Women age is one of the most important predictors for the infertility treatment success and older patients, when over 35 years of age, she should seek help, preferably infertility specialist after six (6) months of unsuccessful trying. Patients over 40 years old who are trying to conceive should right away see infertility specialist for evaluation. Although number of good oocytes decreases with age in all women, there is a better chance for conception and pregnancy with normal FSH/AMH values and when additional infertility factors have been corrected. Delaying seeing a doctor to ‘WAIT AND RELAX’ can dramatically reduce women chances for successful pregnancy and baby
Diminished Ovarian Reserve
Diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) defined by FSH over 10 and/or AMH less then 1 regardless of women age, prognoses less eggs left in the ovary and lower chance for spontaneous pregnancy and successful treatments. Low ovarian reserve potentiates negative age factor effect on egg number and quality. Patients with lower reserve have lower pregnancy rates then patients with normal ovarian reserves due to poor response to medications, lower total number oocytes harvested and eggs inferior quality. Poor quality eggs, often with broken zona pellucida or other oocyte defects produce poor quality, weak embryos and miscarried pregnancies or failed fertilizations. Often Growth Hormone (GH) is added to IVF meds in women with poor eggs and in older patients with some higher pregnancy rates but inconsistent outcomes. GH is started 6- 8 weeks prior to treatment cycle. GH is expensive, over $5,000 oer cycle cost, considered experimental, not covered by insurance and with unreliable outcomes at the end
IVF Stimulation
Our customized ovarian stimulation is helping all women produce more higher quality eggs. High quality eggs in sufficient number and quality embryos are the bases for IVF success. Minimum or no medication lower chances for pregnancy by bringing poor- quality eggs especially in older women. ‘Mini’ IVF or ‘natural’ IVF usually eliminates use of injectable fertility medications but the same time the ‘super eggs’ production step is eliminated. Chances for a quality embryo produced by a single, sub-fertile oocyte is too low to recommend. Too often patients with multiple failed Mini IVF or ‘natural IVF cycles’ are looking for second opinion and after she was told already that her FSH is too high to continue treatment. Our pregnancy rates for older patients, over 35 using own eggs, are one of the highest in New York area over 50% per IVF treatment for women age 35-40 are higher than national under 40% pregnancy rates
