By Susan W. Trout, MD

Most couples contemplating fertility treatment worry about having more than one baby at a time. Although many secretly hope for twins, they certainly do not want to have quadruplets or quintuplets! The publicity surrounding Octomom has made many think that there is no way to control the risk of having 8 babies at a time, but there is.

When scientists look at why couples don’t pursue fertility treatments, the fear of getting pregnant with multiples is one of the leading reasons that couples avoid treatments. On the other hand, I also get asked on a daily basis whether it is possible to guarantee a patient a pregnancy with twins rather than just one baby. I often hear, “If we could have twins now, then we would be done!”

So how likely is a multiple birth with fertility treatments? Well, it depends on the treatment and, to some extent, the doctor prescribing the treatment. Clomid or clomiphene citrate is a mild fertility treatment that is often the first treatment recommended for couples struggling with infertility. It has about an 8 to 10 percent chance of leading to a twin pregnancy and a less than 1 percent chance of higher-order multiples (more…)

By Dr. Evan Rosenbluth

The day has finally come. After months of anticipation, countless injections, and a roller-coaster ride of emotions with in vitro fertilization, it is time for your embryo transfer. Are you wondering about the embryo report card and what all those letters and numbers mean? How does a lab decide which embryos to put back into your uterus?

The old saying is true: beauty is more than skin (or cell) deep. However, short of performing biopsies upon the embryos for genetic analysis, visual embryo grading is the quickest and most cost effective way of predicting which embryos will implant after embryo transfer.

The majority of in vitro fertilization (IVF) labs will use some sort of visualization of the embryos under a high power microscope in order to actually assign each one a “grade”. These grading systems will vary from clinic to clinic but they all are, in general, based upon (more…)

By Marcia Clark

The nation’s largest fertility network expands its footprint. IntegraMed Fertility^®  has announced that Reproductive Science Center of New Jersey (RSC-NJ) has joined their Attain Fertility® Network.  As an affiliate member of the network, RSC-NJ now offers the Attain® IVF Programs, to RSC-NJ’s patients which can increase their patients’ chance of having a baby while saving them up to 40% off the cost of their IVF treatment plan.

RSC-NJ has three fertility treatment centers located in Eatontown, Toms River, and Lawrenceville that combine a commitment to sensitive care with a state-of-the-art program to treat male infertility and female infertility. As a leading provider of advanced reproductive technologies, RSC-NJ established the first successful egg donor program in central New Jersey.  They provide comprehensive care and all of the latest infertility treatments, ranging from in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination to drug therapies and tubal ligation reversal. The onsite embryology lab provides a wide range of services, including semen analysis, sperm and embryo cryopreservation, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

RSC-NJ’s specialists, Dr. William Ziegler and Dr. Jessica Salas Mann, were recently recognized as 2013’s “Top Docs” for (more…)

With Dr. Susan Willman

Many women experience fibroids, benign growths of the uterine muscle. Fibroids can affect fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. At times, they can even cause pain and bleeding. Today, we explore what to expect with fibroid removal in our Attain Fertility video series.  

Fibroids Explained

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By Dr. Evan Rosenbluth

The New SART numbers are here! The New SART numbers are here! 

Each year the Society of Assisted Reproduction Technologies (SART) publishes the success rates of over 375 infertility clinics in the United States. Just a few months ago the 2011 data were released on SART’s website. Why 2011 when it’s now 2013, you ask? The most recent numbers are always 2 years behind due to the time it takes to gather the information as well as the 9 months it takes to grow a baby!

The reports are exciting to look at for both the doctors and patients alike. For doctors, it is a time when we can see how we are doing compared to the rest of the country. Patients can also use the information to compare clinics’ success rates and get an idea of their chances of pregnancy based upon their age. The report is publicly available and free for everyone to see.

There is a lot of information jam packed onto one page. Although it may seem confusing at first, really its just a few simple parameters looked at in different ways. I’ll walk you through step by step.

The first two sections give you the option to (more…)