Our resident infertility psychologist, Dr. Allison Rosen, took some time recently to give our readers and patients a more detailed look into SART’s 2010 IVF Success Rates and what they mean for you and your fertility journey with New Hope.  Many thanks to Dr. Rosen for this in-depth report!

The 2010 Society of Assisted Reproduction Statics are in, demonstrating that New Hope Fertility Center is, hands down, the best reproductive program in the Tri-state area, or possibly the country, for family building using donor eggs.  Not only is New Hope’s program the most convenient, but the safest, least expensive, and most successful Donor Egg Program compared to other fertility clinic donor programs.

Due to innovative procedures, the donor program is able to “freeze eggs” from donors, thereby eliminating the costly need to synchronize the donor and recipient cycles. Thus, the eggs can be retrieved at the convenience of the donor without needing to match to the recipient’s cycle; resulting embryos can be transferred to the recipient with less need for medication and absolutely no need to link with the donor’s cycle.

According to the 2010 SART statistics, NHFC had a live birth rate using thawed donor embryos of 64.2%. This percentage is much higher than any other Tri-state program using frozen eggs and embryos.  Due to the high quality of the embryos, New Hope is able to transfer fewer embryos thereby reducing the number of pregnancies with twins. Although some people would like twins, thinking along the lines of “it’s two for one,” twin pregnancies are more dangerous for both mother and child.  They often result in bed rest and increased premature births.

New Hope Fertility Center allows individuals to pick their donors from its large egg bank.  When you like a donor, the eggs are there, and you don’t have to wade through countless donor profiles until you find a donor who is “available”.  You then select the donor using adult pictures, extensive medical information and personality attributes. YOU select the donor, not your reproductive program. All donors are carefully screened medically and psychologically.

If you want high quality donors you can select to resemble you; if you want the highest success rate in the Tri-state area; if you want the safest and least expensive program, New Hope Fertility can meet all these needs — hands down.

We’re excited to announce that the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology has recently posted its  2010 IVF Success Rate National Summary online.

The IVF success report compiles information submitted from all of its member clinics in the United States to create a comprehensive look at the number of healthy live births created through assisted reproductive technology techniques.  The ART techniques considered for the report include IVF (both fresh and frozen embryo transfers), ICSI, Gestational Carrier using patient’s eggs, and donor egg IVF cases.  According to the SART report, 146,693 treatment cycles led to the birth of 58,727 babies in 2010.

Details in the latest SART IVF success rate summary represent the positive trends and changes being made within the self-regulated fertility industry.  As with New Hope Fertility Center, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and SART support the practice of single embryo transfers to decrease high-risk multiple births, which is directly reflected in the most recent summary.

We’re excited to see the trend towards safer and more affordable IVF care continue to grow as more SART member clinics practice single embryo transfers, one of our main practices here at New Hope Fertility.

ASRM, SART, and its member clinics continue to make the fertility care sector safer by creating guidelines aimed towards ensuring IVF practices are safe across the board.  That being said, it can only go uphill from here!

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.

SART (Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology) has recently released a new year of statistics, profiling fertility clinics around the nation. The most recent numbers (from 2009) help to show the state of IVF treatment in general, and for each specific clinic, in particular. A recent post on latimes.com talks about the current statistics and says that, in looking at IVF treatment in terms of success rates (that is, the number of cycles that result in a live birth) there has been a moderate increase (from 37.5% in 2003 to 41.4% in 2009) over the past few years. The article also takes a look into statistics that show how the fertility industry is progressing as a patient-centered industry by talking about the increasing rates of Single Embryo Transfers (SET), which are advantageous because they reduce the risks associated with multiple pregnancies for both mothers and their babies. Although the numbers nationwide are still far lower that they could be, the percentage of people requesting SET was 7.2% in 2009, up from 5.2% last year, and from 0.7% in 2003.

In the United States, roughly 6.1 million men and women – 10% of the reproductive population — are infertile. The causes are found equally among women and men and can often be confusing, overwhelming, frustrating and stressful. The most common female causes reported include tubal factor (which accounts for about 10% of all female related issues), ovulatory dysfunction (6%), diminished ovarian reserve (12%), endometriosis (5%), uterine factors (1%), and other factors (8%). In 11% of female infertility cases, the causes are unknown. Male factors for infertility include blockage of sperm, infection (STD, mumps, etc.), chronic disease, erectile dysfunction (which occurs in 50% of men over 40), failure to produce sperm, exposure to harmful substances, injury, or varicocele (varicose veins in the testicle).