Revolutionary drug-free IVF treatment could offer couples a cheaper and easier way to get pregnant

A CHEAPER fertility treatment may soon be available to help childless couples worldwide.

In vitro maturation, or IVM, could be an alternative to expensive IVF.

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It involves harvesting a woman’s eggs before they have matured and finishing them off in the lab.

In IVF they are extracted when they are fully developed.

Scientists in Australia and Belgium have “turbo charged” a previous process by adding chemicals called growth factors.

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Egg quality improved and embryos increased by 50 per cent, and used far fewer drugs than IVF - which involves women injecting themselves with hormones.

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Researchers said: “We have demonstrated it’s possible to improve egg quality and embryo yield with next to no drugs.”

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Scientists say if the treatment becomes widely used it will save women having to inject high doses of hormones for up to 12 days at a time.

Around 50,000 women a year undergo fertility treatment in the UK.