XXI Nordic Fertility Society Meeting in Helsinki 6–8 August 2012

Abstract

The Nordic Fertility Society (NFS) meeting, the 21st in a row, provides a good framework for following advances in the field of human reproduction. Over the years, our meetings have had a unique position in-between large international conferences, as a more intimate, clinically oriented event highlighting Nordic aspects in IVF. The scientific program included this year a broad range of various themes relevant to human reproduction and allied disciplines. The congress covered medical, psychological, sociological, nursing, laboratory and educational perspectives at a high level. Improving our daily practice will help us to bring greater satisfaction to our patients with fertility problems. We were pleased to have nearly 400 participants at the congress. There were 12 scientific sessions which presented updates on some of the hot issues in our field. The highly interesting, and controversial, topics of parenting and oocyte vitrification were covered in separate sessions, along with the preservation of fertility in women with severe chronic diseases, and the use of therapeutic agents which cause loss of fertility. The growing public awareness of the age-related decline in female fertility was discussed, as it seems likely that there will be more requests for fertility preservation for social reasons in years to come. Among the important presentations, we specifically note “Parenthood after IVF – the expectations in both women and men”, the “CoNARTaS project”, which is a large Nordic ART register of perinatal outcome in children born after cryopreservation, and sessions on “Stress and ART”, and “Legal limitations and ART”. Comprehensive registration of treatments provides tools to study ART results and especially long-term outcomes of IVF children and their families, and this has been a goal from the beginning of the NFS meetings. By sharing Nordic data and monitoring efficiency we can learn from each other and improve our success rates. It is estimated that a minimum of 340 000 IVF babies are being born in the world every year. The end of 2012 will be a global landmark, as cumulatively the total number of IVF babies born since Louise Brown in 1978 will reach 5 million. In the Nordic countries a summary of the IVF data for 2010 (collected by Karin Erb) stated that 12 146 IVF babies were born in that year – about 4.1% of all children born in the Nordic Countries (NFS web site http://www.nordicfs.org/). Meeting other colleagues and sharing experiences and opinions in a friendly atmosphere has always been an essential element of the Nordic meetings, along with contributions from the medical industry and the host city. The next NFS meeting will be in Haugesund, Norway, on 2–5 January 2014. NFS is working on a change of the society to become a federation of the four national societies. This will strengthen the relationship with the national fertility societies and give a better basis for creating and updating Nordic guidelines. Appendix S1. Abstracts from the congress available through the web-version of this report. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.