Why we need to prioritise early fertility support

Fertility treatment can be an emotional rollercoaster. We sat down with Lucy Buckley and Kobi McCardle, co-founders of the online platform Dr Fertility, to find out why we need to do more for those unable to conceive. 

Depending on the area where you live in, getting fertility treatment following a GP referral can take any time between 21 weeks and two years. Despite such discrepancies, six out of every 10 IVF cycles are still funded privately.

“A lot of the time, these couples feel in limbo,” says Lucy Buckley, clinical pharmacist and co-founder of Dr Fertility, an online platform for personalised fertility support, tests and prescriptions.

“With so much misinformation, it’s easy to self-diagnose and jump to conclusions,” Buckley insists. “So, with our platform we wanted to show the importance of seeking support from the very beginning instead of waiting until you’re struggling.”

Her co-founder, Kobi McCardle, agrees. Although fertility declines with age, negative lifestyle and diet choices can also impact women’s chances of getting pregnant.

“Fertility support is more needed now than ever,” McCardle says. “When we look at the statistics, we can see that couples consider starting a family much later in their life and about 50 per cent of women born in the 1990s still don’t have children.

“So, we’re very focused on supporting people right from the start and ultimately, reducing the number of couples having to undergo IVF.”

The two founders think that this also comes down to education. Programmes like the Fertility Education Initiative (FEI), a special interest group of the British Fertility Society, aims to improve knowledge of reproductive health in young people who will likely know little about factors that could lead to infertility.

“We’re now seeing how younger generations are becoming much more proactive in terms of their health care and we’ve had couples in their early 30s who just wanted to make sure that everything was okay,” Buckley explains.

“But although we’re seeing this change in mindset, we need to do more in terms of fertility education. We’ve got some great educational content on our website and we really hope to help in that regard.”

Dr Fertility is regulated by the Care Quality Commission and offers medical and emotional support through the provision of accessible online advice, diagnostic testing, blood testing, treatment and coaching from home.

“We don’t just look at the medical elements,” Buckley adds. “We look at the couple’s emotional status, lifestyle and social situation and provide ongoing support.

“We are very passionate about helping people. Fertility is such an emotional topic and it’s that emotional support that matters the most.”

Although an increasing number of people go through fertility treatment, showing the value of talking to a fertility expert has not been easy for the two founders.

“That and finding the right people have proved more challenging than we thought,” McCardle adds. “In a digital health start-up like this, you’ve got people coming in from lots of different industries and with lots of different backgrounds, but now we’re happy to have a great team behind us.”

Along with improving the platform, the two founders hope to extend their services in the UK market and to provide further support for people throughout their fertility journey.

“Early intervention is extremely important,” says Buckley. “If there is an issue we want to know earlier on so we can do everything we can to support our patients.”

For more information, visit drfertility.co.uk.