Should I Do a Carrier Screen to Test for Preventable Diseases in My Baby?
Why do a carrier screen? If a person has a mutation for disease that matches a mutation in a partner, there is a risk that they would have a child with a severe disease. Using sophisticated technology, many of the these mutated genes can be detected with carrier screening, a genetic test used to determine […]
Oh no! Elevated FSH Levels? Can I Ever Have a Baby?
FSH levels can predict your prognosis for pregnancy. “My FSH is 18. Is it the end? Am I about to go into menopause?” “My doctor says I have advanced ovarian aging for my actual age.” “Will my elevated FSH cause hot flashes next week?” “Can I ever have a baby?” These questions may arise in […]
LGBT Family Building: What if We Both Want the Joy of Making our Baby?
LGBT family building has new options. LGBT family building has come a long way. Lesbian couples who would like to share the advantages of having both partners participate in the creation of a child can do IVF. One partner provides the eggs, the other provides the womb. One is the genetic mother, the other the gestational […]
How Smoking Harms Fertility
We all know that smoking is bad for our health. But now you can blame Dad. Women who smoke do not conceive as efficiently as nonsmokers. Infertility rates in both male and female smokers are about twice the rate of infertility found in nonsmokers. Misao Fukuda, M.D. and others at the M&K Health Institute in […]
How Do You Offer Cheap IVF?
Is there such a thing as cheap IVF? IVF as generally practiced in the U.S. is quite costly. Unfortunately, those costs are difficult for many couples who have no insurance coverage for IVF treatment. IVF insurance coverage is only mandated in a few states. Unjustly, insurance plans frequently treat fertility as a luxury elective problem. […]
Answering 4 Questions about Surrogacy
What is surrogacy? Surrogacy is the arrangement by which a woman conceives, carries and delivers a child for another couple or individual. This woman is known as a surrogate mother or a gestational carrier. The gestational carrier enters into a legal arrangement that declares she is not the mother of the child she is bearing, […]
DHEA: 1 Way to Help your Ovaries Be the Best They Can Be
Many of our patients have asked us about DHEA. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a naturally-occurring hormone that is produced by the adrenal gland. It can be considered simplistically to be a vitamin for the ovaries. Its primary function is to produce estrogen and testosterone. Recently, these supplements have been used in the treatment of premature ovarian […]
IVF Stress: Monitoring in Your Hometown Helps IVF Patients Reduce Stress
IVF Stress – we want to help! We love our patients! We understand how stressful a diagnosis of infertility is and we do everything we can make the process as low-stress as possible. One way we do this is by letting patients who live out of town have their monitoring done by a doctor’s office […]
The Antral Follicle Count: 1 Measure of Ovarian Reserve & Predicting the Outcome of IVF
Antral follicle count is one way to predict ovarian reserve. Chronological age and ovarian reserve are generally parallel. However, this can vary enormously. The number of follicles, each containing one egg, which are available in the ovarian “pool” or reserve relates to the chance of success of in vitro fertilization (IVF). These numbers decline with […]
Does Body Mass Index (BMI) Affect Your Chances of Pregnancy with IVF?
BMI may influence the chances of having a baby through in vitro fertilization (IVF). There is ongoing discussion about whether a woman’s BMI affects the outcomes with IVF. A Medscape.com article reported there is still no clear conclusion about whether high BMI impacts assisted reproductive outcomes, because the studies presented had conflicting results. There seems to be […]
