Category Archives: Fertility News

Two recent articles caught my attention. They highlight the increasing trend of English speaking patients going to the Czech Republic for medical tourism (including fertility tourism).  They cite that availability, low cost and high quality care are the primary factors driving patients there. First, in February, the … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, Donor Egg IVF, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad, travel | Comments Off on Czech Republic in Fertility Tourism News

A new study out of the UK is once again touting the advantages of the endometrial scratching prior to IVF.   This is not a new concept, I wrote about it here and here and the scientists in Nottingham are reporting that … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, Donor Egg IVF, egg donation, embryo donation, Endometrial scratching, Fertility News, IVF Success Rates, IVF Treatment Abroad, Treatment protocols | Comments Off on Endometrial Scratch to Improve Pregnancy Rates

There have been a few interesting stories in the news of late related to fertility treatments.  Here’s my wrap up.    For more frequently updated information – follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IVFTraveler NGS – Next Generation Sequencing A baby has been born using a … Continue reading

Posted in CCS - comprehensive chromosome screening, egg donation, egg donor, Fertility News, surrogacy | Comments Off on Fertility in the news

Just in case you didn’t get enough technical details in my last post about PGD, PGS, CCS, and preimplantation genetic testing, I wanted to highlight this very technical and in depth article from the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics.   It talks … Continue reading

Posted in CCS - comprehensive chromosome screening, Czech, Fertility News, IVF Success Rates, IVF Treatment Abroad | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on More about Comprehensive Chromosome Screening (CCS)

The Embryoscope Time Lapse Video monitoring that I talked about here made the US NBC Evening News!   Here’s a link to the NBC News report which provides very interesting video showing how Embryoscope works and what doctors see as its primary benefits: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/50997885/#50997885 Although the medical reporter … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, Fertility News, IVF Success Rates, IVF Treatment Abroad, travel, Treatment protocols | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on NBC News Report on Embryoscope Time Lapse Video Monitoring

The lastest publishing of the US SART IVF clinic success rates for 2011 has led to some interesting discussions about how to best use the SART or CDC data.  It also identified a few scenarios where the data simply isn’t … Continue reading

Posted in CCS - comprehensive chromosome screening, choose a clinic, Donor Egg IVF, donor embryos, egg donor, egg freezing, embryo donation, Fertility News, frozen donor eggs, IVF Success Rates | Tagged | Comments Off on When NOT To Use IVF Success Rates To Pick A Clinic

As a follow up to my post earlier this week about the 2011 donor egg cycle statistics, I wanted to also report on some interesting notes in the non-donor (or own egg) IVF Statistics. It is a bit more cumbersome … Continue reading

Posted in Fertility News, IVF Success Rates | Tagged | Comments Off on SART 2011 IVF Success Rates

Now that the ASRM has lifted the “Experimental” label on egg freezing (also known as oocyte preservation, fertility preservation, or egg banking), more attention is being focused on options available for egg freezing, and educating the public about treatment options and identifying when … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, egg freezing, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad, travel | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fertility Preservation aka Egg Freezing

I am honored and excited to have been selected to join the Advisory Board of the nonprofit Parents Via Egg Donation as their IVF Abroad Advisor.  It is truly a distinguished group of colleagues on this board and I am … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, egg donation, egg donor, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad | Comments Off on PVED Announces New Advisory Board Members

I am often asked about the differences of using frozen donor eggs (unfertilized donor eggs from an egg bank) vs. doing a fresh donor egg cycle.   Here are a few things to consider: The benefits to frozen donor eggs (not … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, donor embryos, Fertility News, frozen donor eggs, IVF Treatment Abroad | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Frozen Donor Eggs

Recently, some new rules went into effect, making it much harder for Czech IVF reproductive clinics to accept shipments of frozen sperm (from a partner or a donor) if the sperm originates in a non-European Union country. The result of these new … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off on New rules for shipping frozen sperm to Czech

A study that appeared in the May 2012 New England Journal of Medicine explored the risk of birth defects when using reproductive technology. That story had the media and infertility circles buzzing, and lots of my clients asking questions.  Is IVF safe? Is … Continue reading

Posted in Czech, Fertility News, Male Factor, Treatment protocols, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ICSI – Is It Really Safe?

Couples from Ireland considering cross-border surrogacy have long been left in legal limbo when trying to secure citizenship for children born to surrogates outside of Ireland. This has caused many children to be left in legal limbo, creating heartache and … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, donor embryos, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad, surrogacy | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on New guidance for Irish couples going abroad for surrogacy

Recently, I have been in communication with a clinic in the Czech Republic that is using Embryo Monitoring in their IVF practice both for non-donor egg IVF and for donor egg IVF treatments.  They have reported that they are seeing about … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, Endometrial scratching, Fertility News, IVF Success Rates, IVF Treatment Abroad | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Embryo monitoring improves IVF success rates

The American Journal of Perinatology Feb 2012 issue includes a study by Columbia University Medical Center indicating that older women who are pregnant with donor eggs are not at a higher risk of obstetrical complications than their younger counterparts who were … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, Fertility News, Pregnancy over 50 | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Are women over 50 at higher risk during pregnancy?

The SART 2010 US IVF clinic statistics have been released.    As I talked about in this post, just statistics alone are not the only thing to consider, but it does give us just one more piece of data to throw … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, Fertility News, IVF Success Rates, IVF Treatment Abroad | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Today, Pfizer issued a recall for certain lots of birth control pills.  It affects Lo/Ovral and generic Norgestrel 0.3 mg/Ethinyl Estradiol 0.03 mg tablets.   The full list of affected medications and lots can be found here: http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm289770.htm You may wonder … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, Fertility News, Treatment protocols | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Could the Pfizer bcp recall affect your IVF treatment?

It is official, we’ve moved the blog to new digs.   Please add our new feed to your reader, or whatever you are using to follow blogs.  There is also a link in the right column to make it easy to … Continue reading

Posted in blog, Fertility News, IVF Treatment Abroad | Comments Off on Welcome to the new home of the IVF Traveler blog

A new non-invasive test for detecting Down syndrome was announced recently and reported in this NY Times article.  This new test by Sequenom tests for Down syndrome by testing a sample of the mother’s blood rather than the more invasive tests of amniocentesis … Continue reading

Posted in Fertility News, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Controversial New Down Syndrome Test

Fertility Success Rates recently published their list of the top US clinics for Live Birth rates with Fresh Donor Eggs.  They are reporting that this data is based on the 2009 Society For Assisted Reproductive Technology (aka SART) IVF Success Rates data (note: … Continue reading

Posted in Donor Egg IVF, Fertility News | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Biological clocks – they aren’t just for women anymore.  A recent article referencing a male factor infertility study showed that there is a decline in male fertility after age 41, and it points to an even sharper decline after age 45.  … Continue reading

Posted in Fertility News, Treatment protocols | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Male Biological Clocks