Why multiple treatment cycles may be needed?
All about chance
A successful pregnancy relies on a complex combination of factors. Everything needs to be in the right place, at the right time! Even a couple without fertility issues where woman is 30 years old has only a 20% chance of achieving pregnancy in any given month. However, fertility declines with age. By the age of 40, the probability of conception in a given month falls to about 5%. Lifestyle factors or medical problems can reduce the odds still further.1
Fertility treatments attempt to remove barriers to conception. In doing so, they restore fertility chances to what they ought to be – and sometimes beyond! In fact, data from the European IVF Monitoring Program (EIM) show clinical pregnancy rates per embryo transfer for In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) to be about 30%.2 These averages are drawn from a mixture of clinics across a variety of countries. Discuss your individual chances with your doctor.
Why multiple cycles are often necessary
Even if fertility treatment successfully removes barriers to conception, the probability of conception in a given cycle is far from guaranteed. A large study followed nearly 2,000 couples trying to conceive. 57% of couples conceived within 3 months, but it took a year before 81% succeeded.3 In other words, often multiple attempts are necessary to give yourself a good chance.
