things to do to make ivf successful

 

How to Increase Your Chances of IVF Success

If you are looking to increase your chances of conceiving during IVF, here are 8 tips from 5 different fertility doctors.

• 1. Maintain a healthy weight.

"Maintaining a healthy weight is extremely important infertility and IVF," says Linnea Goodman, MD, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UNC School of Medicine. "We know that being obese (BMI >35) and underweight (BMI <19) increases the time of conception by 2 and 4 times respectively, and negatively affects IVF success rates. Being overweight also makes monitoring the ovaries during IVF more difficult and increases the chance of complications during egg retrievals."

This is best implemented with changes in diet and activity with professional help.

"Working with a dietitian, and in some programs enrolling in a cardiometabolic weight loss program can help achieve these goals," says Zaraq Khan, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

2. Optimize sperm health.

"Use of multivitamins and maintaining optimal body weight, as well using boxers over briefs, could improve sperm quality," says Dr. Khan. "Under appropriate care, men can also be started on medications that can help boost sperm numbers and quality that can have a beneficial impact on IVF outcome. In certain cases, sperm aspirated directly from the testicle over ejaculate could also be beneficial. Involving a male infertility specialist for any form of abnormalities in semen analyses is key."

• 3. Partner with an excellent doctor and embryology laboratory.

"Choosing an excellent reproductive endocrinologist is twofold: in addition to experience and commitment to evidence-based medicine, look for someone with whom you feel comfortable and connected. Your doctor will accompany you on this very emotional journey and it is important for you to feel supported and heard," says Elizabeth Fino, MD, fertility specialist at NYU Langone Fertility Center. "Asking for recommendations from friends and family who know you best can help guide you to a knowledgeable physician with whom you feel comfortable, but also be sure to do your research."

In a world of online reviews, it can be difficult to determine credibility.

"Be careful of online reviews—they are often completed by select patients who had an extreme experience for one reason or another and may not be universally applicable. FertilityIQ offers a unique model which hones in on specific aspects of the experience after vetting patient reviews.

To find an excellent embryology laboratory, look for a long history of exceptional outcomes. One source is the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology which details the clinic's volume and live birth rate."

4. Reduce your stress.

"Basal stress levels can influence natural and assisted conception rates," says Dr. Khan. "Reducing stress troubles during an IVF stimulation cycle can be one of the hardest things to achieve for couples. Several reports suggest improvement of pregnancy outcomes with the use of acupuncture and other stress-relieving techniques, like enrolling in mind-body programs, stress reduction, and resilience training workshops."

5. Quit smoking

"Smoking can drastically decrease the chance of success while doing IVF because it affects egg and sperm quality," says Dr. Khan.

But you don't have to do it on your own.

"Quitting smoking is not an easy task and often requires a great deal of personal as well as professional support. Try to involve your friends and family to help encourage you in the process. For smoking cessation, structured programs and/or pharmacological assistance have proven to be most successful," says Dr. Fino.

6. Look into taking supplements

"DHEA and CoQ10 are supplements that have shown some promise in association with an increase in egg quantity and quality," says Dr. Fino. "Talk to your doctor to see if he or she recommends them for you."

Multivitamins may also be helpful, adds Dr. Khan.

7. Ensure you have adequate levels of vitamin D

"Over 40% of individuals are deficient in Vitamin D, and there is emerging data on its association with infertility and worse IVF outcomes," says Tarun Jain, MD, medical director of Northwestern Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Oakbrook Terrace. "Ask your doctor to check your vitamin D level, and consider taking a vitamin D supplement."

8. Focus on persistence and patience.

"Many patients require more than one cycle of IVF to achieve an embryo for transfer and outcomes may vary significantly from cycle to cycle," says Shannon DeVore, MD, at NYU Langone Fertility Center. "If your first cycle wasn't successful, your doctor may be able to adjust the medications to optimize a subsequent one. Other times, it just means keeping at it. Try not to be discouraged by sub-optimal outcomes and setbacks—you are doing everything right. The single biggest thing to remember is that most (or all) of this is out of your control. Nobody likes a lack of control, but sometimes letting go can help you endure the journey. Take care of yourself and don't blame yourself when things don't go well. You are not alone, it often takes a village to build a family."

Increase Your Chances of IVF Success

Improve Egg Quality and Boost Fertility

 

7 Tips to Improve Egg Quality and Boost Fertility

Women often ask if there is a natural or 'at home remedy' for boosting egg quality and improving fertility and the chances of pregnancy. Dr. Hirshfeld-Cytron explains what you can do to ensure that your eggs can be the best when preparing for conception.

1. Stay Away from Cigarettes.

Smoking permanently speeds up egg loss in the ovaries. The chemicals in cigarettes mutate the DNA in a woman's egg cells, making some of the eggs unsuitable for conception. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and the number of eggs reduces with age, so it is best to keep eggs healthy and free of unnecessary chemicals.

2. Manage Stress.

Stress can produce hormones such as cortisol and prolactin that can interfere with or halt ovulation, which also hinders egg production. Stress-reducing activities such as yoga, meditation, exercise, or a warm bath can help keep stress and frustration at bay.

3. Eat Healthily.

Healthy foods improve overall health, this includes helping your eggs stay healthy and high quality, as well as improve overall fertility. Eat plenty of leafy greens, whole grains, lean meats, nuts, fresh vegetables, and fruits. Stay away from trans fats, refined carbs, processed foods or meats, and excessive salt and sugar.

4. Achieve a Normal BMI (body mass index).

Obesity has been linked to reduced fertility and decreased egg quality due to alterations of mitochondrial function and increased oxidative stress. Being overweight can also alter the hormonal balance, disrupting ovulation. A body mass index (BMI) between 18.5-24.9 is recommended to achieve pregnancy. To give you an idea of what that looks like, a woman that is 5’6” falls within a normal BMI with a weight range of 115-154 lbs.

5. Boost Blood Flow.

Good egg health is aided by oxygen-rich blood flow to the ovaries. Blood flow in the body can quickly decrease from dehydration, so aim to drink 64 oz. of water each day. Yoga is a healthy and relaxing way to improve blood flow, with poses such as the lotus pose, child’s pose, reclining hero, and seated forward bend offering a specific fertility benefit.

6. Invest in Supplements.

There is no need to break the bank on vitamins, but three low-cost options can help with egg health: Coenzyme Q10, melatonin, and fish oil. CoQ10 can boost mitochondrial function as well as antioxidants, improving the quality of eggs (200 mg, 3x daily); melatonin can boost antioxidants, encourage ovarian function, and aid in sleep (3mg each evening); and fish oil (EPA/DHA) can help produce higher quality eggs and help reproductive function in advanced maternal age (1200-1500mg EPA + DHA daily, do not exceed 3000 mg/day).

7. Freeze Your Eggs.

If you are planning on delaying motherhood, the best way to protect your fertility future is to stop your biological clock and freeze your eggs. With time, a woman’s natural fertility declines, but frozen eggs remain the same biological age as when they are cryopreserved, boosting your chances of future success.

make ivf successful

 In vitro fertilization or IVF, effectively treats many causes of male and female infertility. IVF can be an excellent option for many patients who have struggled to get pregnant with other fertility treatments. It is an especially successful treatment for women with tubal issues, endometriosis, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. For women of advancing maternal age, IVF is also very successful with the use of donor eggs. Men with low sperm counts and couples with inherited diseases also benefit from IVF.

IVF has been around since the mid-1980s to treat couples experiencing infertility. Back then, the chances of bringing home a baby after IVF was a dismal 10%, less than what you would expect from Mother Nature at about 20%. Today, over 190,000 IVF cycles are conducted in the U.S., with average live birth rates of over 32% for women of all ages. Younger women with younger eggs have even better success, with live birth rates approaching 50%.

What has accounted for this incredible increase in success with IVF? Most notably are the new techniques that have arisen over the last several years that offer the possibility of improving a patient’s odds of having a baby through IVF. Let’s take a look at some of these success-boosting techniques.

Assisted Hatching

Sometimes viable embryos do not implant in the uterine wall simply because they are unable to break free from their surrounding “jelly coat,” called the zona pellucida. We perform assisted hatching in the lab right before embryo transfer using a laser to create a hole in the zona. This allows the embryo to “hatch” and make contact with the lining of the uterus and implant.

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection

We first used ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, to treat cases of severe male factor infertility. In this technique, a single sperm is injected into the cytoplasm (interior) of the egg. Today, the use of ICSI is now routinely applied to a wide range of clinical situations whenever there is a possibility that fertilization may not occur. Such situations may include unexplained infertility or when frozen sperm samples survive their thaw poorly. Further, ICSI is used in any case where there is an extreme need to maximize normal fertilization, such as when a woman has only a few eggs retrieved.

“Freeze All Embryos” IVF Cycle

In the past, we preferred to perform fresh embryo transfers for most patients because the embryos had a better chance of implanting and developing into a baby than frozen embryos did. However, over the past several years, vitrification techniques for freezing and thawing embryos have improved so much that frozen embryos now have an equal or perhaps better chance of implanting than fresh embryos.

When there is a planned “freeze all embryos” IVF cycle, the developing embryos are frozen via vitrification and stored until they are transferred at a later time. This technique is especially beneficial for women at risk of hyper ovarian stimulation caused by the medications used to produce multiple eggs during the cycle. We have found that high hormone levels associated with ovarian stimulation might affect the lining of the uterus, making it less likely for the transferred embryos to implant. We see this particularly in patients who develop higher progesterone levels earlier in the ovarian stimulation cycle.

Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS)

PGS helps us answer the question of which embryos have the greatest potential to become a healthy pregnancy and baby. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, inheriting one copy of each chromosome from either parent. When sperm fertilizes an egg, it creates an embryo which should consist of 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 chromosomes from the father. But often, embryos are created with too many or too few chromosomes. This is a major cause of miscarriage and increases dramatically with maternal age. One of the most common examples is Down Syndrome, or Trisomy 21, which is caused by the presence of a third copy of chromosome 21.

PGS gives the patient two advantages. First, it allows us to be 99% certain the embryo has the correct number of chromosomes thereby increasing the chance for a healthy pregnancy. Second, it allows the patient to transfer only ONE embryo thereby decreasing the chance of twins (which have a much higher rate of complications). The pregnancy rate of transferring just one embryo that has undergone PGS and is deemed chromosomally normal is the same as transferring two embryos that are not tested.

how to make IVF successful