If the cost of in-vitro fertilization is holding you back from trying every possible treatment in order to have a baby, you should check out minimal stimulation IVF.
There are a few reasons that the IVF rates are much lower with this type of procedure, and recent studies on the effectiveness of this procedure show that it is very promising for couples struggling with infertility.
How it Works Basically, MS IVF uses less drugs and hormone treatments than traditional IVF.
During traditional IVF, women are usually given frequent, large doses of injected hormone medications that help their bodies to release more eggs more quickly; in the view of those who primarily use traditional IVF, the more eggs a woman produces, the better.
Because traditional IVF uses very expensive drugs and takes lots of monitoring from the fertility clinic - which results in costly lab tests and doctor's office visits - the cost of a single cycle of traditional IVF can be upwards of $10,000-$15,000.
MS IVF, on the other hand, uses very few drugs at all.
Unlike natural cycle IVF, which uses no drugs, MS IVF does involve some drugs, but they are usually taken orally and in much lower doses than the drugs used to induce a woman's body to produce eight or ten eggs during traditional IVF.
Mainly, MS IVF procedures begin with women taking clomiphene citrate, a common fertility drug, for a month before the eggs are harvested; women who take this drug will usually have one or two eggs that can be fertilized at a time.
Another type of MS IVF uses injected drugs, mainly GnRH-A stimulators similar to those used during the traditional procedure, but it only uses a single injection of the drug right before natural ovulation.
How Well it Works Other than the lack of drug-induced follicle stimulation, MS IVF works just like traditional IVF.
The eggs are harvested, fertilized in-vitro, and then injected into a woman's body where they will hopefully develop into healthy, full-term pregnancies.
However, because women undergoing MS IVF normally produce fewer eggs, the success rates of the procedure are lower for women over the age of 35.
A study published in OB/GYN News showed a success rate of about 33% with the low-dose GnRH-A approach.
However, MS IVF may be a good way to balance out cost and effectiveness, especially for younger women, since women under the age of thirty-five had much better success rates in the OB/GYN News study.
MS IVF makes in-vitro fertilization much more accessible for most people, and even for three cycles, its average cost is much lower.
How Much it Costs The average cost of a cycle of traditional IVF is $12,400, while a round of MS IVF costs between $3,200 and $4,700, depending on which types of drugs are used.
The average cost for a live birth through traditional IVF is about $35,000, but the live birth costs for MS IVF are much lower, coming in at about $15,000 for the procedure with GnRH-A and about $22,000 for the procedure with clomiphene.
As you can see, you could save quite a bit of money if you used MS IVF instead of traditional IVF.
The catch is that the success rates are slightly lower, especially for those whose fertility window is beginning to close due to age.
It may be a good idea to see how much difficulty you're expected to have getting pregnant in the first place - taking into account your age, health, specific reproductive problems, etc.
- before you decide whether to use MS IVF instead of traditional IVF, but if you're generally healthy and under the age of thirty-five, it could be a very effective option.