Why Consider Natural Cycle IVF?
Natural Cycle IVF is an IVF option for almost all patients experiencing infertility. Also called drug-free IVF, it requires no fertility medication at all and thus avoids the drugs that would otherwise stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple follicles.
During the treatment, we follow the development of a naturally selected follicle and perform egg retrieval prior to its ovulation. It is commonly agreed that a naturally selected egg is of the best quality, and thus has the most potential to become a healthy baby.
Women who choose Natural Cycle IVF favor its holistic approach that mirrors that of natural conception. It is ideal for women who live a drug-free lifestyle, but still suitable for women who are less likely to produce multiple eggs even if high doses of fertility medication are used.
Natural Cycle IVF is an IVF Option for Almost all Patients of Infertility
Three groups of patients would especially benefit from it:
- Young patients with only a history of tubal disease or male factor infertility.
- Women over 40 with elevated FSH or decreased ovarian reserve, or those whom have not had success with conventional IVF.
- Patients with a history of hormone-sensitive cancer, or a strong family history of cancer.
Natural Cycle IVF Advantages:
- It reduces the chances of side effects and/or complications resulting from fertility drugs, such as Ovarian Hyper-stimulation Syndrome (OHSS).
- It results in a much shorter and safer procedure. Because only one or two eggs are collected, the procedure time is very short. In addition, only local anesthesia is used for egg retrieval. No I.V. sedation or general anesthesia is needed. Therefore, the risks and extra costs of general anesthesia are eliminated. Patients are able to walk in, walk out, and drive home after the procedure.
- Multiple gestations are prevented because only one egg is retrieved and transferred. The risk of multiple pregnancies is less than 1%.
- Natural Cycle IVF is less expensive than conventional IVF. In addition, because it is a drug-free procedure, patients save $2000 -$3000 each Cycle that they would have spent on medication with conventional IVF. More importantly, Natural Cycle IVF completely eliminates the stress and discomfort of daily injections.
- It requires much less frequent monitoring. Most patients only need two to three office visits during Natural Cycle IVF, compared to six to seven with conventional IVF.
- Natural Cycle IVF works regardless of a patient’s age, FSH or AMH level, or antral follicle counts. With conventional IVF, patients are often recommended to a donor egg program if they only have a few follicles or a high FSH level. The Cycle is frequently cancelled if less than 3 follicles are developed. At Michigan Reproductive Medicine, our goal is to retrieve one good egg, make one good embryo, and produce one healthy baby!
There Are Two Limitations For This Procedure:
- Because you only have one dominant follicle developed in Natural Cycle IVF, we may not be able to get an egg or the egg may not develop into a healthy embryo.
- Because we only have one egg, we don’t have extra embryos to choose from or put away extra embryos for storage. However, if a patient wishes to have multiple embryos stored, we can freeze the embryos from the first few Cycles before we start embryo transfer.
Please make an appointment with one of MRM’s fertility expert physicians to discuss your specific needs and hopes for family building and find out if Natural Cycle IVF is right for you.
