Apollo Fertility Centre achieves milestone

Miracles do happen might appear to be clich term, but at the Apollo Fertility Centre (AFC) at the Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC, it is the essence of what happens everyday.

The CEO of Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC Lakith Peiris with the Branch Manager Salgado (far left) gifting AFC’s first baby girl Nadini Senarathne with a savings account courtesy of Bank of Ceylon, and a baby trolley in view of AFC’s first year anniversary.

The Apollo Fertility Centre celebrated one year of establishment on September 23 and has much to be proud of as the centre has already given hope to many with a milestone achievement of a total of 110 successful IVF pregnancies and 10 precious bundles of joy born within their first year itself!

AFC was set up in September last year and has since then made themselves the benchmark in the In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) field through the revolutionary methodologies used at the centre.

The month of May saw the birth of the centre's first IVF baby boy - a little blessing to be born at the hospital, who was aided by the fertility centre.

Simultaneously, the centre has seen many more such breakthroughs in fertility treatment, ranging from successful IVF pregnancies of women who have endometriosis, distorted tubes, fibroids and other complications - even to those who have had ectopic pregnancies where both fallopian tubes were removed. Successful treatments have also included cases where the male has lower sperm counts as low as less than 1 million (average sperm count is usually 20 million per millilitre).

Now as the centre progresses towards their second year, every month sees two to three babies being born - following the excitement of the first baby boy, then twins in June and this month the first baby girl to be born at the hospital.

The centre consists of specialized doctors, gynaecologists, embryologists, endocrinologist, urologists and radiologists who conduct comprehensive diagnostics to identify fertility problems and their root causes, with emphasis on non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures.

The team, headed by the two gynaecologists Dr. Nishendra Karunaratne and Dr. Sudeera Uduwela, with in-house medical doctor and embryologist Dr. Madara Ralapanawe the only Sri-Lankan doctor to have a postgraduate masters degree in Clinical Embryology, carries out many different procedures, some more advanced than others but all focused on being the least invasive.