Kenyan women and men are taking huge bank loans, selling their properties, withdrawing all their savings and then investing the millions of shillings into baby projects. Those in this desperate search for a baby are infertile couples who will do anything to conceive.

One of them is Janet (not her real name) who has used in excess of Sh 4 million before giving birth to her 10 month old baby girl. For her, it all started five years ago when she and her husband walked into a clinic to solve one of the basic problems: infertility.

Although women are invariably blamed when a couple cannot have children, studies show that over 40 per cent of causes of infertility are directly attributable to the man. But due to stigma around infertility men keep it a secret when they realize they are infertile.

Infertility is defined as a condition resulting from abnormal functioning of the reproductive system. Nowadays, doctors insist on testing both the woman and man when investigating causes of infertility.

Women who have delivered through IVF are complaining that the use of the term test tube babies is stigmatising them, their children and husbands, making it difficult for them to share publicly how they conceived their babies.

“Why then does the society not refer to those children conceived through natural means as sex babies? This is unfair to babies conceived through IVF,” wonders Flora.

Efforts to develop a policy framework to regulate the provision and practice of the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) services and other assisted reproduction technologies in the country have stalled due to serious financial problems.

A technical IVF Task Force formed in 2007 to develop the policies has been unable to wrap up its work after the government failed to release money for the completion of the remaining phases.