Treatment in Other Countries

In recent years, an increasing number of ladies have been exploring undergoing IVF treatment in other countries.

Here is one lady’s sharing of her experience:

“I have done IVF cycles in both Singapore and Malaysia. Here I share my personal experience of our treatment in Malaysia. Of course, everyone will have a unique experience and the outcome for everyone will be different so you have to do what feels right for you and your partner.

My husband and I did our first two cycles in Singapore with egg retrieval and my husband’s first TESE operation (testicular sperm extraction) was done in Malaysia. We were administered all medicine and did our scans here in Singapore with our dedicated IVF doctor and then travelled to Malaysia the day after we took the trigger shot for our egg retrieval and the operation.

The reason we chose to do it this way was to minimise the travel between here and Malaysia so for scans, checks, and any adjustments of medicine. We also felt more comfortable doing it with our IVF doctor here in Singapore. Our main reason for doing part of the treatment in Malaysia was so that we could take advantage of the PGS screening of embryos in Malaysia, something that isn’t readily available here. There’s also a cost-benefit too with IVF treatment being approximately a third of the cost here in Singapore.

We found the clinic in Malaysia through our IVF doctor here who has some relations with the centre.

Unfortunately for us, both cycles done partly in Malaysia were unsuccessful and we were left with no viable embryos following the PGS testing. The TESE operation my husband had done left him in a lot of pain and the recovery process was pretty long. Our main concern with the cycles in Malaysia was the overall service and quality of service for us personally did not compare with Singapore. The travel there and back pre and post-retrieval was extremely painful and I was left in a great deal of pain. The car travel plus plane travel was all a bit too much. We also felt that the communication side of things was also a bit poor and a great deal of information was somehow lost in translation. Reflecting back, my husband and I do feel that our confidence with the Malaysia team on carrying out my husband’s operation could have been handled a bit better, at the time he was not offered a micro-tese surgery which is what he then consequently had to have here in Singapore for our fourth cycle which resulted in 6 embryos at blastocyst stage.

From our personal experience, we felt that the level of care, service and communication that we had is far better in Singapore. However, there are clear advantages of having cycles and treatment done in Malaysia. The first being significant cost savings compared to private treatment here and the availability of embryo PGS screening to everyone. There are newer centres that have opened in Malaysia and a few more that we have discovered since our treatment, one at which we did our ERA test which we felt offered better care and quality of service overall. If you are looking to do your IVF treatment in Malaysia, my advice would be to research the available centres thoroughly and read the reviews about what others have to say. When travel is permitted, I would highly recommend going to visit your shortlist of centres and physically meet the team that will be taking care of you and will be responsible for your treatment/cycles.”