Does In Vitro Fertilization hurt?

Improving the success of In Vitro Fertilization

• My wife and I want to have a baby by In Vitro Fertilization. I understand that this procedure does not have a very high success rate so I am looking for practical, low cost ways to increase the odds of a successful pregnancy. I want to know if there is any medically established correlation between success rates of this procedure and diet, lifestyle, medical drugs, etc, or whether there are any low cost tests for establishing the likelihood of success before undertaking the procedure.

• Answer:

  Hello Davo: I hope that I can help in your search for additional methods or lifestyle changes that can increase your chances of success with In Vitro Fertilization” Lifestyle of both partners can affect your chances of conceiving. The quest for getting pregnant is very difficult for some. Making it even more difficult are comments from friends and family like “when are you going to have children”, or when they know you are having trouble, they often say “ just relax, and it will happen”. It is hard to relax when you are undergoing treatments, having “mechanical sex” timed to ovulation cycles, temperature etc. However there are many ways to increase your chances, I have listed a few below. I used the search term below on Google In Vitro Fertilization diet OR lifestyle "success rate" “There are a surprising number of lifestyle factors that couples can change which may improve their reproductive health and ability to have children. Simply reducing or abstaining from caffeine and alcohol and not smoking can have a beneficial impact on a couple's ability to conceive.” http://www.arcfertility.com/infertility/infertility_prevention.html http://www.infertilitybooks.com/titles/infertility_solutions_natural_approaches.html Certain lifestyle factors do affect your chances. “Caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco may play as big a role in male infertility as anything else, say fertility experts, who are urging their peers to pay more attention to a man's lifestyle when evaluating infertility, reports Reuters.” http://www.babycenter.com/topic/3103.html;prod-bc-sessionid=YTSNCRZUWRTYSCUAQJQSLMQ The environment can be causal to infertility: “Your water--and even your utility poles--may affect your reproductive health. Researchers and environmentalists are urging that dangerous chemicals like atrazine, alachlor, simazine, cyanzine, metolachlor (all herbacides that have been found in tap water in the Midwest at some time), and pentachlorophenol (a wood preservative used nationwide in utility poles) be phased out of use, reports MSNBC. Why? All have been linked to some sort of reproductive problem in the past--from fertility problems to birth defects to menstrual disorders. ” From: http://www.babycenter.com/topic/2726.html Hormonal Therapy With Human Menopausal Gonadotropins has been shown to help. See the following link: http://www.holistic-online.com/Remedies/infertility/inf_treatment2.htm The two links that follow talk about a controversial study that was reported in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. The study tries to confirm if prayer will have any effect. http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1728.92943 http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/news/20020311224422_health_news.shtml Sexually transmitted diseases and their prevention are discussed here: http://infertility.about.com/library/ifctr/blstd.htm While not dealing solely with success rates, this article from the CDC is extremely informative on IVF: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/drh/ART99/index99.htm Use the search term I described above, typing it in exactly as you see it into Google’s search term area, there are many more websites. I hope these links will help you, I wish you both the best of luck. Sincerely, Colin