Our IVF Success Rates & SART IVF Success Rates
We at New Hope Fertility Center understand the most significant question you have is, 'What are my chances of bringing home a precious new baby?' While no fertility clinic can guarantee your success, we have provided our live birth rates below to give you a benchmark of what to expect.
Understanding IVF Success Rates Data
You are a savvy consumer and probably have examined the Society of Reproductive Technology (SART) national IVF success rate data and other fertility clinic’s websites to see success averages in your age group. If you plan to use Conventional IVF and multiple-embryo transfers, and your fertility health perfectly matches the 'ideal IVF candidate' in your age group, then SART data may indeed be a reliable benchmark for you.
However, because New Hope Fertility Center specializes in Natural Cycle and Mini-IVF treatments and promotes single-embryo transfers (to reduce risks associated with multiple births), it will be difficult to compare our data with SART and other clinics since SART only tracks success rates of Conventional IVF and multiple-embryo transfers. But, you still need some kind of comparison. In the table below, we have provided our live birth rates and a ‘what if’ scenario that represents statically what our live birth rates would have been if we had also transferred the same number of embryos as the SART clinics transferred.
Our data is presented as a comparison against national IVF success averages provided by the government agency, Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologt (SART). They compile reported data from 392 fertility clinics (85% of US clinics) in the US and present the data in aggregated, by clinic, and by infertility cause for the industry and for patients. Click here to see their reports.
As you can see from the fresh embryo transfer table, we transfer an average of 1.48 embryos per cycle compared to 2.92 that other clinics transfer. Theirs is almost double our transfer rate. Statistically, transferring double the embryos obviously skews their success rate data higher, but it does not mean those clinics are more successful. It just means their patients have a 13-33% chance for twins, triplets, etc. versus our 8% chance for twins. Clearly from the following table, we are equally successful with our Mini-IVF treatment. If we also transferred 2-3 embryos our live birth rates would be very similar to SART, as you can see in our ‘what if’ column. The converse is true that if SART’s transfer rate matched ours, their live birth rates would statistically be lower and similar to ours.
In the next table, you will see that our frozen embryo live birth rates are significantly higher than our fresh transfer cycles. We have a 42% frozen live birth rate for women under 35 which rivals SART’s fresh live birth rate & exceeds their frozen rate. This should give confidence to women and couples who preserve their fertility by freezing embryos to their Embryo Bank. Our frozen success rates are higher because our Vitrification freezing method is better & because we usually only freeze blastocyst embryos which have a 40% greater chance of pregnancy than a day 2, day 3, or day 4 embryo (which we often use in our fresh embryo transfer cycles).
In both our fresh and frozen live birth rate tables, you’ll notice our numbers lag slightly behind SART for women 41-44 years old. If you are over 39, it is important to understand most Conventional IVF clinics deny treatment to women your age because they produce fewer eggs even with high doses of IVF drugs. If they do accept them, it is only those who have FSH levels and other 'ideal IVF candidate'criteria similar to younger women. As a result, Conventional IVF clinics skew their success data higher for women in older age groups by selecting only 'ideal IVF candidate'. Unfortunately, this makes the SART data misleading for women 39+. Many of those ‘denied’ women turn to New Hope Fertility Center. Our One Good Egg policy welcomes these women. Our success data often skews downwards because the eggs of women 39+ are often of lower quality and are less likely to produce a live birth.
The 'Ideal SART IVF Candidate' - SART IVF Success Rates Skewed
The little known facts, which we urge you to ‘know’ before deciding on your treatment plan, can make any success rate data you see either very meaningful or quite meaningless to you. That is because there are numerous scientific factors that influence the outcome of every woman’s IVF treatment. Some of those include her FSH levels, age, the number of unsuccessful IVF attempts (or the number of unsuccessful natural attempts), ovarian reserve, stress, weight and BMI, structural or mechanical problems with her reproductive system, how long the embryologist matures each embryo (day, 2, 3, 4, or blastocyst) before a transfer, the number of eggs she produces in one given cycle, and other complicated issues.
What is hidden from view in the SART data are the number of women who were denied treatment because one or more of those issues were present. For example, many clinics will not accept women older than 39, with FSH levels above 15, or if she is anticipated to make less than 2 eggs in each cycle –just to name a few. If any of the issues mentioned above affect you, the SART data may be a meaningless guide to gage what you can expect since it represents mostly women with the ‘best’ fertility health. Also, remember SART only measures success of Conventional IVF, not Natural Cycle and Mini-IVF treatments or single-embryo transfers.
It is an unfortunate drawback of reporting success data (for the industry and the consumer) because many clinics 'select' only ideal candidates to skew their success rate data higher. Even for those women who ‘make it in’ to their program, those clinic’s cancellation rates (cycles cancelled before egg retrieval) are still high at 8-19%. Our One Good Egg policy is patient-friendly, FSH-friendly, age-friendly, etc. without strict criteria designed to limit care or boost our success data. We know that because we often take very difficult cases, this can lower our success rate data. However, we believe everyone deserves a chance.