Saturday, February 20, 2010

Study shows frozen embryos better than fresh

Reuters reports on a study that shows that frozen embryos may be better than fresh for IVF. It was a Finnish study reported in the Journal of Human Reproduction. Here are the numbers.

They studied 2,300 children conceived with frozen embryos, more than 4,100 born after fresh embryos were used, and 32,000 pregnancies that did not require IVF or other fertility treatments. Overall, 258, or about one in 11, of the babies from the fresh embryo transfer group were born prematurely, compared to 120, or about one in 16, in the frozen embryo transfer group. Similar ratios applied to low birth rate.

The article gives a cost data point: The average cost of a fresh in vitro fertilization cycle in the U.S. is $12,400. Freezing embryos can reduce the cost of subsequent cycles to about a third of that.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Multicycle IVF insurance plan

Older women have an increased likelihood of requiring multiple IVF cycles before achieving a pregnancy. That means the odds are pretty high that costs are going to be prohibitive. Now there's an insurance plan for those women.

The Reproductive Science Center of the Bay Area (RSC) announced they have launched a new program from IntegraMed geared toward easing the risk of infertility treatment for qualified women up to 49 years old. You purchase a plan that costs about the same as two complete cycles of IVF but the plan covers the costs of up to four cycles.

For this to work and RSC to be able to make a business of it they must have a very good idea that most women will require only one or two cycles so that premiums can cover the three and four cycle patients while still leaving some profit for RSC.

More details of plans from RSC are available at http://www.rscbayarea.com/financing-program-for-infertility-patients.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A gel to increase sperm motility?

Perhaps this product has been around for a while and lots of couples are using it to try and conceive the natural way. But it's the first I have heard of it. It is called Conceive Plus gel and the claim is that it helps improve sperm motility.

At first that might seem like quite a claim but all they are really saying is that it is designed to mimic natural body fluids and give the best potential to the sperm. I'm not sure if that really qualifies for improvement of motility but it certainly is an improvement over other harsher artificial lubricants.