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How Does IVF Compare to Mini IVF?

Are you struggling to get pregnant and considering medical intervention? Traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF) and mini IVF are two possibilities that may be able to help.

Here at our California Center for Reproductive Health offices located in West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Encino, Valencia, and Alhambra, Drs. Eliran Mor and Irene Woo along with our highly trained staff provide personalized care during every step of your fertility journey.

We treat patients with a variety of health issues that may be impacting their fertility and offer a wide range of treatment options including IVF and mini IVF. We also work with international patients.

Mini IVF vs IVF

Also known as minimal stimulation IVF, mini IVF is a state-of-the-art advanced reproductive technology that is similar to traditional IVF. In both cases, you are monitored during your cycle and the steps involved are the same including retrieving the egg, having it fertilized with sperm in the lab, and transferring the embryo(s) into the uterine cavity.

The main differences between IVF and mini IVF are the number of eggs and the method in which they are obtained. During traditional IVF your ovaries are stimulated with injectable hormones (gonadotropins) to encourage the growth of multiple eggs. In some cases, additional protocols and medications are used as well.

During mini IVF your ovaries are typically only minimally stimulated using oral ovulation medication such as Clomid. Gonadotrophins in low doses may or may not also be used depending on your situation. This typically leads to fewer eggs. However, with less drug exposure during stimulation and egg retrieval, you experience decreased health risks and discomfort.

Depending on the medication recommended for you in your treatment plan you may also be able to avoid or substantially reduce the use of daily drug injections with mini IVF. Due to less medication used and a simpler protocol, a cycle of mini IVF is less expensive than regular IVF. You also do not have to wait as long between cycles.

Factors to consider

Whether IVF or mini IVF is the best procedure for you depends on your medical factors including age, ovarian reserve, and more. Our doctors work closely with you to develop a customized plan for the best results to fit your needs.

If you’re frustrated by yet another month of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, call us at 818-907-1571 or click our “request appointment” button to make an appointment today.

Embryo Transfer: All Your Questions Answered

In vitro fertilization (IVF) can be a long, challenging journey lined with unexpected twists, turns, bumps, and pitfalls. But finally, after going through a lengthy screening process and exhaustive preparation to retrieve and fertilize your eggs, you’ve reached the moment you’ve been waiting for — your embryo transfer.

As the last step of the IVF process, embryo transfer is a quick procedure with one simple objective: a successful pregnancy. Although most couples are excited and hopeful, many are also a bit nervous and unsure of what to expect.

If you’ve been scheduled for an embryo transfer, here’s everything you need to know about the timing of your procedure, the process itself, and what comes afterward.

Embryo transfer timing

The embryo transfer process usually takes place five to six days after the egg retrieval procedure. During that waiting period, the eggs are mixed with sperm for fertilization and the resulting pre-embryos are cultured in a controlled environment for three to five days.

Although it’s possible to transfer pre-embryos as soon as they reach the two-cell stage, it can be beneficial to wait a little longer, until they’ve reached the blastocyst stage. This stage, which occurs around the fifth day of in-lab culturing, means they’ve gone through a period of rapid cell division and now have 200-300 cells.

Waiting until your embryos have reached the blastocyst stage also allows enough time to check for genetic abnormalities with preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) tests.

Embryo transfer process

Many women are happy to learn that the embryo transfer process is simpler than the egg retrieval process, which is a minor surgical procedure that requires twilight anesthesia. Because you won’t need anesthesia for your embryo transfer, there are no food or drink restrictions the night before or day of your appointment.

The procedure itself is quick and fairly straightforward. After a series of verifications to ensure you receive the correct embryo, your embryo (or a predetermined number of embryos) is carefully loaded into one end of an ultra-fine, sterile transfer catheter; the other end is gently inserted through your vagina and cervix and into your uterus with the guidance of ultrasound imaging.

After the embryo is transferred from the catheter to your uterus, you rest on your back in the recovery room for a few hours. You can chat with your partner, read a book, watch television, or simply relax until you’re discharged.

Post-embryo transfer activity

Although you shouldn’t feel any pain following your embryo transfer, you may experience minor abdominal discomfort or a feeling of fullness in your lower abdomen, near your ovaries.

It’s a good idea to take it easy and avoid unnecessary stress in the days following your embryo transfer, but it’s also important to note that bed rest won’t increase your chances of becoming pregnant. After a couple of days, you can resume your normal routine and move about freely.

Following your embryo transfer, you’ll continue to take supplemental progesterone, a hormone that both increases your chances of successful implantation and helps sustain pregnancy once it occurs. You can stop taking progesterone once your pregnancy is confirmed and your body is making enough on its own.

Finally — your pregnancy test

Although you may be watching for early signs and symptoms of pregnancy from the start, you won’t take a pregnancy test for 10 days. At that time, you’ll come back into our office and have a blood test, which is conclusive even in the early days.

If it’s positive, congratulations! The transfer was successful, and you’re pregnant. If it’s negative, don’t be discouraged — our team can walk you through your options and next steps.

At California Center for Reproductive Health, our IVF/embryo transfer success rates consistently beat the national average. Call today or schedule an appointment online at one of our clinics in Encino, West Hollywood, Monica, or Valencia, California.

5 Tips for Managing Stress During IVF

Infertility is a common medical condition, affecting 1 in 8 couples. Millions of those couples turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF) for help in becoming parents. IVF is a process in which a woman’s egg is fertilized in a laboratory and transferred to her uterus.

IVF is the most effective form of assisted reproductive technology. However, having IVF can be stressful because of the challenges of infertility and the ups and downs of treatment.

If you’re undergoing IVF, taking some simple steps can help you feel less stressed. The caring specialists at California Center for Reproductive Health recommend these five strategies for managing stress during IVF.

Stress buster #1: Yoga

Yoga combines rhythmic breathing with poses that stretch your muscles and boost your flexibility. It can help both your mind and body feel more relaxed.

There are many types of yoga. During infertility treatment, opt for gentle yoga styles such as hatha yoga. Avoid “hot” yoga, which takes place in overheated rooms.

Stress buster #2: Walking

Exercise is a proven stress buster. However, your doctor may suggest that you avoid vigorous exercise during IVF.

Walking offers a gentler exercise option. Like other types of exercise, walking boosts the release of your body’s own natural stress-soothing brain chemicals. It can improve your mood and help you feel refreshed and energetic.

Stress buster #3: Mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness meditation is a practice of calming your mind. You focus mindfully and intentionally on the present, letting go of worries about the future and regrets about the past.

Using audio guidance is a great way to get started with meditation. There are many popular meditation apps available.

Stress buster #4: Expressive writing

Expressive writing gives you an opportunity to pour your emotions about an upsetting event or situation, such as infertility, onto a page. Writing allows you to express thoughts you may not feel comfortable sharing with others. This can help you put stressful feelings into perspective and feel less upset by them.

Try writing about what’s stressing you for 20 minutes a day for three or four consecutive days. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; you’re writing only for yourself.

Stress buster #5: A daily gratitude journal

When you’re feeling weighed down by anxiety and negativity, focusing on things that make you feel grateful can lift you up into a more positive place.

Keeping a gratitude journal is an excellent way to build a practice of appreciating the good things in your life. Each day, write down a list of the things that make you feel grateful. Your list could include items such as:

  • The day’s beautiful weather
  • The joy you feel when you spend time with friends
  • The taste of your favorite food
  • The happiness you feel when your dog cuddles up next to you
  • The way your partner makes you laugh

Tracking the many things that make you feel thankful can bring more joy into your life and help shift your attention away from the challenges of infertility.

Why reduce stress?

Stress isn’t just an annoyance. It actually has a physical impact on your body. When you’re stressed, your body releases a cascade of stress hormones. If you’re chronically stressed over long periods of time, high levels of stress hormones can contribute to health problems.

Using stress reduction techniques like the ones above can lower the levels of stress hormones in your body. Some studies have found that reducing stress can improve your odds of getting pregnant during an IVF cycle.

Find out more

If you’re experiencing infertility, one of the best stress-busters is to work with a caring, experienced medical team. Here at California Center for Reproductive Health, our caring providers offer a full range of diagnostic and treatment services for couples dealing with infertility.

To find out how we can help you, call your nearest Los Angeles-area clinic in Encino, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, or Valencia, California, or use the easy online tool to schedule a visit with one of our specialists.

What Is Unexplained Infertility and What Are the Treatment Options?

Infertility is a condition in which a couple can’t conceive after 12 months of regular, unprotected sex. Infertility has many possible causes, including medical conditions in the woman, man, or both partners. However, the cause of infertility is sometimes said to be unexplained, which means testing uncovers no medical problems in either partner.

Unexplained infertility can be terribly frustrating. However, even without a diagnosis, couples with unexplained infertility who undergo treatment may be able to have children.

The caring specialists at California Center for Reproductive Health help couples with various types of infertility, including unexplained infertility, become parents. Read on to learn more about unexplained infertility and the treatment options available.

About unexplained infertility

Infertility is a common medical condition. According to RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, 1 in 8 couples have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy.

When a couple can’t get pregnant, they undergo a series of tests looking for what may be causing their infertility. A couple receives a diagnosis of unexplained infertility when no cause can be found.

It’s a myth that infertility is primarily due to medical problems in the woman. In fact, about one-third of infertility is attributed to the female partner, one-third is attributed to the male partner, and one-third is either unexplained or caused by a combination of problems in both partners.

Treatment for unexplained infertility

You may think unexplained infertility can’t be treated because there’s no known problem to fix. However, assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as the following may help bring about pregnancy even when the cause is unknown:

Fertility drugs

Medication can sometimes bring about pregnancy in cases of unexplained infertility. For example, women may be prescribed clomiphene citrate or other drugs that stimulate hormones and trigger ovulation.

Intrauterine insemination (IUI)

IUI is a procedure in which a man’s sperm is “washed” and placed directly in a woman’s vagina or uterus during ovulation. IUI may be used alone or in conjunction with fertility drugs.

In vitro fertilization (IVF)

During IVF, a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are retrieved from their bodies and brought together for fertilization in a laboratory. Once fertilized, the egg or eggs are transferred to the woman’s uterus.

IVF, which can use eggs and sperm from the couple or from donors, is the most effective form of ART.

Help for unexplained infertility

At California Center for Reproductive Health, we offer couples the most advanced infertility care. Our caring team provides a full range of diagnostic and treatment services. Our goal is to help you have the family of your dreams.

To find out how we can help you, call your nearest Los Angeles-area clinic in Encino, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, or Valencia, California, or use the easy online tool to schedule a visit with one of our specialists.

How Accurate is Gender Selection?

A baby’s gender is established by the pair of sex chromosomes it receives — one from each parent. All eggs carry a single X chromosome, while sperm carries a gender-determining X or Y chromosome.

When an egg is fertilized by an X-carrying sperm, the resulting embryo (XX) is female; if the fertilizing sperm carries a Y chromosome, the resulting embryo (XY) is male. Because the ratio of X-carrying sperm to Y-carrying sperm is relatively equal, the odds of conceiving a girl or a boy are about the same for parents who conceive naturally.

Although there are countless myths and misconceptions about ways couples can increase their chances of having a boy or a girl, for most of human history, there’s been no way to medically influence or control a baby’s gender prior to conception.

Today, thanks to ongoing breakthroughs in assisted reproductive technology (ART) and a deeper understanding of genetics, preconception gender selection is not only possible, it’s also incredibly precise. Here’s what you need to know about what it is, why it’s done, and how accurate it can be.

Gender selection basics

Done in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF), gender selection allows aspiring parents to choose the gender of their child prior to conception, or before a viable embryo is transferred to the uterus for implantation.

Gender selection was initially developed to help families with a history of a specific sex-linked genetic illness reduce their risk of having a child with the same disorder.

In most cases, sex-linked inherited diseases, such as hemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, are passed on through the X chromosome, meaning they almost always occur in boys, because males only require one copy of the recessive gene mutation (from their mother) to inherit the disorder.

Girls, on the other hand, must receive a copy of the sex-linked mutation from each parent in order to have the inherited disorder. Depending on how it’s done, gender selection allows such families to either greatly increase their odds of having a girl, or to actually choose a female embryo for implantation in the womb.

As gender selection techniques have evolved and improved, more couples undergoing IVF have opted to use it for nonmedical reasons, primarily for family balancing purposes. In families with more than one boy or girl, gender selection can increase the likelihood of having a child of the opposite sex.

Gender selection techniques

Although different fertility clinics use a variety of techniques to perform gender selection, here at California Center for Reproductive Health we only use the methods with the highest rate of accuracy, which are:

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)

PGD, which is primarily used to screen embryos for genetic defects before they’re used in IVF, can also be used to detect X and Y chromosome material.

To perform gender selection via PGD, an embryologist uses a microscopic glass needle to carefully remove a single cell from each viable embryo created in the IVF process. This single-cell biopsy doesn’t damage the developing embryo.

Then, after analyzing both the genetic material and the sex chromosomes of each embryo under a powerful microscope, the most high-quality embryo(s) of the desired gender are transferred to the uterus for implantation.

Ericsson albumin filtration method

This advanced sperm sorting technique involves placing specially washed sperm cells on top of a layered solution of albumin, a type of protein that occurs naturally in semen. Albumin is made up of increasingly thick layers, with the thickest layer on the bottom.

When spun in a sterile centrifuge machine, the Y-carrying sperm, which may be lighter, faster, and less dense than X-carrying sperm, swim toward the thickest layer of albumin, while most of the X-carrying sperm remains in the thinner layers of albumin.

Sperm for the chosen gender is then selected from the corresponding layer of albumin to be used in artificial insemination or IVF.

Gender selection accuracy

Because it can definitively determine which sex chromosomes are in an embryo, PGD has an accuracy rate of over 99%, making it the most precise method for gender selection available today. This is especially important for aspiring parents who want to use gender selection to reduce their chances of having a baby with a sex-linked genetic disease.

While the Ericsson albumin sperm sorting method is easier and less expensive than PGD, the technique can’t create an absolute and total separation between X-carrying sperm and Y-carrying sperm, making it less accurate than PGD.

With a reported success rate of 80% when selecting for a male and about 70% when selecting for a female, the Ericsson method is best for parents who are most interested in tipping the scales in favor of a certain gender, rather than making a clear choice.

At California Center for Reproductive Health, we’ve helped countless couples from a diverse range of backgrounds use gender selection to have healthy babies and balanced families.

To find out how we can help you, call your nearest Los Angeles area clinic in Encino, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, or Valencia, California, or use the easy online tool to schedule a visit with one of our gender selection experts any time.

What Is the Best Age to Freeze Your Eggs?

You’ve just launched your career, you haven’t found the right partner, or you’re embarking on a treatment protocol that may jeopardize your fertility. Whatever the catalyst is behind your decision to freeze and preserve your eggs for future use, there are some timing issues that can boost your chances of success down the road.

At California Center for Reproductive Health, under the experienced guidance of Dr. Eliran Mor, our team of reproduction specialists is invested in the family-building dreams of each of our Greater Los Angeles area patients. To ensure that you have the tools you need to realize your goals, we offer expert egg freezing services.

Here’s a look at how your timing can contribute toward a successful outcome when it comes to egg cryopreservation.

Younger may be better

As with many things in life, earlier is better when it comes to harvesting your eggs. When your body hits the biological clock button when it passes through puberty, it races into reproductive mode in earnest.

To give you a better idea of what happens, let’s put some numbers to your fertility. When you’re born, you have about one million egg-containing follicles, which is the highest number you’ll ever have. In fact, by the time you pass through puberty, you only have about 300,000 follicles to work with, thanks to natural attrition. And of these follicles, you will only ovulate about 300 of them during your reproductive years.

During your 20s, everything works smoothly and your ovulation produces healthy, viable eggs through its strong follicles. This process tends to peak by the time you hit 30, which is when you hit peak fecundability (the likelihood of conceiving per given month of trying — which is about 20%).

Once you’re in your 30s, your ovulation begins its slow decline as you march toward menopause. After the age of 35, your egg quality and number drops considerably, and by the time you’re 40, you have less than a 5% chance of getting pregnant per monthly cycle.

This doesn’t mean to say that women can’t start a family in their 30s or 40s — many have and will continue to do so. But if you don’t like playing such low odds, egg freezing offers you the opportunity to strike while the ovulation iron is hot.

Is there a best age for egg freezing?

We know this article is about the best age for freezing your eggs, but we’re going to back up and point out that every woman is different, with different considerations guiding their family-building dreams.

That said, if you’re in your 20s or early 30s, and you’d feel more comfortable with a little insurance when it comes to future pregnancy, now is the time for us to harvest your eggs. A big benefit of our egg harvesting services is that we’re able to gather far more than just one. By stimulating your ovaries using medications, we can collect up to 15 eggs for cryopreservation.

If you’re over the age of 35, and you’re facing a situation in which you’d like to preserve some eggs for the future, cryopreservation is not out of the question. To start, we can run some tests to check your ovarian reserve, and if we find it’s adequate, we can successfully harvest and preserve your eggs, as well.

If you have more questions about egg freezing and want to explore whether you’re a candidate, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. Or you can use the online scheduling tool to set up an appointment.

Reproductive Options for Lesbian Couples and Single Women

If the only hurdle that stands between you and the family of your dreams is biology, the hurdle is relatively easy to overcome, especially with the right team by your side.

Here at the California Center for Reproductive Health, our reproductive experts help people of all orientations achieve their family-building dreams, including lesbian couples and single women. If you’d like to embark on motherhood, here’s a look at your reproductive options.

Finding the right match

In many respects, single women and lesbian couples have a far easier path to motherhood than gay couples or single men thanks to simple biological logistics. As the producer of the eggs and incubators of life, women have only one thing standing between them and motherhood: fertilization.

The key to this is sperm, and we have several ways to slide this missing piece of the puzzle into place. One of the easiest and most popular methods we offer is artificial insemination with donor sperm. We begin by evaluating your reproductive health, including your ovaries, your uterus, and your fallopian tubes, to ensure that everything is functioning properly.

Once we give you the green light, we point you in the right direction for finding the right sperm from a licensed sperm bank. Qualified banks offer several layers of protection, including mandatory testing for certain infectious and genetic diseases. From there, you’re able to screen for any number of attributes, including:

  • Ethnic background
  • Body type
  • Eye and hair color
  • Skin tone

You can even learn a little bit about the anonymous donor’s education, profession, and hobbies.

Once you settle on a choice, you purchase the frozen sperm, and we store it here at our center until the time is right for insemination. You may opt to do this according to your natural menstrual cycle, or we can administer ovulation-enhancing medications to increase your chances of success.

The insemination itself is quick and painless, often accomplished in minutes, and all you have to do is wait.

A direct line

Many lesbian couples and single women who come to us have a specific donor in mind. Since the direct donor’s sperm hasn’t undergone the rigorous screening that a sperm bank offers, we’ll need to perform that service, which takes a little time.

First, we collect a sample of your donor’s sperm to have it tested for infectious diseases. Then we need to wait six months to retest your donor, as many infections have longer incubation periods. Should both tests come back negative, we’re free to begin the insemination process.

If you’re not keen on waiting six months, there’s an alternative for directed sperm donation in which we screen your sperm donor within a week of each insemination.

Baby can wait

If you know you want to have children down the road, but you’re not quite ready, we offer several services that can improve your chances of building the family of your dreams in the future. This is especially useful if you’re looking to put off motherhood until you’re in your mid-to-late 30s or 40s because your eggs become increasingly less viable as you age.

To have access to your healthiest eggs, many women freeze them in a process called oocyte cryopreservation. To harvest your eggs, we stimulate your ovaries with hormone injections and then collect as many as eggs as you’d like. We then freeze and store the eggs for future use.

If you’ve found the sperm donor you want, but you’re still not ready for motherhood, we can also freeze your embryos. You go through the same egg collection process we described above, except we fertilize your eggs with the cleared sperm before we freeze them.

In both cases, when you’re ready for your journey to motherhood, we thaw the eggs or embryos, prep your body, (fertilize the egg, if necessary), and implant the embryo(s) into your uterus.

For single women and lesbian couples, the road to motherhood requires a few extra steps, but we’ll help you navigate them with ease. Simply give our Greater Los Angeles or West Hollywood, California, offices a call or use the online scheduling tool to set up a consultation.

Reproductive Options for Gay Couples and Single Men

In the past, same-sex male couples and single men who didn’t have children through prior heterosexual relationships had just two basic paths to parenthood: Conventional adoption or the creation of a non-traditional co-parenting arrangement with a lesbian couple or a single woman.

Today, the ongoing advancement and increasing availability of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) make it possible for gay couples and single men to have biological children of their own, using many of the same cutting-edge techniques that have helped infertile heterosexual couples become parents for decades.

Although the journey to biological parenthood for non-traditional families involves medical and legal challenges, these obstacles can be overcome with the right expertise and guidance.

Here at California Center for Reproductive Health, we’re dedicated to helping all aspiring parents — including single adults and members of the LGBTQ community — find the fertility solution that helps them fulfill their family dreams. If you’re a single man or part of a same-sex male couple, ART can help you build your family on your own terms. Here’s how.

ART and non-traditional family building

The desire to have biological children isn’t unique to the traditional nuclear family. Many single adults are ready to become parents on their own, just as countless same-sex couples want to have children who are biologically related to one or both partners.

For single men and gay male couples, assisted fertility typically involves combining their own sperm with donor eggs and enlisting either a traditional surrogate or a gestational surrogate to carry the pregnancy to term.

Traditional surrogacy

A traditional surrogate is a woman who agrees to be both the egg donor and the gestational carrier for someone else’s baby. For single men as well as same-sex male couples, this relatively simple option is generally the most straightforward and cost-effective way to bring a child into the world, as it can usually be accomplished through basic fertility techniques.

When a traditional surrogate has a good supply of viable eggs, ovulates normally, and has a healthy uterus, artificial insemination, also known as intrauterine insemination (IUI), is often all it takes to achieve a healthy pregnancy.

During IUI, a highly concentrated solution of viable, washed sperm, either from a single donor or a mix of two donors, is injected directly into the uterus during ovulation. If basic IUI techniques fail to result in pregnancy after a few natural cycles, the surrogate may be given fertility medications to stimulate egg production and promote optimal ovulation.

It’s important to keep in mind that even though a traditional surrogate has a genetic connection to the child she’s carrying, she must legally concede all parental and custodial rights to the intended parent or parents before the treatment cycle begins.

It’s also important to note that California is surrogacy-friendly state, meaning it supports the legal rights of all intended parents, regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation, both prior to and after the birth of their child or children.

Gestational surrogacy

A gestational surrogate also carries a pregnancy to term for another individual or couple, but unlike a traditional surrogate, she isn’t the egg donor and has no genetic link to the baby.

Gestational surrogacy is accomplished via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) using either a single man’s sperm or a mix of sperm provided by each partner in a same-sex couple, to fertilize a donor egg for implantation in the womb.

During an IVF procedure, donor eggs are fertilized in a carefully controlled environment and placed in specialized incubators that support optimal development. Once the fertilized eggs become viable pre-embryos, they’re transferred to the surrogate’s uterus for implantation.

Whether donor eggs come from a family member, a close friend, or are sourced anonymously from an egg bank, all donors are required to undergo a thorough medical evaluation and psychological exam, an FDA-mandated infectious disease screening, and a complete genetic disease assessment.

The gestational carrier — who likewise may be a family member, close friend, or professional paid surrogate — must also undergo a complete medical evaluation and consent to receive ongoing prenatal care and any necessary medical treatment throughout her pregnancy.

Expert guidance and impartial support

Understanding your fertility options is just the first step on the road to parenthood. Once you know what your choices are, you’ll have to undertake the often-formidable process of deciding which path is best for you and your family.

At California Center for Reproductive Health, we take pride in providing expert guidance and impartial support for non-traditional families from all walks of life — whether you’re having trouble choosing an egg donor, finding a gestational carrier, or navigating the associated legal hurdles of using a traditional surrogate, we can help.

To learn more, call today or schedule an appointment online at one of our conveniently located Los Angeles area clinics in Encino, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Alhambra, or Valencia, California.

ART Outcomes: Morbidity and Mortality

When most couples think about starting a family, they generally don’t anticipate needing medical assistance to become pregnant. But infertility is a relatively common problem that affects an estimated one in six couples.

Luckily, assisted reproductive technology (ART) offers a variety of solutions designed to help couples overcome many of the most common obstacles to fertility.

In the United States, ART techniques have helped bring more than one million babies into the world since 1987. And every year, more than 61,000 babies — or almost 2% of all SS births — are born via in vitro fertilization (IVF).

All fertility treatments come with a certain amount of risk though. So if you’re considering using any type of ART to help you get pregnant, it’s important to understand what those risks are and how they may affect your pregnancy.

Here’s what you should know about the perinatal morbidity and mortality risks that are associated with current assisted reproductive technologies.

Measuring ART outcomes

Every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects data from all US fertility clinics to determine average ART outcomes as well as the maternal and perinatal risks that are associated with those outcomes. This information helps couples considering fertility treatment estimate their own chances of success and what their risks may be.

The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) compiles this data in an annual report that provides statistics about ART pregnancy success rates, maternal risks, and perinatal outcomes, including birth weight, multiple babies, and sick or stillborn babies.

Interpreting ART success rates

ART outcomes are measured in a variety of different ways to give you the best possible idea of your chances of success based on your age, specific fertility problem, and chosen ART fertility treatment.

If you and your partner are planning to use IVF with an embryo transfer, for example, you’d want to consider the current statistical success rates of that specific procedure. Similarly, if you’re planning to use intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), you’d want to pay attention to the ART outcomes and success rates associated with that particular procedure.

In 2016, the most recent reporting year, ART outcome statistics reveal that the cumulative live birth rate per egg retrieval was approximately 50% at the national level. Here at California Center for Reproductive Health, patients experienced a considerably higher (almost 67%) cumulative live birth rate per egg retrieval.

Understanding specific ART risks

Although the vast majority of babies conceived via IVF and other ART techniques are just as healthy as babies who are conceived naturally, fertility treatments are associated with certain fetal risks, including an increased risk of morbidity (illness or disease) as well as an increased risk of mortality, or stillbirth.

ART-related perinatal risks include:

Multiple gestations

Multiple gestation, or becoming pregnant with more than one baby, has long been the most notable risk that ART poses to fetal health. That’s because carrying multiples is consistently associated with an increased risk of detrimental outcomes, including preterm birth and related complications.

To help prevent the significant risks associated with multiple gestations, we strongly encourage our patients to opt for single-embryo transfer whenever possible.

Preterm birth and low birthweight (LBW)

Even in cases of singleton conception, babies conceived via ART are at an increased risk of premature birth (being born before 37 weeks gestation) as well as LBW.

Premature babies and babies born with LBW may have a harder time eating and gaining weight, may not be able to fight off infection as well, and may have an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions later in life.

While several large studies have suggested that most ART techniques increase these risks by twofold, pregnancies conceived via frozen-embryo transfers are actually associated with a reduced risk of preterm birth and LBW compared to those conceived via fresh-embryo transfer.

Congenital abnormalities

Babies conceived via ART appear to have a slightly increased risk of being born with a birth defect or congenital malformation when compared to babies that are conceived naturally.

Considering the fact that congenital abnormalities affect about 4-5% of babies who are conceived naturally, compared to about 6-7% of babies who are conceived medically, the absolute risk of conceiving a child with a congenital abnormality via ART is still relatively low.

Perinatal mortality

While a wide body of research shows that the risk of stillbirth and infant mortality is slightly greater for pregnancies conceived via ART, this outcome is most likely related to other ART-related risks, including severe maternal morbidity, preterm birth, and LBW.

If you’d like to learn more about ART success rates, outcomes, and risk factors, we can help. Call us or schedule an appointment online at one of our conveniently located clinics in Encino, West Hollywood, Monica, or Valencia, California.