The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART) called on the fertility care community to expand the practice of single embryo transfers (SET) when performing in vitro fertilization procedures.  The societies made the announcement last week at ASRM’s 67th Annual Meeting in Orlando.

New Hope Fertility Center has been a longtime advocate of the practice of SET and continually push for its increased use in the fertility care field.  As we’ve reported before, SET is essential when conducting more patient-centered care, as it decreases the health risks associated with multiple pregnancies.  In addition, the practice of SET lessens the chance for unnecessary procedures, such as pregnancy reduction, and cuts back costs associated with perinatal and neonatal care often needed in the case of high risk births due to multiple embryo transfers.

The report also aligns with New Hope’s observations on single embryo transfer success rates.  As the report states, “clinics promoting eSET (elective single embryo transfer) may be at a disadvantage as they appear to have lower ‘success’ rates than those utilizing DET even though the total ‘success’ rates are comparable” (source: ASRM/SART Practice Committees).  This evidence only serves to strengthen the call for more SET, as it shows the practice still has healthy success rates, while also serving to promote the use of the method in an effort to popularize customized fertility care.

While the committees are understandably concerned about push back from patients desiring twins and those concerned with the potential of having to pay for additional IVF treatment if the first round of IVF fails, the ultimate goal of spreading the practice of SET is to increase the chance of a healthy pregnancy.  With the right amount of patient education, fertility care experts can ensure their patients understand SET considers long-term cost effectiveness, as it reduces the chance of multiple births that eventually acquire more healthcare costs due to complications from low birth weights, premature births and other issues.

You can read the full report from ASRM and SART’s Practice Committees here, and visit us to learn more about our “One Good Egg” and single embryo transfer policies.

A few IVF success stories to congratulate:

1) 32 y/o came to New Hope Fertility with secondary infertility. She conceived from a frozen blastocyst transfer from a Clomid-only Mini-IVF™ cycle. She is pregnant with twins after a single embryo transfer! Congratulations!

2) 40 y/o is pregnant with her first child, conceived from frozen blastocyst transfer from a Natural IVF LPS (Luteal Phase Stimulation) cycle. (LPS is a cutting-edge assisted reproductive technology technique unique to New Hope Fertility Center, that you can read more on here.) Congrats!

3) 48 y/o came to New Hope with a history of secondary infertility. She completed one donor frozen embryo transfer cycle and recently came back with a positive pregnancy test. Congrats!

4) 42 y/o came to New Hope with a history of primary infertility. She completed one donor frozen embryo transfer cycle and recently came back with a positive pregnancy test. Congratulations!

5) Patient came to New Hope with a history of secondary infertility. After completing one Mini-IVF™ cycle with a frozen embryo transfer she recently came back with a positive pregnancy test. Congrats!

New Hope Fertility Center is more than just a fertility clinic — we are also very much focused on the science behind reproductive medicine and are always pushing to provide the most advanced scientific techniques along with good patient services. One of the more innovative techniques that we use in our assisted reproduction care is Luteal Phase Stimulation (LPS), which can help women and couples hoping to retrieve more eggs during a single IVF cycle.

This chart shows a normal cycle for an average woman. As you can see, the graph charts hormones and uterine environment over a 28-day cycle. As you move from left to right, we call the period from Day 0 to Day 14 the Follicular Phase, when follicles are being developed. Typically, one follicle will develop into maturity (become a dominant follicle), and will rupture from the ovary (ovulation), enter the fallopian tubes, and settle there where it waits to be fertilized by a sperm cell.

During a typical IVF cycle, doctors retrieve an egg right before the woman ovulates, while the mature follicle is still in the ovary. Because we want the follicle to be as mature as possible but we don’t want it to have ruptured from the ovary, the timing of an egg retrieval is very important and is one of the reasons why we monitor all our patients so closely at New Hope Fertility Center. In a normal natural cycle, this is the only egg that would be retrieved, and we must wait for the next cycle in order to retrieve another mature follicle. At this point, the woman enters into what is called the luteal phase of her menstrual cycle (Day 14 through Day 28).

However, in some cases there will be other follicles in the ovary that may not have been mature enough to rupture at the time of ovulation, but that are still quite viable. With close monitoring and, in some cases, gentle stimulation, during the days after the initial egg retrieval, our doctors are able to retrieve another mature follicle that has been developing even after the woman has entered the luteal phase.

Woman may choose to try to retrieve an extra egg using LPS if they wish to maximize the number of healthy eggs retrieved in a cycle and speed up their IVF process. Additionally, for women who wish to preserve their fertility with egg freezing or who feel that they might not have much time left on their biological clock, this is a particularly appealing technique that can help them retrieve healthy eggs sooner rather than later.

A quick update on our recent IVF successes:

1) 36 y/o came to New Hope Fertility Center with a history of primary infertility.  She completed one Mini-IVF™ cycle with a day-3 fresh embryo transfer and recently came back with a positive pregnancy test.  Congratulations!

2) Another 36 y/o arrived at New Hope with a history primary infertility.  She completed one Mini-IVF™ cycle and had a day-5 frozen embryo transfer, resulting in a positive pregnancy test.  Congrats!

3) 32 y/o with a history of primary inferility came to New Hope and completed a Mini-IVF™ cycle.  She had a frozen embryo transfer and recently came back with a positive pregnancy test.  Congrats!

Among our other guiding philosophies at New Hope Fertility Center, having the fertility care options that best meet the needs of our potential patients is another prominent protocol at our clinic.

As we’ve outlined in the past couple of weeks as a response to New York Magazine’s Parents of a Certain Age cover story, New Hope continuously seeks to give all patients struggling with infertility issues a chance, no matter what age or FSH level.  Indeed, in the same way, we’re proud to be able to utilize the most recent method in fertility preservation and freezing eggs and embryos: vitrification.

Many of the concerns involved with a woman’s age include the “ticking” of the biological clock, a term developed from our understanding that as a woman ages so do her eggs as their production slows down and a woman enters menopause.  For this and other reasons, many women choose to freeze their embryos in an effort to prevent running into infertility issues in the future when they decide to have children.  As a matter of fact, many sources will mention the risk of eggs not surviving the freezing method, our vitrification method for freezing embryos boasts a 98% survival rate compared to that of traditional egg freezing methods.

Our vitrification method is also what makes our donor program unique.  Many donor programs require the donor recipient and egg donor to cycle at the same time.  At New Hope, we can freeze donor eggs until the recipient is most ready for the donor egg transfer.  By using vitrification to preserve donor eggs, we ensure our fertility care is playing best to the needs of the patient, while also avoiding overmedication often involved in trying to synchronize cycles.