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.

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.

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

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

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.