Being Pregnant
Test Predicts Chances of Getting Pregnant With IVF
With all this talk of fertility, infertility, fear of infertility, anger about fear of infertility…it’s nice to have something positive to say on the subject. A new test under development at Stanford University can apparently predict a woman’s chances of successful pregnancy with IVF, and do it pretty accurately, too. In the current model, women are counseled about likelihood of IVF outcome according to age-based success rates. But these are not such an accurate predictor on an individual basis. The new test is far more accurate: 1000 times as accurate, in fact.
Once the test is available clinically, it could make a huge difference for women with fertility issues. If women were able to tell before going through the procedure whether or not it was likely to be successful, this knowledge could inform their choices, and they could decide whether or not to go through with the procedure or pursue another option (ie, donor eggs, surrogacy, adoption, deciding to lean into the pleasures of life without kids).
Of course, there’s always the question of whether the margin of error is acceptable, and people who are given low odds might decide to do the procedure anyway. But for those who’d rather spare themselves the rollercoaster ride if the chances are slim to none, this could mean a huge savings of time, money and emotional exhaustion.
The test works by analyzing information from previous IVF attempts, identifying 52 different factors important to pregnancy success, and synthesizing this data using a computer model. The process is called phenotyping. This more specific info is not only more accurate than the age-based models, but is often very different:“The researchers determined that the model’s predictions were significantly different than the age-based predictions in 60 percent of patients. Interestingly, out of this group, more than half were assigned greater odds of having a baby than what age-related data indicated.” So 30% of women undergoing IVF actually have more chance of getting pregnant than they think they do.
The test is just being broadly announced, but doctors hope it will be available in fertility clinics at some point in the near future.
Photo: Cesar Astudillo/Flickr
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3 Comments
nutterbutter commented on Aug 08 10 at 7:43 pmIt’s about time. Being all lumped together based on age never made sense to me. My infertility issues were not the same as those of the next woman who happened to be the same age. I even had suggestions from my medical advisors that I would require donor eggs. My personal and family history seemed to count for nought. And we were given such a slim chance that we felt pressured to be aggressive. First attempt- triplets with my own eggs. And whilst I am here, who creates the models for estimating birthwieght based on measurements of the fetus in utero? Do they ever collect actual results to compare with their estimates to see just what kind of margin of error they are working with? Pre natal care decisions are made around these estimates. My babies were measured weekly in a high risk maternal care facility and still their estimates were wrong by two pounds for each of my twins.
Law Prof commented on Sep 30 10 at 6:34 pmDitto! After three miscarriages the natural way, in my late 30s I was strongly encouraged by my doctors to use donor eggs. But I wanted at least one shot with my own eggs. Apparently, all it took was some IVF “weeding out” to find a group of strong eggs, because in that first round 5 embryos grew well, 3 were implanted, and… all 3 took. I wish that the doctors could have given us better information, because we would never have implanted 3 if we had known the likely result. I am a very petite woman (size 2-4), so our doctors recommended selective reduction to 2. “Luckily” (for my conscience), one embryo had very serious likely health problems, so the decision was easier. (And I was able to carry my twins until 37 weeks.) But if all 3 embryos were perfectly healthy, we would have had a much more difficult choice to make.
OldIVFer commented on Nov 30 10 at 3:55 pmI so agree! I did my one and only IVF at age 41 after having conceiving a child naturally at 36. My doc wasn’t one that gave the age talk of doom as so my many REs do, she focused on what my tests had shown: my numbers were great, for any woman, not just an old one. For that reason, we felt we could be cautious with our transfer and I had one baby which, given my size, was perfect.
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