Ivf

The couple had tried for six years to have a baby. Repeated medical tests showed no obvious cause for their infertility. Finally, they underwent in vitro fertilization and had a lovely baby boy. Then, 11 months later, they had a lovely baby girl. The boy's conception was the result of much planning and agonizing and $10,000 worth of medical treatment. His sister's birth followed a surprise conception that cost nothing. How did it happen?

IVF treatment continues to be a popular choice for making babies. The treatment, known formally as in vitro fertilization, is successful in producing a live birth in 41.4% of treatment cycles for women under age 35, according to information released Monday by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Data for 2009, the most recent year analyzed, showed the rate of live births per cycle with fresh embryos did not change much from 2008 when it was 41.3% for women under 35. However, that's still an improvement from 2003 when the rate of live births per cycle was 37.5% in that age group.

Folic acid does not improve the chances of a pregnancy but scientists said Friday that it could increase the odds of twins when two embryos are transferred during fertility treatment. Researchers at the Rowett Research Institute and Aberdeen University in Scotland found that women with high levels of folic acid were more likely to have twins following in vitro fertilization (IVF). "Basically the folic acid is increasing embryo survival, that is what we think is happening," said Dr.

One of the reasons so many couples using in vitro fertilization wind up with twins – and even triplets – is that they choose to transfer multiple embryos into the womb to insure at least one of them will develop into a baby. But carrying multiples can be risky for mother and babies. If only there were a way to reliably predict which embryos are most likely to grow, perhaps couples would be more willing to follow the government’s recommendations and transfer only one or two embryos at a time.

Before embarking on a medically invasive, expensive and emotionally taxing effort to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization, it sure would be nice to get a good sense of whether it’s likely to work. After all, only about 1 in 4 attempts resulted in a live birth as recently as 2007. So researchers from England and Scotland scoured data from more than 144,000 IVF cycles in the United Kingdom and looked for factors that might predict which couples stood the best chance of having a baby with assisted reproduction and which faced long-shot odds.

Last month, the U.S. received a set of grades from the March of Dimes, the nation's leading organization committed to preventing preterm births, that were nothing short of horrible. The report card on premature births compared preterm birth rates with national objectives. Overall, the nation received a D. Not a single state merited an A, and only one, Vermont, earned a B. Eighteen states and Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., received an F, and California squeaked by with a C.

Most couples trying to conceive through artificial insemination probably should give up if the technique has failed after six attempts, researchers said last week. A study involving 50 women who underwent in vitro fertilization or IVF at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston found that it was highly unusual for a successful pregnancy to occur after the sixth try.

A new procedure for in-vitro fertilization is less costly than traditional procedures and yields comparable pregnancy rates, advocates of the approach say. The technique is called Natural Cycle Ovulation Retrieval in In Vitro Fertilization, NORIF for short. There is no hormonal stimulation of ovulation, as in traditional IVF. Instead, ovulation is allowed to occur naturally.

I'M 51 YEARS OLD. My daughter, Moxie, just had her first birthday, and my son, Zolten, was born a few weeks ago. This is my first marriage, and these are my only kids. I started late. Way late. When Moxie is my age, I'll be 102 years old, and I'm sure we all will have flying cars, world peace and an even cooler song for 12-year-old boys than "Stairway to Heaven." It's not natural to have one's first kid this late in life. My body wanted to reproduce when I was 15.