Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Dancing On Ice star calls IVF soul destroying

Dancing on Ice star Emily Symons says that after two failed rounds of IVF attempts over a period of six months "I felt it soul-destroying...". She and Lorenzo Smith soon split after they learned the second round had failed.

To state the obvious, it wasn't the IVF, it was her (their) own mind that ruined the relationship. If you go into it with the expectation that the chance of failure is greater than the chance of success - which it obviously is since in the very best cases the success rate approaches 30% - then you just take it as a happy surprise if you do end up pregnant and deliver a healthy baby. Sure, undergoing the procedure can be bit difficult, more so for some than others. But seriously, it's all about your own mind, not the IVF procedure.

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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Study shows bright light can improve fertility

Bright light is often used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder, which goes by the contrived acronym of SAD. But a recent study suggests it also might improve fertility.

The study was performed at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and its purpose was to determine if bright light treatment could shorten menstrual cycles. It did not. But it did seem to have an affect on the fertility of the women in the study.

However, there were only 22 women total in the study and 4 got pregnant. Numbers that small would seem to not be statistically significant.

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

SART IVF success rate reports

The website of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology www.sart.org has a very interesting and useful feature, IVF success rate reports for fertility centers across the U.S. Clicking on the link for IVF Success Rate Reports takes you to a page with a clickable map of the U.S. You can also search by zip code on that page. The results of your search is a list of fertility clinics in the region you selected. Clicking on a clinic name brings up a page with that clinic's contact information and a link to the ART Data Report. Click on the ART Data Report link and you get a page that looks like this:

ART report

It is packed full of statistics on the numbers and types of procedures performed at the particular clinic as well as success rates. Very interesting and useful.

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