In vitro fertilization facts

• Infertility affects 6.1 million American women and their partners, about 10% of the reproductive age population.
• Infertility is a disease of the reproductive system that affects the male or female with almost equal frequency.
• Fewer than 5% of infertile couples in treatment actually use IVF. IVF is usually the treatment of choice for a woman with blocked, severely damaged, or absent fallopian tubes. IVF is also used to circumvent infertility caused by endometriosis or a male factor. Many programs also use IVF to treat couples with unexplained infertility of long duration who have failed with other infertility treatments.
• IVF is a method of assisted reproduction in which the man's sperm and the woman's egg (oocyte) are combined in a laboratory dish, where fertilization occurs. The resulting embryo is then transferred to the uterus to develop naturally. Usually, two to four embryos are transferred with each cycle.
• According to the latest statistics, the success rate of IVF is 22.8% live births per egg retrieval. This success rate is similar to the 20% chance that a healthy, reproductively normal couple has of achieving a pregnancy that results in a live born baby in any given month.
• Women under 35, without male factor, who try IVF, have on average a 25% chance of conceiving and having a baby. Some clinics achieve even better results.
• Success with IVF increases with the number of cycles attempted up to four cycles.
• Of the 78% of pregnancies as a result of IVF that result in a live birth, about 50% are singletons, 24% are twins and 5% are triplets or more.
• Children resulting from IVF have the same incidence of birth defects as children who are conceived naturally.
• IVF was successfully used for the first time in the United States in 1981. Since then, more than 45,000 babies have been born in the U.S. as a result of this technique.
• IVF has reduced the number of tubal surgeries by 50%.