Three questions you need to ask when choosing an IVF clinic.
- What Are the Clinic’s Success Rates?
Your clinic should quote their success rate as Live Birth Rate (LBR), that is a baby in your arms, not just their pregnancy rate (positive pregnancy test) or clinical pregnancy rate (fetal heart rate pattern detected on early ultrasound examination).
Ideally, it should be per stimulated IVF treatment cycle, which tells you what your chances are of taking a baby home as a result of the embryos created by that cycle and transferred one at a time, as a fresh embryo or thawed frozen embryo in a subsequent natural cycle without any hormone treatment.
To be able to use all the embryos you created, your clinic must have a good freezing programme. What percentage of your frozen embryos are likely to survive thawing and be suitable for transfer at your clinic?
The transfer of day 5 (blastocyst) embryos offers a higher chance of success than the transfer of day 2 or day 3 embryos (cleavage stage) embryos.
- At My Age with My Cause Of Infertility – What Is The Chance of Success?
At my age with my cause for not getting pregnant, what are my chances of taking a baby home as a result of the embryos created in my first stimulated IVF treatment cycle at my IVF Clinic?
What are my chances after two stimulated cycles?
After how many cycles should I seek a second opinion, or stop?
- Does the Clinic Offer Personalized Fertility Specialist Treatment
Do you have a fertility specialist who puts together a stimulation programme ( combination of hormones and dosages) specifically designed for you so that you do not produce too few eggs to have a successful outcome or too many so that you do not get sick (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) and end up in hospital.
Does the same fertility specialist perform you egg collection and embryo transfer? Continuity of care is particularly important if things are not going according to plan.
To find an Obstetrician near you, try the doctors.com.au search, here.
This article was provided by:
Dr Raphael Kuhn, 
fertility expert and author of IVF Success: An Evidence-Based Guide to Getting Pregnant and Clues to Why You Are Not Pregnant Now, for more information. Visit: www.raphaelkuhn.com