How to judge IVF success rates

One of the biggest issues in selecting an infertility treatment, or a fertility clinic is the question "how likely is it that this will work?" The question seems simple enough, but there are some grey zones that are worth being aware of when you try to interpret any IVF success rates results that you see on websites, in magazines or in advertising from fertility clinics.

What most couples want to know is what their chances are that they will get a baby to take home if they start an IVF cycle? This is NOT the pregnancy rate that you will see published on most IVF websites. The IVF success rates that you will see listed most often refer to clinical pregnancies per embryo transfer procedure performed.

Why is this the one you see used? Simply because it looks so much better!

When you examine IVF success rates, look closely at the details of the information. Is it only women under the age of 35 that are included? Is it only couples who completed (rather than those that started) an IVF cycle? Is it any pregnancy (meaning a positive pregnancy test), a clinical pregnancy, or the live birth rate? Is it a cumulative rate - meaning the chance of pregnancy after one fresh IVF cycle, PLUS all the frozen embryo transfers that are done with embryos created in that first cycle? Do the IVF success rates include the use of donated eggs?

The other factor that you need to be aware of to put your chance of success with treatment into perspective, is the chance that you will get pregnant WITHOUT treatment. For normal fertile couples this is a surprisingly low ~20% per period cycle - 80% don't have success from one cycle. Depending on your age, the reason for your infertility, and the time you have already been trying, it could be much lower than this for you, although it is hard to ever say that the chance is zero.