In vitro fertilization

The decision to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) can have a wide variety of causes. For example, the woman’s fallopian tubes may not be permeable, or the man’s semen may be too slow to work its way up to the fallopian tubes.

In IVF, several eggs are retrieved from the woman after prior hormone treatment (the drugs are very expensive). This is a surgical procedure that must take place under general anesthesia. After collection, the egg is fertilized outside the body and placed in an incubator for a few days. If there were no complications during hormone treatment, such as cyst formation, the fertilized egg can be implanted in the woman during the same cycle. The process here is similarly unspectacular to insemination in the doctor’s office.

The success of IVF is strongly age-dependent. On average, the probability of becoming pregnant is 40%. Transferring two fertilized eggs in the same cycle increases the probability only slightly (45%).