My mother was born here.
I was born here.
My two daughters were born here,
says Sofia Veiga, international manager at the Dexeus Clinic for Women’s Health with lots of emotion in her voice.
This is how people normally talk about dear places from their childhood, but rarely about a university clinic, right?
But Dexeus, in Barcelona, is an exception.
About a year ago, I met several of Dexeus co-workers at a conference in Germany. We stayed in touch and in September this year, they invited me to visit their clinic in Barcelona and participate in a week-long workshop at the Department for Reproductive Medicine.
If you’re writing about the fertility of women over 35, then that’s the best thing that can happen to you.
Why?
Because Spain has one of the most progressive laws on reproductive medicine in the world and they are successful in doing things that many other countries (including Germany) still only dream about.
Sofia continued talking as we walked down the Dexeus clinic hall:
At our clinic, we have a 75-year-old patient whom we’ve been following their entire reproductive life. The first Spanish IVF baby was delivered at our Center in 1984. By the way, it was my sister, Anna Veiga, who participated in the team who created that baby. The other half of the team was Dr. Pedro N. Barri, who is now the director at our clinic.
Later on, the director too welcomes me in his office and I become speechless at how relaxed and open everyone is. During a spontaneous conversation it turns out that Dr. Barris’ son is a gynecologist who also works at the clinic. At that moment, he was absent. He’s spending his vacation at the Madagascar—together with his team from the clinic, he’s providing urgent medical care to the rural population and operating women who otherwise don’t have access to advanced medical care (here you can read more about their humanitarian mission).
The first egg donation in Spain was performed at the Dexeus in 1986, continues Sofia.
I blush and feel uncomfortable because Germany, where I live, still does not allow egg donation (as at October 2016). For some reasons, mostly historical, Germany cares about being at the top in all things technical, but is very conservative when it comes to anything even closely related to things going on in a woman’s uterus.
That’s why I continue to feel like I’m in another world for the rest of the week at Dexeus.
I talk to egg-donation experts and become further convinced as to how good and beneficial this technique is for women with diminished or depleted ovarian reserve.
I visit a lab for pre-genetic screening and become amazed how one single clinic performs more diagnostics on embryos in one single week than Germany does in an entire year!
I talked with many fertility experts and ask questions that I am frequently asked by my blog readers. I couldn’t stop asking and luckily, everyone was happy to tell me all about anything I wanted to know. So there will be a lot more coming in the next weeks, please stick around!
See you soon!
(There are no affiliate links in this post, the text is entirely based on my personal experiences and opinions).
Supplements which are scientifically proven to increase egg quality:
To know when you ovulate:
Prenatal vitamins:
