IVF Effectiveness May Depend on Age
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Did you know a woman’s odds of conceiving a baby, even through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), significantly drops after the age of 40? Because of the advancements in fertility treatments and procedures, many women may not realize that even though fertility treatments are a viable option, they cannot overcome the effects of aging. Not only do women feel the effects of their age with their fertility decreasing, they also see their odds of having a baby through IVF also decrease. However, women younger than 35 could potentially have just as good of odds of conceiving through IVF as another woman, of the same age with no fertility problems.
Over 1 million babies have been born because of successful IVF procedures, with the first “test tube” baby being born over 30 years ago. With the growing number of women entering the workforce and taking on prospering careers, many are making the transition to motherhood later on in life. While in many aspects waiting to have a family until later in life may seem to be very beneficial, in some aspects, such as childrearing age, may contribute to a large risk. Factors of age could possibly prevent a women’s dream of motherhood, or at least through pregnancies of their own.
Over 113,000 IVF treatment cycles are performed in the United States annually, and this figure continues to grow at a steady pace. The process costs in the neighborhood of $12,000 for each attempt and on average requires seven cycles of treatments, which can be physically and emotionally challenging. For each procedure, a woman undergoes several weeks of hormone injections, to stimulate their ovaries, and sometimes they must have their eggs extracted, to be fertilized in the lab, in order to produce viable embryos. If viable embryos are obtained, then they are placed into the mother’s womb in hopes of a baby.
Before undergoing fertility treatments, majority of couples want to know their odds of actually bringing home a little bundle of joy. Beth Malizia, M.D. with the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, along with Alan Penzias, M.D., senior author and a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF and BIDMC, and coauthor Michele Hacker, ScD., MSPH, recently released the largest study ever, to try and clarify the accuracy of IVF and more accurately project the odds for parent hopefuls. The new study released in the January 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to evaluate a broader spectrum of women. The study evaluated over 6,000 women, including older women and those using either frozen or fresh embryos, from 2000 to 2005, at a large Boston clinic.
Over 3,100 babies were born by the end of the study out of 14,248 cycles. After six IVF cycles, overall the cumulative live-birth rate was 72 percent, based on the more optimistic estimate that assumed those patients who didn’t return for IVF treatments would have the same odds of having a child as those who continued with treatments. If researchers took the more conservative approach and assumed that those women who did not return for further IVF treatments did not have babies, then the percentage dropped to 51 percent. However, Dr. Penzias said the more accurate rate is probably somewhere in the middle of the two estimates.
Over 1 million babies have been born because of successful IVF procedures, with the first “test tube” baby being born over 30 years ago. With the growing number of women entering the workforce and taking on prospering careers, many are making the transition to motherhood later on in life. While in many aspects waiting to have a family until later in life may seem to be very beneficial, in some aspects, such as childrearing age, may contribute to a large risk. Factors of age could possibly prevent a women’s dream of motherhood, or at least through pregnancies of their own.
Over 113,000 IVF treatment cycles are performed in the United States annually, and this figure continues to grow at a steady pace. The process costs in the neighborhood of $12,000 for each attempt and on average requires seven cycles of treatments, which can be physically and emotionally challenging. For each procedure, a woman undergoes several weeks of hormone injections, to stimulate their ovaries, and sometimes they must have their eggs extracted, to be fertilized in the lab, in order to produce viable embryos. If viable embryos are obtained, then they are placed into the mother’s womb in hopes of a baby.
Before undergoing fertility treatments, majority of couples want to know their odds of actually bringing home a little bundle of joy. Beth Malizia, M.D. with the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, along with Alan Penzias, M.D., senior author and a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF and BIDMC, and coauthor Michele Hacker, ScD., MSPH, recently released the largest study ever, to try and clarify the accuracy of IVF and more accurately project the odds for parent hopefuls. The new study released in the January 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to evaluate a broader spectrum of women. The study evaluated over 6,000 women, including older women and those using either frozen or fresh embryos, from 2000 to 2005, at a large Boston clinic.
Over 3,100 babies were born by the end of the study out of 14,248 cycles. After six IVF cycles, overall the cumulative live-birth rate was 72 percent, based on the more optimistic estimate that assumed those patients who didn’t return for IVF treatments would have the same odds of having a child as those who continued with treatments. If researchers took the more conservative approach and assumed that those women who did not return for further IVF treatments did not have babies, then the percentage dropped to 51 percent. However, Dr. Penzias said the more accurate rate is probably somewhere in the middle of the two estimates.
