ve never seen before.

Narrator: New technologies are transforming IVF success rates.

Dr Michelle Perugini: AI allows us to look at features of the embryo invisible to the human eye. 

Narrator: And families are growing up.

Dawn Hallett: I tell them, “No, I’m not the grandmother, I’m the mother.” And they go, “You’re the mother?!”

My name is Dawn Hallett. I’m 65 years old and I’m the mother of Audree Evelyn Anne Hallett. Audree is one year old.

Narrator: Dawn and her husband, Mike, who is 66, are proud first-time parents in Nova Scotia, Canada. They married in 1977 and tried for a baby for decades.

Dawn Hallett: When we were in our early 30s, we discussed about having a family 

Mike: …a family.

Dawn Hallett: And then we went for testing and we found out that our chances were very slim, and –

Mike: 10%.

Dawn Hallett: 10% chance that we could have a child of our own.

Narrator: Attempts to conceive naturally and to adopt failed. So, five years ago, Dawn turned to IVF and donor eggs for help. 

Dawn Hallett: I went to our local clinic and they said I was too old that they wouldn’t work with us.

Narrator: In Canada, as in America, industry guidelines discourage embryo transfers to women over 55, who face a higher risk of prenatal health conditions, including pre-eclampsia, hypertension and diabetes. 

Dawn considered surrogacy. She looked abroad to developing countries with less restrictive guidelines and legislation.

Dawn Hallett: The first place we…we went to, India, our surrogate was sitting in her doctor’s office and India closed their doors to international surrogacy. We flew to Mexico City and we tried three times there with a surrogate and my husband, and she failed three times.

Narrator: International fertility consultant, Crystal Travis, directed the couple towards Georgia, one of the world’s least regulated fertility markets and one of the few countries that allows surrogates and donors of eggs and embryos to be paid.

Dawn Hallett: I felt that I was healthy enough that I could carry a baby if needed to, because I exercised my whole life. 

Narrator: After medical tests, Dawn had an embryo made, with a donor egg and donor sperm implanted.

Dawn Hallett: I said to Mike, I said, “I just don’t believe that it’s going to work.” Anyway, so on the 23rd of December, when we got to…

Mike: On the 23rd of December, when we…we…I went over to the drugstore and got the…got the actual…

Dawn Hallett: …the pregnancy test, yes.

Mike: I’m the technical guy, So I did the dipping and basically, I came down and said, ‘‘by the way, you’re two to three weeks pregnant.”

Dawn Hallett: Yeah.

Mike: And at that point, we were just like…OK. Because you don’t know after you…

Dawn Hallett: I was shocked, I was shocked. 

Mike: You know, this is a miracle.

Narrator: The total number of fertility clinics around the world is estimated to have increased by almost 70% in the last ten years. The value of the global fertility industry is predicted to rise from $25bn today, to $41bn by 2026. Many believe there needs to be more regulation of an increasingly globalised IVF trade, including Dr Danielle Lane, a fertility specialist based in San Francisco.

Dr Danielle Lane: I think that the risks far outweigh the benefits of being pregnant at 65. We do not do embryo transfers on anyone who is above the age of 50.

Narrator: However, Dr Lane is using new technology that will allow more women to have children later in life.

Dr Danielle Lane: We are definitely seeing an increase in egg-freezing. So, clearly, the trend is that women are delaying their childbearing.

Narrator: In 2017, the number of women freezing their own eggs in America jumped by nearly a quarter in one year alone. Dr Lane believes this will help some women balance their careers and families more effectively in the future.

Dr Danielle Lane: Now we’re saying you can have that child at 40 using your 28-year-old eggs. So maybe it matters that you spend those extra ten years focused on your career and get to a point where you feel comfortable having that baby at 40.

Narrator: There is another technological development that might accelerate this trend towards older parents. Today, Dr Michelle Perugini is unveiling a new artificial-intelligence application at the Lane Fertility Institute.

Dr Michelle Perugini: Embryo assessment is currently done by an embryologist sitting in front of a microscope. What we do is take microscope images, directly drag and drop them onto our system and the AI runs over those images and produces an instantaneous confidence score. 

Narrator: The application is designed to improve the chances of selecting embryos that will lead to successful pregnancies.

Dr Michelle Perugini: Our data show that we’re 30% more accurate in terms of being able to predict the pregnancy outcome. 

Dr Danielle Lane: That’s really amazing.

Narrator: This application is awaiting regulatory approval in America. If it delivers on its promise, it could help make IVF more accessible. 

Dr Danielle Lane: Is there a way that the application of this AI will actually make IVF more affordable?

Dr Michelle Perugini: If we can get patients pregnant quicker or in fewer cycles by virtue of picking the best embryo, then it will be cheaper overall.

Narrator: As the science grows, so will the opportunities for more would-be parents to start families later than ever before. 

Dr Danielle Lane: There will always be decisions to be made about career and family. But the ability to plan them out is so much better now than it was even a decade ago.

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