IVF Success Rates    IVF Pricing Options    In Vitro Fertilization    Egg Donation    General Infertility    Site Index    Become a Patient

Number of eggs retrieved and IVF pregnancy and success rates according to female age

Background

When attempting in vitro fertilization, the level of response of the ovaries varies greatly when women take the injectable FSH drugs for ovarian stimulation . This leads to a range of eggs being retrieved at the egg retrieval procedure. Before we have stimulated the woman with the FSH containing drugs, antral follicle counts are the best predictor of the response that the ovaries will give, and the number of eggs that will be retrieved.

To some extent, the more eggs we have to work with, the greater the chance that IVF will be successful. There are several issues involved with this:

1. More eggs - will give us more fertilized eggs - will give us more likelihood of having 2 good quality embryos for the embryo transfer procedure. This is an embryo selection issue.

2. Women that respond well to the drugs sometimes will also have better quality eggs as well - which will be more likely to develop into quality embryos

More on the quantity and quality issues related to ovarian reserve and egg supply

This graph shows our live birth rates according to the number of eggs retrieved from the woman and her age

The data in the graph above indicates that:

Women under 35 in our IVF program (on the average) have good live birth rates, even with less than 5 eggs, and do better if we get more than 5 eggs, and best with more than 7 eggs
Women 35-39 (on the average) have low live birth rates with  less than 5 eggs, which are substantially better with 5-7, and best with more than 7 eggs
Women 40-42 do very poorly if we get less than 5 eggs, have reasonable live birth rates with 5-7 eggs, and best with more than 7 eggs

This is another example of decreasing egg quality with increasing female age. As women age, we need more eggs to be able to make IVF work - because the lower quality of the eggs.

This explains why IVF centers stimulate women in order to get sufficient eggs. We are not trying to get more eggs so that we can transfer more embryos. We are trying to get enough so that when we have the expected drop-off as some embryos arrest in their development (a normal process) - we will still have one or 2 "good" ones for transfer back to Mom.