How to Research Fertility Clinic Success Rates
Many infertile couples seek the assistance of fertility clinics that offer Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), fertility treatments that involve the handling of both eggs and sperm. Fertility clinics that perform ART in the U.S. must legally report their annual success rate data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Couples can use this data to determine which clinic they want to employ.
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Instructions
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Review the CDC's annual report detailing the ART success rates for each of the fertility clinics. The report is available online and you can locate a clinic in your local area by entering your zip code.
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Look at a clinic's success rates for the figures that are most relevant to your specific fertility issue or circumstances.
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Use a clinic's success rates as a guideline. A clinic with a high success rate might not be successful in treating your specific fertility problem while a clinic with a low success rate may have treated patients who only had a low chance of getting pregnant.
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Ask the clinic about their rate of live deliveries or live births. A clinic's "take home baby rate" is the only real measure of success. Any positive pregnancy tests or any pregnancies, even if miscarried or ectopic, are reported by some clinics as successes.
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Set realistic expectations. The success of ART procedures vary with many factors, such as the woman's age, the number of eggs retrieved and the vitality of the sperm. National data for the reporting fertility clinics shows that success rates (take home baby rates) have increased slowly since the federal government mandated the reporting of rates in 1992.
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Plan to go through multiple ART attempts. Experts advise this to maximize the potential of the therapy.
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Tips & Warnings
ART does not include treatments in which only sperm is handled or procedures in which a woman takes drugs only to stimulate egg production without planning to retrieve the eggs.
Even though it is legally required, there are clinics performing ART in the U.S. that do not report their success rates to the CDC. Avoid them.
