IVF Success Rates

***VIDEO***

So IVF can tackle and solve a number of issues that affect patient’s ability to conceive naturally, but it doesn’t work a hundred percent of the time. IVF cycles are incredibly difficult physically and emotionally to go through, and they can be quite hard work without a guaranteed outcome at the end.

So let’s talk about success rates, because success rates of IVF vary from clinic to clinic and also, are impacted on by one of the most important things, which is maternal age. As a woman ages, she’s more likely to release abnormal eggs. This is not a process that can be reversed or stopped, and so maternal age at the point of starting treatment is incredibly relevant to the chance of the IVF cycle working. At the age of 40, the chances of success and live birth, which is ultimately the outcome that everybody is looking for, is around 20%. And this drops to just 2 to 3% at the age of 45 using your own eggs. So between the age of 40 to 45, there is a significant decline in the chance of success. Below the age of 40 and certainly below the age of 35, success rates are very much higher than this, and across the country, it’s important when looking at your clinic to really research the success rates in that clinic, not just within the last year or two, but historically, and the HFEA, the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority, provide that data for you.

We’ve taken a lot of that data and put it onto Total Fertility to make it easy for you to understand success rates and what they mean.

IVF success rates can vary across clinics, and it certainly is not guaranteed that every IVF cycle works. It’s therefore, really important to understand when you need to do IVF. Now, certainly for patients that aren’t conceiving naturally who have significant fertility issues, which we’ve already spoken about, perhaps problems with regular ovulation, tubal blockages, or perhaps male factor problems will have no other option but to proceed to IVF.

But certainly the prelim to IVF may be other treatments such as ovulation induction or intrauterine insemination. There’s no doubt that IVF has higher success rates than many of these other treatments, but let’s not forget, it can be a costly process, and it can also be all consuming both emotionally and mentally during what is several months of treatment.

That’s really important when approaching IVF, It’s done at the right time. And that’s where the advice of an experienced clinician is required to make sure that you start your IVF treatment at the right point in your fertility journey.