Introduction to IVF Success Rates

***VIDEO***

Now in this lesson I’m going to talk a little bit about success rates because I know it’s one of the most important things when couples are looking at fertility treatment. Obviously the most important thing for anybody going through fertility treatment is the knowledge of their chances of taking home a live born baby that’s healthy.

So success is absolutely critical to everybody that’s doing fertility treatment and also to the clinicians and the embryologists and the nurses that are providing that. So when we talk about success, most success rates are presented in different ways. This can get quite confusing for patients, but when you look at the success rates presented by the HFEA in the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, this really is the gold standard of how data should be presented to you.

And what we talk about is the chances of implantation happening per embryo that is transferred. So as a patient, you know that in the clinic you are attending, the chances of having a positive pregnancy and an ongoing pregnancy is based on per embryo that is transferred, not per cycle that has been started, because of course, not every patient that starts an IVF cycle will reach the point of embryo transfer.

So it’s important for patients and anybody looking at IVF success that they understand how the data is being presented to them so that they can meaningfully interpret this.