What to Consider when Choosing a Fertility Clinic
Fertility treatment clinics are staffed by a team of experts including reproductive endocrinologists, embryologists, sonographers and nurses. Some clinics also include additional specialists in areas such as acupuncture, nutrition and hypnotherapy.
One of the key factors to take into account when deciding on a clinic is its success rates, which are published online by the Society for Assisted Reproduction Technology (SART). However, it’s important to keep in mind that the statistics that are provided do not provide a complete picture of patient outcomes because many factors can affect a person’s fertility journey.
To calculate success rates, a fertility clinic usually compares the number of successfully fertilized eggs with the number of pregnancies achieved by women who underwent the same treatment. To produce fertilized eggs, a woman’s natural cycle is suppressed by taking daily injections of follicle stimulating hormones or nasal sprays. This increases the number of eggs that can be collected, which is then inseminated with sperm or donated eggs to create embryos. During an IVF cycle, the most viable embryos are transferred to the uterus. Depending on your age and the number of eggs produced, your team may decide to transfer two or more embryos.
In addition to publishing success rates, most clinics offer financial packages that allow patients to pay in advance for a set number of IVF cycles, which can be helpful for people who think they might need multiple attempts to achieve pregnancy. In New York, for example, many group insurers and some self-funded employers cover IVF. Other options include financing through third-party lenders or multi-cycle programs.