IVF can fail due to embryos that have chromosomal abnormalities. This means that the embryo has a missing, extra, or irregular portion of chromosomal DNA. The body then rejects the embryo and this results in IVF failure.
“The most common reason that IVF fails across all ages is poor embryo quality due to poor egg quality.
The IVF clinic you choose, lab factors, the method of performing the procedure, experience and skills or the doctor, the competence of the embryologist are all factors that can affect your IVF results but over 50 percent of IVF cases will fail even if these conditions are perfect.
If the embryo does not implant, it stops growing, because it is not able to establish a blood supply from the uterine lining. The cells dies, and are silently reabsorbed. Cells die in the body all the time, and the body reabsorbs these quietly and efficiently.
Most fertility specialists believe that in more than 95% of IVF failures it is due to arrest of the embryos. Embryonic arrest is quite often due to chromosomal or other genetic abnormalities in those embryos that made them too “weak” to continue normal development and sustained implantation.
When such eggs are fertilized, it leads to the generation of embryos which are genetically incompetent. Either such embryos do not implant and even if they do, the pregnancy ends in early miscarriage. In rare instances, they can also lead to a full-term birth where the newborn has genetic defects.
“For most couples – and certainly those where the woman is younger than 40 and those of any age using donor eggs – two-thirds will achieve a live birth after five or six treatment cycles. This will take, on average, two years and is similar to rates that couples conceiving naturally take in one year.”
A doctor performs an embryo transfer in a fertility clinic. Although many women abandon IVF treatment after three or four unsuccessful attempts, a study shows the odds of success continue to rise through as many as nine cycles. Too many women give up on in vitro fertilization too soon, a new study suggests.
Studies show that women in their 20s and 30s have the most success when getting pregnant through IVF and other reproductive technologies. According to the CDC, the average percentages of assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles that lead to a live birth are: 31% in women younger than 35 years of age.
The national average for women younger than 35 able to become pregnant by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) on the first try (meaning, the first egg retrieval) is 55%. However, that number drops steadily as the woman ages.
There's no evidence that a failed round of IVF will help you conceive, but it might happen anyway. “This is a myth,” Eve Feinberg, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist at Northwestern Medicine, tells SELF. But Kramer isn't alone with her story—some women do end up conceiving naturally over time after IVF.
IVF can be mentally, physically and emotionally painful. In many cases, one of the biggest complaints is bloating and pain some women face during the ovarian stimulation process, where hormones are injected to produce multiple eggs for retrieval.
Embryo Transfer – Some believe the embryo transfer process is the most critical step in the entire process of IVF treatments. The health of embryos and successful implant in the uterus depend on a flawless transfer. Any snag with timing or biological factors can be detrimental to the process.
The most potentially painful part of undergoing IVF is the procedure to implant the fertilized eggs back into the uterus. Done a few days after egg retrieval, this feels like a smear test; not pleasant by any means, but nothing to be scared of.
Conceiving by in vitro fertilization (IVF) alone does not automatically put your pregnancy at high-risk. However, the reason(s) for you to seek out IVF in order to conceive may categorize your pregnancy as high risk.
As you can see in the graph below, 48 per cent of women who were aged 30-31 when they started treatment had a baby after one stimulated cycle. This increased to 61 per cent after two cycles and 67 per cent after three cycles. This measurement is known as the 'cumulative live birth rate'.
Your doctor will advise you after each failure and recommend testing before you move forward. At that point you do have options, depending on the results of those tests. Doctors advise preimplantation genetic testing for those who have multiple IVF failures.
In women age less than 35 (n=590), the clinical pregnancy rate was optimal (≥44%) when there were at least 10 eggs at retrieval. For women with 1–4 eggs at retrieval it was 30.8% and for 5–9 eggs it was 36.2%.
One study from the UK which looked at 184,269 complete cycles, found that on average there was a 29% chance for a live birth after one cycle, while the chance for a live birth went up to 43% after six complete cycles.
The standard spacing between IVF cycles is around four to six weeks after a negative pregnancy test. Basically, it is ideal to wait until the patient has gone through at least one full menstrual cycle before starting another round of IVF.
Hope in the Form of Data
People often think that conceiving naturally is no longer an option for them once they seek fertility treatment. But according to the latest research, that's simply not the case. Nearly 1 in 5 women are finding themselves naturally pregnant within 5 years following a failed IVF cycle.
Mental stress can lead to an increased endogenous level of epinephrine. Excessive epinephrine level may interfere with the decidual differentiation of human endometrial stromal cells and thus affect embryo implantation.
Generally, your period should start within two weeks of the failed cycle. If your period is delayed for more than two weeks, it is recommended to consult with your IVF specialist to rule out any potential complications.
For a second or subsequent embryo transfer, the percentage of live births increases to 44.7%.