Can mayonnaise cure my infertility?

A controversial treatment that has divided medical professionals is offering hope to women who have suffered multiple miscarriages

It is a warm spring day, and I am sitting in a private clinic in Surrey with a drip in my arm. I am having an infusion of intralipids, a white emulsion of soybean oil and egg: mayonnaise, basically. On top of that, I am taking a daily dose of steroids. I have signed a form declaring that I am aware intralipids are not licensed for use in pregnancy, and that there is a lack of scientific evidence for their use in my condition; and I know that the steroids have potential side-effects ranging from psychosis to liver failure. Yet here I am, watching the mayonnaise make its way into my bloodstream, hoping this unproven treatment will protect the tiny twins I am carrying.

After years of infertility and a miscarriage, I have decided to put my faith in reproductive immunology, a field of medicine that is either fantastically promising or utterly bogus, depending on whom you ask. Its critics see the treatments as bad medicine, and a cash cow for private fertility clinics. Its advocates, including women who finally have a healthy baby after four or five losses, think it could revolutionise the way we think about pregnancy. As for me, I feel I have nothing to lose. At the NHS hospital where I miscarried at the beginning of this year, I was told there was nothing I could do but go away and try again.